SpaceX plans to launch its giant "Starship" rocket system into orbit at the beginning of December, which is especially important in the context of the plan to send NASA astronauts to the moon in the next few years, an American official said.
Billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX has been trying for years to send its next-generation rocket system into orbit from the company's private launch facilities in Texas.
Previously, only prototypes of the upper half of the "Starship" were launched from there 10 kilometers into the air to demonstrate landing attempts, reports N1.
The mission in December will test the entire system for the first time, including the 70-meter "Super Heavy" propulsion section of the system, which is needed to launch the 50-meter "Starship" spacecraft into orbit.
"We're tracking four major Starship flights. The first one will be in early December," said Mark Kirasic, a senior NASA official who oversees the development of the agency's Artemis lunar program, during a NASA advisory council meeting.
Additional ground tests with the rocket and a regulatory review could delay the launch of the mission until after December.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which oversees the safety of commercial launch sites, has not yet granted a mission license to SpaceX.
Starship is slated to become SpaceX's flagship rocket system once fully developed, succeeding the reusable Falcon 9 rockets.
In 2021, NASA selected SpaceX's "Starship" for the planned landing of humans on the moon around 2025, for the first time since 1972.
That mission, under the roughly $XNUMX billion contract, requires several test spaceflights that could delay the mission's launch.
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