SpaceX is preparing for the upcoming test flight of its Starship megarocket, scheduled to take place in just a few days.
Today (Jan. 9), the company moved Starship’s 165-foot-tall (50-meter-tall) upper stage, known as Starship or “Ship,” to the launch pad at its Starbase site in South Texas.
Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, shared this milestone on X along with four photos of the transport operation that took place before sunrise.
The Starship test flight is set to occur on Monday (Jan. 13) at 5:00 p.m. EST (2200 GMT), marking the seventh test flight for the giant rocket as part of SpaceX’s mission to help humanity reach Mars and accomplish various other exploration goals.
Related: SpaceX’s Starship Flight 7 test flight will deploy simulated Starlink satellites for the first time
Both stages of Starship — Ship and the Super Heavy booster — are designed for full and rapid reusability. During Flight 7, SpaceX plans to demonstrate a key element of this reusability by landing the Super Heavy back at Starbase’s launch tower using its “chopstick” arms.
On Flight 7, Ship will land in the Indian Ocean about an hour after liftoff, deploying 10 mock satellites that will mimic SpaceX’s Starlink broadband craft by following Ship’s trajectory and also splashing down in the Indian Ocean.
Starship Flight 7 is expected to follow the debut launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, and a SpaceX Falcon 9 is set to launch private moon landers toward the moon on Jan. 15.
