How hard is it to catch a rocket? SpaceX will try on Sunday during its fifth test flight of Starship, the giant next-generation rocket that is the most powerful ever built.
NASA is counting on Starship to take astronauts to the moon, and Elon Musk, the company’s founder, sees it as a vehicle for his ambitions of humanity’s colonization of Mars. The massive, stainless steel vehicle is taller than the Statue of Liberty and its pedestal and is capable of carrying about 550,000 pounds to orbit. It is divided into two sections, the lower booster stage known as the Super Heavy that has 33 engines, and the upper Starship stage that is to travel to and from orbit with cargo or astronauts aboard.
Before SpaceX started routinely landing and reflying the booster stages of its workhorse Falcon 9 rockets, most rockets used in spaceflight were discarded after a single use. The company is taking the next step with the much-larger Starship.
The flight on Sunday will try to bring the rocket’s booster back to the launchpad, which would be a major step toward the company’s goal of a quick turnaround between launches. It is also a prerequisite in its goal of flying NASA astronauts to the moon, and eventually people to Mars.
Here’s what to know about Sunday’s test launch:
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The launch is scheduled for a 30-minute window on Sunday beginning at 8 a.m. Eastern time. SpaceX will start streaming live video coverage of the flight 30 minutes before the launch.
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The rocket is ready on SpaceX’s launchpad in southern Texas, just outside Brownsville. The Federal Aviation Administration granted regulatory approval for the flight on Saturday after earlier suggesting it would not do so until November.
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The main new wrinkle for this flight is that SpaceX will try to recover the booster stage, the Super Heavy, which has either splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico or exploded after earlier flights. Instead of just setting the booster down on a landing pad or a ship, the standard practice for the Falcon 9 booster, SpaceX will try to catch the Super Heavy booster out of the air using a pair of arms that look like a giant pair of chopsticks that are attached to the vehicle’s launch tower.
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The second stage — the Starship spacecraft — will repeat the trajectory of the fourth flight, on a suborbital trajectory that will take it to the Indian Ocean.
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The flight on Sunday takes place as Mr. Musk invests his time and money in supporting the presidential campaign of former President Donald J. Trump. He appeared beside Mr. Trump at a rally this month in Butler, Pa., wearing a shirt that said “Occupy Mars,” and has asserted that Mr. Trump is the only candidate who will get humanity to Mars.