SpaceX is continuing with final preparations for the 10th full-scale test flight of the company's enormous Starship rocket after receiving launch approval Friday from the Federal Aviation Administration.
Engineers completed a final test of Starship's propulsion system with a so-called "spin prime" test Wednesday at the launch site in South Texas. Ground crews then rolled the ship back to a nearby hangar for engine inspections, touchups to its heat shield, and a handful of other chores to ready it for liftoff.
SpaceX has announced the launch is scheduled for no earlier than next Sunday, August 24, at 6:30 pm local time in Texas (23:30 UTC).
Like all previous Starship launches, the huge 403-foot-tall (123-meter) rocket will take off from SpaceX's test site in Starbase, Texas, just north of the US-Mexico border. The rocket consists of a powerful booster stage named Super Heavy, with 33 methane-fueled Raptor engines. Six Raptors power the upper stage, known simply as Starship.
With this flight, SpaceX officials hope to put several technical problems with the Starship program behind them. SpaceX is riding a streak of four disappointing Starship test flights from January through May, and and the explosion and destruction of another Starship vehicle during a ground test in June.
These setbacks followed a highly successful year for the world's largest rocket in 2024, when SpaceX flew Starship four times and achieved new objectives on each flight. These accomplishments included the first catch of a Super Heavy booster back at the launch pad, proving the company's novel concept for recovering and reusing the rocket's first stage.
Starship's record so far in 2025 is another story. The rocket's inability to make it through an entire suborbital test flight has pushed back future program milestones, such as the challenging tasks of recovering and reusing the rocket's upper stage, and demonstrating the ability to refuel another rocket in orbit. Those would both be firsts in the history of spaceflight.