SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has revealed that the company is contemplating launching its Starship rocket, aimed at returning humans to the Moon, from Florida.
What Happened: All development and manufacturing of the Starship currently takes place at Starbase in Texas. All three of the Starship’s past test flights launched from the commercial spaceport located in Cameron County near the Gulf of Mexico.
However, Musk took to social media and said the company aims to build two Starship towers at Cape Canaveral in Florida, hinting at plans to launch Starships from the state. While one of the two towers is expected to be at Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A, the location for the second is still under consideration, the CEO said.
“We're aiming to build two towers at the Cape for Starship, one at 39A and another tbd (we don't have final approval yet),” Musk wrote.
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Musk also added that the team at SpaceX has developed a new metal alloy “far better” than stainless steel 301 for the Starship.
Why It Matters: Earlier this week, Musk said that SpaceX would launch its Starship rocket again in about two weeks, pegging the next launch for early June. For the next flight, Starship's goal is to re-enter Earth's atmosphere with all systems functioning despite the extreme heat, he added.
Starship is touted as the world’s most powerful launch vehicle with its 121-meter tall frame weighing approximately 5,000 tonnes.
During Starship's previous flight test on March 14, the spacecraft lost contact and broke down while re-entering the planet’s atmosphere instead of splashing down as planned in the Indian Ocean. The entirety of the last flight lasted about an hour. SpaceX launched the Starship twice last year — the first time in April and then in November.
NASA is currently relying on the success of Starship to land humans back on the moon. The last crewed lunar mission occurred in 1972 with Apollo 17. Since then, no crew has traveled beyond low-Earth orbit.
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