SpaceX Super Heavy Starship Rolls Out of Texas’ Orbital Launch Pad ‘Mechazilla’ Ahead Of Test Launch

After CEO Elon Musk declared that the massive rocket would be "ready to fly" in July, SpaceX accelerated Starship's construction. The Super Heavy Booster, the rocket's first stage, was unveiled earlier on Friday by the corporation at Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, where it will launch.

According to Ars Technica, the Starship rocket and its Super Heavy Booster will undergo pressure testing and maybe a static fire test at its site close to Boca Chica to gauge its capacity to burn fuel steadily over time.

The launcher might launch Starship on an orbital test flight in July, the news website claimed on Friday, though survival is "by no means a guarantee given the developmental nature of the Raptor 2 engine."

SpaceX Starship Prepares for July Test Launch in Boca Chica

According to Daily Mail, SpaceX will have the opportunity to use the Starship to its maximum ability as it gets ready for its flight tests at its facilities and launch pad in Boca Chica, Texas. The Starship is already upright thanks to its mechanical arms, which it would also employ to capture the spaceship on its way back.

SpaceX has been anxiously awaiting this chance since the beginning of 2022, which is why it has had significant setbacks in getting authorization to test its rocket. After finishing the environmental evaluation, SpaceX is moving forward with its launches even though it would need to make significant internal changes to comply.

The Super Heavy Booster rocket with 33 Raptor engines mounted has already arrived at the orbital launch pad in Boca Chica, according to a tweet from SpaceX. There is also the entire stack of the spacecraft, which is already mounted onto Mechazilla, the rocket catcher that SpaceX would employ to launch and land the spacecraft.

The Super Heavy first-stage rocket and the 165-foot-tall (50 meters) upper-stage spacecraft, both known as Starship, are both parts of SpaceX's Starship program. Both cars are made to be completely reusable. The height of Starship and Super Heavy, when completely stacked, is 395 feet (120 m), making them the tallest rocket in the whole world, Space.com reported.

How SpaceX Will Use The Giant Rocket

Starship has only made a few high-altitude test flights so far, but another Space.com report mentioned that SpaceX eventually intends to use this technology to transport people and freight to the moon for NASA before aiming for Mars and other solar system destinations.

Between August 2020 and May 2021, SpaceX conducted a series of tests; since then, it has been waiting for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to finish an environmental study for orbital possibilities.

This procedure was barely completed a few weeks ago, and SpaceX still needs to complete 75 tasks before it can resume operations at Boca Chica.

The FAA had repeatedly postponed the deadline, claiming that it needed more time to review the results with other agencies and sort through the thousands of public comments that had been provided since the introduction of a draft version in September 2021.

FAA clearance is not a given even today, though. Depending on how successfully the government feels SpaceX handled those unresolved issues in the environmental assessment, SpaceX still has to obtain a launch license.

Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, recently tweeted that the system's long-awaited orbital test flight will take place the following month.

"We will have a second Starship stack ready to fly in August and then monthly thereafter," Musk added in a separate tweet.

Check out more news and information on SpaceX in Science Times.