SpaceX has completed an important test of what CEO Elon Musk describes as “the most powerful object ever made”.
The company fired up its Starship megarocket at its Starbase facility in southern Texas on Wednesday, ahead of what will be a landmark flight next month.
The static fire of the Super Heavy rocket, which came a day after a similar test of the smaller upper stage rocket, saw its 33 engines light up while the spacecraft remained tethered to the launchpad.
When stacked together, the Starship rocket measures 124 metres tall and is capable of carrying more than 100 tons to low Earth orbit, according to Mr Musk.
The rocket is crucial to Nasa’s plans to return astronauts to the Moon as part of its Artemis program, with SpaceX contracted to develop a lunar lander alongside Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin.
The US space agency completed a lunar flyby earlier this month, which saw four astronauts travel to the Moon last week for the first time in more than 50 years.
The first crewed mission to the surface of the Moon is expected to take place in late 2028 as part of Artemis IV, though it will depend on the readiness of Starship and Blue Origin’s Blue Moon.
Nasa has already been forced to push back its lunar ambitions due to delays with Starship’s Human Landing System (HLS), with the mission originally scheduled for December 2025.
Ahead of the last Starship flight test in October, safety advisers for the US space agency said that fundamental challenges remain with Starship’s HLS.
Members of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel said the next six months of Starship launches will likely determine whether HLS is capable of flying a crew before the end of the decade.
Speaking at a Senate Committee hearing in September, former Nasa chief Jim Bridenstine said Starship delays meant the US was likely to fall behind China in the race to the Moon.
“Our complicated architecture requires a dozen or more launches in a short time frame, relies on very challenging technologies that have yet to be developed like cryogenic in-space refueling, and still needs to be human rated,” he said.
