SpaceX to launch Starship today in crucial test of Elon Musk’s Mars plans

SpaceX is set to launch the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built this evening, in what will be a critical test of Nasa’s plans to send humans to the Moon by 2027 – and Elon Musk’s hopes of making it to Mars.

Starship’s eleventh flight test is scheduled to lift off from the company’s Starbase facility in Texas at 6.15pm local time (12.15am BST on Tuesday), following a similar 60-minute flight profile to the previous flight test in August.

“Starship’s tenth flight test took a significant step forward in developing the world’s first fully reusable launch vehicle,” SpaceX said.

“The upcoming flight will build on the successful demonstrations from Starship’s tenth flight test with flight experiments gathering data for the next generation Super Heavy booster, stress-testing Starship’s heatshield, and demonstrating maneuvers that will mimic the upper stage’s final approach for a future return to launch site.”

The Super Heavy booster is expected to splashdown in the Gulf of America, while the main Starship craft will perform a water landing in the Indian Ocean.

SpaceX is developing Starship to deliver crew and cargo to the surface of the Moon as part of Nasa’s Artemis program.

A series of setbacks in earlier Starship tests forced the US space agency to push back its schedule for the lunar landing, which was originally scheduled to take place in 2024.

Challenges with the development of the Starship Human Landing System (HLS) mean the crewed flight is now expected to take place no earlier than mid-2027, though former director of Mission Operations at Nasa Paul Hill said it may be even later than that.

“The HLS schedule is significantly challenged and, in our estimation, could be years late for a 2027 Artemis 3 Moon landing,” he said at a recent meeting of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel.

SpaceX boss Elon Musk eventually hopes to use a fleet of Starship rockets to establish a permanent human colony on Mars, with the first human flights expected to take place as early as 2029, according to the tech billionaire.

The latest Starship launch will be live streamed on SpaceX’s website, as well as on its official X page.