SpaceX's Starship May Finally Be Ready to Fly to the Moon—If It Doesn’t Blow Up
SpaceX has a huge opportunity to solidify its dominance over space, as well as burnish Elon Musk’s battered reputation.
Sometime this week, SpaceX will be launching its much-anticipated Starship heavy-launch vehicle into space—which company CEO Elon Musk hopes Starship will eventually shuttle humans to the moon and Mars. The mission will mark the first time Starship has ever been flown into orbit. Besides already being planned for a few satellite launches and crewed missions into space, the behemoth, two-stage launch vehicle will eventually be incorporated into NASA’s upcoming Artemis missions to take American astronauts back to the lunar surface.
The launch was initially planned for Monday morning in South Padre Island, Texas. However, it was canceled ten minutes before takeoff and the team transitioned to a wet dress rehearsal instead. Musk later tweeted that the suspected culprit appeared to be a frozen pressure valve.
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