SpaceX is gearing up for another monumental step in its Starship program, with the next test flight of its massive Starship rocket just days away. The company rolled out the upper stage of the rocket—dubbed "Ship"—to the launch pad at its Starbase facility in South Texas early morning (Jan. 9).
SpaceX's Starship megarocket rolling out to the launch pad at Starbase ahead of a planned Jan. 13 test flight
The 165-foot-tall (50-meter-tall) upper stage was moved to the pad during the predawn hours, a moment shared by SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk on the social media platform X. Musk’s post included four photos documenting the milestone.
The test flight, known as Starship Flight 7, is scheduled to lift off on Monday, Jan. 13, at 5:00 p.m. EST (2200 GMT). This will mark the seventh test mission for the giant rocket, which SpaceX is developing to advance space exploration, including the long-term goal of colonizing Mars.
Starship consists of two fully reusable stages: the "Super Heavy" booster and the upper-stage Ship. A key highlight of Flight 7 will be SpaceX's attempt to land and recover the Super Heavy booster using the launch tower’s innovative "chopstick" arms. This maneuver was successfully executed during Starship’s fifth test flight in October. However, a communication issue with the tower prevented a repeat during Flight 6 in November.
The upper-stage Ship will follow a suborbital trajectory and splash down in the Indian Ocean approximately an hour after liftoff, similar to its previous flights. However, this mission includes a new milestone: Ship will deploy 10 mock satellites, representing inactive versions of SpaceX's Starlink broadband satellites, which will also land in the Indian Ocean.
Adding to the excitement, Starship Flight 7 will coincide with the debut of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket, slated for Jan. 12. Shortly after these major launches, SpaceX plans to launch a Falcon 9 carrying two private moon landers on Jan. 15.
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