Elon Musk Confirms SpaceX’s Next Starship Test Flight Is Coming Soon

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently confirmed that the company’s next Starship test flight is coming soon.

The four previous test flights have shown repeated progress, with each Starship launch showing more positive results than the last. The 400-foot-tall rocket will eventually provide interplanetary life; at least, that’s SpaceX’s goal.

However, Starship is still undergoing its routine test flights, and it conducted its first test flight on April 20, 2023, with Integrated Test Flight 1, also known as IFT-1. The flight lasted about four minutes, with SpaceX engaging the flight termination system, which destroyed the vehicle about 40 seconds after it was launched.

Then in November, IFT-2 lasted eight minutes and fifty-five seconds before filter clogs caused several booster engines to shut down. Once again, the flight termination system was activated when it reached an altitude of about 148 kilometers.

The IFT-3 explosion occurred in March and lasted more than 49 minutes before disintegrating before its planned splashdown in the Indian Ocean. The rocket was eventually destroyed at an altitude of about 462 meters above the ocean.

The IFT-4 mission launched in June and was SpaceX’s most successful Starship mission to date. It lasted more than an hour and included a successful reentry and a successful controlled landing in the Indian Ocean.

Now, IFT-5 is set to launch soon, and Musk believes it will take off in about four weeks, according to the CEO on X:

Based on the success of IFT-4, the quick turnaround to launch ITF-5 appears to mean that SpaceX is poised to make further progress on Starship launches, Space.com He says.

After IFT-4, SpaceX had fewer things to analyze and resolve, and the FAA didn’t need any additional investigations as it did with other post-flight reports.

SpaceX aims to return the giant rocket to a precise landing on the Starbase launch pad using IFT-5, another amazing advance if it can pull it off.

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