SpaceX is preparing for the second test flight of Starship, the giant rocket being built to carry NASA astronauts to the lunar surface and Elon Musk’s ambitions to Mars. The Federal Aviation Administration gave regulatory approval for the launch on Wednesday.
While the company had planned a launch on Friday, Mr. Musk announced on Thursday on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, which he also owns, that SpaceX was participating postpone the flight to Saturday because part of the rocket had to be replaced.
Here’s what you need to know about getting started.
When does it start and how can I watch it?
The spacecraft will launch from Boca Chica, Texas, a site on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico near the city of Brownsville that SpaceX has nicknamed “Starbase.”
The flight could depart as early as 8 a.m. Eastern Time on Saturday. SpaceX will stream the launch live on X.
There is a 20-minute window in which SpaceX could launch. Test missions often launch later in a launch window while flight managers ensure systems are functioning as intended.
If the flight is successful, Starship will complete a partial orbit of the Earth before crashing into the Pacific Ocean off the island of Kauai.
What is spaceship?
For NASA, Starship is a future lunar lander for astronauts as part of the Artemis missions. But for Mr. Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, the vehicle is central to his vision of ferrying settlers to the Red Planet. This means Starship has to be big.
Stacked on what SpaceX calls a “Super Heavy” launch vehicle, the Starship rocket system will be the largest and most powerful ever in every way.
It is the tallest rocket ever built: 394 feet tall, nearly 90 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty including the pedestal.
It is designed to be completely reusable. The Super Heavy launcher is designed to land similarly to SpaceX’s smaller Falcon 9 rockets, and Starship will be able to return from space belly-up through the atmosphere like a skydiver before rotating into a vertical position for landing .
What went wrong on the first Starship flight?
First there was the huge brown cloud that spread beneath the rocket as its engines fired up. It contained dirt, rocks, and even block-sized chunks of concrete dug out from under the launch base by the force of the rocket’s thrust.
And then as Starship rose into the air, it tipped to the side. Three of the booster’s 33 engines failed to start, and the unbalanced thrust caused the lopsided climb.
Starship passed the launch tower and for much of the next minute the flight appeared to be going well. But there were signs that more was going wrong. Cameras aimed at the spacecraft’s floor appeared to show that six of the engines had failed. The booster was scheduled to separate from the upper stage 2 minutes and 52 seconds into the flight, but this never happened. Instead, Starship began to slowly tumble, and a minute later the explosives meant to destroy a missile that had gone off course finally detonated.
A week later, in a question-and-answer session on Twitter, now called X, Mr. Musk gave tentative answers about what went wrong.
“There’s good news here,” he said. “The structural clearances of the vehicle seem to be better than we expected,” he said, referring to the moments of the flight. “The vehicle actually does somersaults towards the end and still remains intact,” he said.
What did SpaceX change for this Starship flight?
At first glance, the Starship rocket on Friday’s launch pad looks like the same gigantic vehicle that launched in April. It is not.
The biggest change is so-called “hot staging”. Starship’s upper stage engines are fired while the booster is still attached and some of the booster engines are still firing, potentially improving the rocket’s performance.
SpaceX also made changes to the rocket design to prevent fuel leaks and fires and improved the flight abort system, which took far too long to destroy the spacecraft.
To prevent the rocket engines from destroying the concrete beneath and kicking up another cloud of debris and dust, SpaceX added a structure to the launch pad that consists of two panels with holes in the top panel. “Basically a massive, super-strong steel showerhead that faces upwards,” Mr. Musk said.
Hundreds of thousands of gallons of water sprayed upward from this system act as a cushion, absorbing the heat and power of the rocket engines, protecting steel and concrete.