SpaceX plans to conduct the first test flight Monday of Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, designed to send astronauts to the moon and perhaps beyond.

The launch is scheduled for 07:00 local time (12:00 GMT) from the massive Texan base of the billionaire’s private aerospace company. Elon Musk.

If Monday’s attempt is postponed, other launches are scheduled for the same week.

The US space agency NASA has chosen the Starship capsule to carry its astronauts to the moon as part of the Artemis III mission, which is scheduled for late 2025 or later.

Starship consists of a reusable capsule about 50 meters high that carries equipment and cargo, and the Super Heavy rocket booster of the first stage, about 70 meters.

SpaceX completed a successful test launch of all 33 Raptor engines in Starship’s first stage booster in February.

The Super Heavy booster was tethered to the ground during test firing, called static firing, to prevent it from taking off.

The missile has never flown in its full configuration powered by the first stage.

“Success perhaps, suspense guaranteed,” Musk tweeted Friday.

spaceship rocket

NASA will launch astronauts into lunar orbit in November 2024 using its own space rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), which has been in development 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 hopes to launch a spaceship into orbit and resupply it so it can continue its journey to Mars or further. The idea of ​​using a reusable launcher is to reduce the cost of missions.

Each Starship flight could then cost “less than $10 million,” Musk said early last year.