SpaceX will launch its Starship megarocket for the eighth time on Friday, February 28.
The information got here through SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk, who posted a brief message on X saying merely: “Starship Flight 8 flies Friday.”
Starship Flight 8 flies Friday pic.twitter.com/CmOdg13e6K
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 24, 2025
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SpaceX has but to verify the flight’s particular launch time, however identical to the earlier seven take a look at missions, the 120-meter-tall rocket will raise off from the corporate’s facility close to Boca Chica, Texas.
The take a look at flight would be the first since January 16, when SpaceX managed to “catch” the returning first-stage Tremendous Heavy booster utilizing a pair of big mechanical arms hooked up to the launch tower. It was the second time to realize the feat.
Nonetheless, the identical mission had deliberate to carry out a managed touchdown of the upper-stage Starship spacecraft within the Indian Ocean, a aim that had been achieved in earlier missions. However the automobile suffered an anomaly earlier than burning up in spectacular vogue over the Caribbean.
For the eighth flight, SpaceX will likely be hoping to realize managed landings for each the Tremendous Heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft.
NASA needs to make use of the Starship for crew and cargo missions to the moon and Mars. The instant aim is to make use of a modified model of the Starship spacecraft to land the primary girl and first particular person of coloration on the lunar floor within the Artemis III mission, at the moment scheduled for 2027. However current experiences have recommended that Musk is eager to prioritize the primary crewed mission to the pink planet, a aim that he has lengthy dreamed of. In a submit on X in December, Musk dismissed NASA’s moon-focused Artemis program as a “distraction,” insisting that “we’re going straight to Mars.”
With Musk rising as a dominant pressure in President Trump’s second time period, some imagine he could also be making an attempt to influence the U.S. chief to concentrate on the Mars endeavor over visits to the lunar floor. Certainly, throughout Trump’s inaugural handle final month, the brand new president emphasised Mars with out mentioning the moon, resulting in hypothesis about Musk’s affect.
