SpaceX’s next Starship to fly is all dressed up for launch.
To get ready for the next launch of the largest rocket in the world next week, SpaceX successfully mounted its Starship spacecraft on top of a massive Super Heavy booster on Friday, January 10. Liftoff at SpaceX’s Starbase test facility near Boca Chica Beach in South Texas is scheduled for Monday, January 13, at 5 p.m. EST (2200 GMT).
A post on the social networking platform X on Friday explained, “Flight 7 Starship and Super Heavy stacked on the launch pad at Starbase,”
The first of possibly 25 Starship launches this year, SpaceX’s Starship Flight 7 mission will test a new version of Starship. The rocket is the tallest and most potent launch vehicle on Earth, standing over 400 feet (122 meters) tall when the Starship upper-stage spacecraft is mounted atop its Super Heavy booster.
SpaceX’s seventh test flight of Starship, a fully reusable launch system intended for journeys to Earth orbit, the moon Mars, and beyond, will take place on Flight 7, as the name implies. Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, intends to send an uncrewed version of Starship to Mars as early as 2026, while NASA has selected Starship to land its Artemis 3 people on the moon in 2027.
SpaceX will test a number of improvements to the Starship spaceship on the Jan. 13 launch, including updates to the spacecraft’s heat shield, avionics, and flight computer. Additionally, throughout the 66-minute journey, SpaceX is transporting a set of replicated Starlink internet satellites that it intends to launch into space.
The Starship vehicle on Flight 7 also features smaller forward flaps that have been shifted away from its heat shield to lessen exposure to excess heat during reentry. For the first time, SpaceX is also re-flying an engine on the rocket’s 33-engine Super Heavy first stage.
