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SpaceX’s Starship megarocket launches during the vehicle’s seventh test flight on Jan. 16, 2025. . | Credit: SpaceX
SpaceX’s Starship megarocket will fly again this week, if all goes according to plan.
The company is planning to launch Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, for the eighth time on Friday (Feb. 28), Elon Musk said via X yesterday (Feb. 23).
The 403.5-foot-tall (123 meters) fully reusable vehicle will lift off from Starbase, SpaceX’s launch and manufacturing facility in South Texas. The company has not yet announced a target launch time, but you’ll almost certainly be able to watch it live whenever it happens; SpaceX has livestreamed all seven of Starship’s flights to date.
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The most recent flight took place on Jan. 16. That mission was a partial success; SpaceX successfully caught Starship’s giant first-stage booster, known as Super Heavy, with the “chopstick” arms of the Starbase launch tower as planned.
Ship, the rocket’s 171-foot-tall (52 m) upper stage, was supposed to deploy a payload for the first time on Flight 7 — 10 mockups of SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites — circle much of the globe and then splash down in the Indian Ocean about an hour after launch. That didn’t happen, however; the upper stage broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean about 8.5 minutes into flight, apparently due to a propellant leak.
Related: SpaceX catches Super Heavy booster on Starship Flight 7 test but loses upper stage (video, photos)
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SpaceX has not yet laid out the mission goals for Flight 8, but they’re likely to be similar to those for Flight 7.
Over then long haul, SpaceX aims to catch Ship with the chopsticks as well; this recovery strategy will make inspection and reflight of the entire vehicle quite efficient, according to the company. Musk has said that SpaceX wants to catch Ship for the first time in early 2025, but it’s hard to imagine that happening on Flight 8, after the stage suffered a problem on Flight 7.