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SpaceX is gearing up for another integrated test flight Tuesday for its Starship launch vehicle, which is a fully reusable craft that has been designed with the intention of one day carrying humans and cargo through space. The May 27 test flight is Starship's ninth launch, although certain parts of the craft have exploded and been rebuilt since its first launch in April 2023. This test flight will be Starship's third launch in 2025.
Recent Starship launches have ended in disaster twice, as the upper ship part of the launch vehicle exploded within Earth's atmosphere during the seventh and eighth test flights. The reusable booster rocket was successfully caught by SpaceX during these launches.
SpaceX revealed in a written mission statement that the company is not planning on catching the booster during Tuesday's ninth test flight.
The booster will be carrying instruments to measure data that could help SpaceX potentially improve performance and reliability on future iterations of the launch vehicle and it will splash down in the Gulf of Mexico after it's discarded by the rest of the Starship craft.
How to watch Starship's next integrated flight test
The Starship launch vehicle will be launching from the Starbase spaceport near Brownsville, Texas, on May 27 at 7:30 p.m. ET.
A public livestream will become available 30 minutes before the launch window at 7 p.m. ET. SpaceX will be streaming through multiple channels at once -- you'll be able to tune in through the company's official Flight 9 mission webpage and the @SpaceX account on SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
Space.com also will be livestreaming the test flight from its homepage and YouTube channel.
Here's when you'll be able to tune into Starship's ninth test flight in your time zone:
ET: May 27 at 7 p.m.
CT: May 27 at 6 p.m.
MT: May 27 at 5 p.m.
PT: May 27 at 4 p.m.
After the test flight, Musk is scheduled to provide an update on the company's next steps. This will be the first time the beleaguered billionaire has publicly spoken on behalf of the company during a Starship launch window since the vehicle's third flight in March 2024.
Musk is facing mounting pressure to return to his business obligations after a stint as one of President Donald Trump's senior advisors for the Department of Government Efficiency, which has made contested claims of saving billions of dollars throughout the federal government but has raised privacy concerns among many US citizens.
In a recent call with Tesla investors, Musk promised to step back from DOGE to focus on his businesses. Tesla buying trends have reversed as prospective buyers came to associate the vehicles with Musk's politics.
Trump's most recent budgetary proposal puts certain NASA projects on the cutting block -- including ones that involve using Starship for lunar exploration.
