Seven weeks after an explosion sent pieces of the spacex spacecraft launching vehicle falling into the Atlantic, the company is trying again tonight.
The spacecraft of more than 400 feet, driven by 33 Raptor engines, is scheduled for launch not before 6:30 pm et of the spacex launch in its Starbase installation near Brownsville, Texas.
The next -generation spacecraft of Spacex, to the right of the tower, is shown with the super heavy reinforcement after a delay of its eighth test on the company’s Boca Chica launch platform in Brownsville, Texas, March 5, 2025.
Joe Skipper/Reuters
According to the company, this non -large flight test of the company’s largest rocket is designed to boost the capacities of the spacecraft beyond the previous attempts. The mission includes an attempt to implement Starship payload, as well as multiple re -entry experiments that will approach Spacex to return the scenario superior to the launch site for eventual capture.
The next -generation spacecraft of Spacex, to the right of the tower, is shown with the super heavy reinforcement after a delay of its eighth test on the company’s Boca Chica launch platform in Brownsville, Texas, March 5, 2025.
Joe Skipper/Reuters
If you succeed, that would make Starship a completely reusable spacecraft, unlike Spacex’s Falcon 9, which is only partially reusable. Spacex plans to use Starship for long -term missions to the moon and Mars. Eventually it can take up to 100 astronauts, according to the company.
In January, during the seventh Starship test flight, Mission Control announced that he had lost all communication with the spacecraft. The debris of the launch vehicle were seen later falling on the Turkish and Caicos Islands in the Atlantic.
The FAA slowed the flights in Florida and its surroundings for a while later due to concerns about the fall of the debris potentially damaging a plane.
