SpaceX is on the cusp of another test of its Starship vehicle that will be vital for future human space travel, and the public will be able to watch it − alongside President-elect Donald Trump, who is planning to attend the launch with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
As of last week, the giant 400-foot megarocket had been rolled out to the launch pad SpaceX’s Starbase in Boca Chica near Brownsville, Texas as preparations were underway for the planned Tuesday flight .
Starship’s fifth flight test was a seminal moment in iterating towards a fully and rapidly reusable launch system. Next up: the sixth flight test of Starship is targeted to launch as early as Monday, November 18 → https://t.co/oIFc3u9laE pic.twitter.com/5496ApNHkA
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 6, 2024
The Starship is due to play a vital role in NASA’s lunar ambitions amid a heated international space race to get back to the moon. As part of the U.S. space agency’s ambitious Artemis campaign , its first lunar program since the Apollo era of the 1970s, NASA is paying SpaceX $4 million to develop a spacecraft capable of safely transporting astronauts from orbit to the moon’s surface…