SpaceX plans to conduct Starship launch test next week, the most powerful rocket ever built, and face its first test flight a week laterthe American aerospace company announced on Thursday.

“Starship is fully installed on the StarbaseSpaceX announced in a Twitter post, referring to its private space base.

“The team is working on a launch test next week, followed by a first integrated test flight of Starship about a week later, if approved by the regulator,” he said.

SpaceX needs permission from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) before it can perform the test launch. The company successfully fired all 33 Raptor engines in Starship’s first stage booster in February.

The US space agency NASA chose the Starship capsule to take its astronauts to the moon as part of its “Artemis III” mission, aiming for completion by at least 2025.

In November 2024, NASA will take astronauts to lunar orbit, transported on its own SLS (Space Launch System) heavy rocket, which has been developed for more than a decade.

Starship is bigger and more powerful than the SLS. It generates 17 million pounds of thrust, more than twice as much as the Saturn V rockets used to send Apollo astronauts to the moon.

SpaceX envisions eventually putting the Starship into orbit and resupplying it with another Starship artifact to continue the journey to Mars or even beyond.