Boca Chica, Texas – SpaceX is gearing up to launch its massive Starship rocket on its fourth test flight. The Starship Super Heavy vehicle is set to take off from SpaceX’s launch site in South Texas, within a 120-minute window that opens at 8:00 AM ET on Thursday. The company is aiming for an 8:50 AM ET liftoff, with a high probability of favorable weather conditions at 95 percent.
Viewers can tune in to the livestream on SpaceX’s X account, which will begin approximately 30 minutes before the scheduled liftoff time. SpaceX has outlined the main objective of the upcoming fourth flight test, which is to demonstrate the capability to return and reuse both the Starship and its Super Heavy booster. This will involve the spacecraft surviving the reentry phase through Earth’s atmosphere, a stage where it previously encountered issues during its last test flight.
Building on the success of its March flight test, where Starship achieved various objectives before losing contact, SpaceX has implemented multiple hardware and software updates to address past challenges. The upcoming test flight is crucial for SpaceX, as the first two Starship launches ended in fiery explosions shortly after liftoff.
If all goes according to plan this time around, SpaceX anticipates a controlled reentry for Starship with a splashdown in the Indian Ocean, while the Super Heavy booster is expected to execute a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. The company’s efforts to refine the Starship prototype through successive test flights demonstrate its commitment to advancing space exploration technology.