SpaceX has taken another step toward its next milestone launch, moving its towering Super Heavy booster to the pad at Starbase in South Texas in preparation for the company’s 10th Starship test flight, currently scheduled for Sunday evening (Aug. 24).
Credit: SpaceX
The booster rollout, announced Thursday (Aug. 21) in a post on X, included three dramatic photos of the stainless-steel behemoth. One image showcased the 33 Raptor engines clustered at its base, each adorned with the word “Raptor” and stylized wing graphics. The move clears the way for SpaceX to bring out the upper stage, known simply as Starship, and stack it atop Super Heavy using the site’s colossal launch tower “chopstick” arms.
Liftoff is targeted for a one-hour launch window that opens 7:30 p.m. EDT (2330 GMT; 6:30 p.m. local time in Texas). SpaceX will stream the test live on X. If all goes according to plan, the two-stage, fully reusable rocket system will again attempt a series of ambitious milestones.
After boosting Starship on its way to orbit, Super Heavy is expected to perform a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, while the upper stage will arc around the planet before targeting a descent into the Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia.
Starship remains the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, standing nearly 400 feet tall when stacked. Its lower stage, Super Heavy, provides the thrust to leave Earth’s atmosphere, while the upper stage, Ship, measures 171 feet (52 meters) on its own and is designed for long-duration missions. Together, they form the foundation of SpaceX’s vision for deep-space travel, from ferrying astronauts to the Moon under NASA’s Artemis program to future crewed missions to Mars.
Both stages are built from gleaming stainless steel and powered by the company’s next-generation methane-fueled Raptor engines—33 on Super Heavy and six on Starship.
This will be Starship’s fourth test flight of 2025, and while each attempt has ended in failure so far this year, SpaceX has steadily collected valuable data. Two recent launches ended less than 10 minutes after liftoff, while a third made it most of the way around the globe before breaking apart during atmospheric reentry.
Sunday’s attempt will once again test the rocket’s ability to survive the most critical phases of flight—liftoff, staging, reentry, and controlled splashdowns. Engineers hope the mission will bring them closer to Starship’s ultimate goal: a rapidly reusable super-heavy launch system that can dramatically reduce the cost of space travel.
The upcoming flight underscores the relentless pace of development at SpaceX’s Starbase facility. In just two years, the company has advanced from Starship’s explosive debut launches to complex tests involving controlled booster landings and long-duration orbital flights.
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