SpaceX says Starship is ready for its fifth test flight

SpaceX says it has inspected its latest giant Starship rocket ahead of its test flight.

Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, consists of two fully reusable components — a massive first stage called Super Heavy and an upper-stage spacecraft known as Starship, or simply Ship. The stacked Starship has flown four times so far, but SpaceX plans to increase that number soon.

“Starship and Super Heavy Flight 5 are ready to fly, pending regulatory approval,” the company said on its website. Thursday afternoon (August 8). “Additional tests of the booster rocket and flight vehicle 6 are scheduled while awaiting flight clearance.”

This regulatory approval would likely come from the US Federal Aviation istration, which issues licenses for launches from US soil.

Related to: SpaceX Tests Starship Heavy Booster Rocket Ahead of 5th Flight (Video)

As for the second part of this post: SpaceX intends to capture the returning Super Heavy during the Flight 5 mission, using “chopstick” arms at the launch tower at Starbase in South Texas.

SpaceX has never tried this before. During the first four Starship test flights — which took place in April 2023, November 2023, and March and June of this year — the company aimed to land Super Heavy in the Gulf of Mexico.

SpaceX achieved this goal on a June flight that the company hailed as a complete success. The upper stage of the Starship spacecraft also touched down on Earth, survived re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere and splashed down in the Indian Ocean.

This was the first time this had happened for Starship’s two stages: neither Super Heavy nor Starship hit the water intact on any of the first three test flights.

SpaceX has already tested engines on both stages of the SpaceX 5 spacecraft, lighting up Super Heavy’s 33 Raptor engines on July 15 and SpaceX’s six Raptor engines on July 26. These tests, known as static fires, are common pre-launch tests for rockets.

SpaceX has big plans for Starship, viewing the vehicle as a breakthrough that will eventually make colonization of the Moon and Mars economically feasible.