SpaceX boss Elon Musk says Starship will fly ‘next month'
Musk made the announcement in a post on X, saying, 'Starship launches again next month.'
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Further details about a specific date have yet to be shared by Musk or SpaceX, but multiple reports over recent weeks have suggested the next flight of the world's most powerful rocket could take place in the first half of the month.
The 10th test flight would likely have taken place by now if it hadn't been for a massive explosion that occurred last month that saw the upper-stage spacecraft erupt into a fireball shortly after the completion of a ground-based engine test at SpaceX's Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas.
The cause was put down to a failure in a pressurized tank called a COPV (Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel) that contains gaseous nitrogen in the nosecone area of the spacecraft. This failure triggered a catastrophic chain reaction that destroyed the vehicle and damaged the test site.
Last week, Musk also said that shortly before next month's 10th test flight, he will give a technical update about the Starship, 'going over progress to date and engineering/production/launch plans for the future.'
NASA and SpaceX are aiming to use the Starship for crew and cargo flights to the moon in the upcoming Artemis missions. The first of these is likely to involve the use of a modified version of the upper-stage spacecraft to land two astronauts on the lunar surface in the Artemis III mission in what would be NASA's first human landing there since the final Apollo mission in 1972. The Artemis III mission is currently targeted for 2027, though that date could slip.
Musk is also keen to see the Starship used for the first-ever crewed mission to Mars. While he's spoken of such a mission taking place before the end of this decade, it seems unlikely to happen until the 2030s at the very earliest.
The 120-meter-tall Starship first flew in April 2023, and its most recent flight took place in May of this year. While the vehicle is making progress in terms of overall performance, there's still much testing to be done before it becomes operational.
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