SpaceX may try to finish Starship’s long-awaited orbital check flight as early as subsequent month, in line with Elon Musk. Responding on Saturday to a query from one in every of his Twitter followers, Musk mentioned the personal house agency is concentrating on a March launch try. “If remaining exams go nicely, we are going to try a Starship launch subsequent month,” .

Whereas the date of Starship’s orbital check flight has been a transferring goal for a lot of the , there’s purpose to consider subsequent month may see the rocket lastly fly. In January, Starship efficiently accomplished its first-ever . The “moist costume rehearsal” noticed SpaceX load each levels of the car with greater than 10 million kilos of liquid oxygen and methane gas. Critically, the corporate additionally ran by way of a number of the countdown procedures it might want to full on launch day.

Among the many exams SpaceX nonetheless wants to hold out, essentially the most essential is a static firing of all the Tremendous Heavy stage’s 33 Raptor engines. Thus far, the corporate has by no means ignited greater than 14 of the engines without delay. That might want to change for SpaceX to acquire the go-ahead for an orbital check flight from the Federal Aviation Administration. As of the tip of January, there have been indicators SpaceX was getting ready to hold out the static check fireplace as early as the primary week of February. That did not occur. Nonetheless, Musk’s remark would appear to point SpaceX will try the check sooner fairly than later.