SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on Friday that the fifth flight of its ambitious Starship launch vehicle will be in the next 4 weeks. For the next test, the company is expected to attempt landing Starship’s booster back at Starbase instead of splashing it down in the Gulf of Mexico like last time.
What Happened: “Flight 5 in 4 weeks,” Musk said on X, formerly Twitter, pegging the next Starship launch around for around Aug. 2.
SpaceX last launched Starship in the first half of June. During the test, the two stages of the vehicle – the Starship spacecraft and the Super Heavy booster – separated and the booster subsequently had a soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.
The spacecraft ignited its engines and went into space, made a controlled re-entry to Earth, and had a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean. The entire flight lasted one hour and six minutes from launch. The key object of the flight was to re-enter Earth and the mission achieved it while withstanding damage to the vehicle.
The flights before accomplished less. While the spacecraft failed to reach space in the first flight, it reached space and exploded in the second test flight. During the third flight test, the spacecraft broke apart when re-entering Earth's atmosphere from space.
The goal for the next test flight, however, is to catch the booster back at Starbase using the launch tower's mechanical arms, marking a significant demonstration of Starship’s reusability.
Why It Matters: SpaceX is currently looking to ensure full reusability for its Starship rocket. Reuse of rockets, the company believes, is integral to bringing down the costs of spaceflight as the most cost is taken up in building the launch vehicle.
Starship is touted as the world's most powerful launch vehicle, standing 121 meters tall and weighing approximately 5,000 tonnes. SpaceX is expected to have at least six test flights of the Starship this year, as per CEO Elon Musk‘s latest estimate from March.
NASA is currently relying on the success of Starship to land humans back on the moon as part of its Artemis program. 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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