The business end of the SpaceX Starship prototype.
Elon Musk/SpaceX
A new kind of rocket has been coming together quickly on the Texas Gulf Coast over the past few months. SpaceX calls it Starship Mk1, and it’s just been stacked for the first time ahead of Saturday’s update from CEO and founder Elon Musk, which you can watch below.
The top half of the prototype spacecraft was lifted onto the bottom section Friday for final mating. Musk is set to give a presentation updating the design of Starship and his plans for it on Saturday evening from the company’s development site in Boca Chica, Texas, with the Mk1 as the backdrop.
Starship Mk1 stands taller than a 10-story building at 164 feet (50 meters), according to Musk. It’s been fitted with three big Raptor engines that could send it on its first test flight to an altitude of 12 miles (20 kilometers) as soon as next month. Musk has also said this iteration should be able to make it to orbit in later flights.
We can expect a few more prototypes before we see the final Starship in action. It will be paired with a new Super Heavy rocket booster for missions beyond Earth orbit.
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Musk is expected to detail more of those plans Saturday. In previous presentations, the 21st-century rocket man has told us about his ambitions to build a city on Mars with the help of Starship, introduced the mission to fly a group of artists around the moon and teased transcontinental flights via space.
The below livestream of Musk’s presentation from Boca Chica is set to go live at 5 p.m. PT Saturday.
Originally published Sept. 27.