SpaceX plans to launch its giant Starship rocket this morning (June 6), and you can watch the action live.
Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, is scheduled to lift off from SpaceX’s Starbase site in South Texas today in a 100-minute window, at 8:20 a.m. EDT (1220 GMT; 7:20 a.m. local Texas time).
Watch the event live Here at Space.comOr through SpaceX’s account at X, starting about 30 minutes before liftoff.
Related: Relive the SpaceX Starship’s 3rd flight test in breathtaking photos
Today’s launch marks the fourth test flight for the 400-foot-tall (122-meter-tall) starship, which includes a first-stage booster called a superheavy and an upper-stage spacecraft called a starship, or simply “ship.”
The first three Starship missions launched from Starbase in April 2023, November 2023 and March this year; The first flight ended four minutes after liftoff when the two stages of the starship failed to separate as planned and SpaceX ordered a controlled explosion.
The starship achieved phase separation on Flight 2, which lasted about eight minutes. Flight 3 saw an even bigger improvement in performance; The spacecraft ended up disintegrating when it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere about 50 minutes after launch.
The ship attempted to come in for an Indian Ocean splashdown on flight 3. That is the goal in Vimana 4 as well. The Super Heavy’s target destination, meanwhile, will be the Gulf of Mexico, not far from the starbase.
SpaceX sees the fully reusable Starship as a revolutionary breakthrough in space travel and exploration. If all goes as planned, the vehicle will allow humanity to extend its footprint to the Moon, Mars and beyond.
NASA is a Starship believer. The company chose the giant rocket for the Artemis project, which aims to establish a lunar base by the end of the 2020s. The first Artemis starship mission will be September 2026’s Artemis 3, which is expected to land NASA astronauts near the Moon’s south pole, according to the program’s current configuration.
