Starship To Launch Again In May With Goals Of A Successful Re-Entry Into Earth's Atmosphere

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Friday said it will launch its Starship for the fourth time next month after the last launch saw the vehicle breaking down upon re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.

What Happened: “Flight 4 next month,” Musk said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. Starship is touted as the world’s most powerful launch vehicle with its 121-meter tall frame weighing approximately 5000 tonnes.

For the next flight of Starship, the goal is to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere with all systems functioning despite the extreme heat, Musk said last month.

During Starship's latest and third flight test on March 14, the spacecraft lost contact and broke down while re-entering the planet’s atmosphere instead of splashing down as planned in the Indian Ocean. The entirety of the last flight lasted about an hour.

SpaceX launched the Starship twice last year — the first time in April and then in November.

Why It Matters: NASA is currently relying on the success of Starship to land humans back on the moon. The agency expects to land two astronauts on the Moon no earlier than September 2026 in the Artemis III mission with a lunar lander variant of the Starship.

The last crewed lunar mission occurred in 1972 with Apollo 17. Since then, no crew has traveled beyond low-Earth orbit.

Musk, meanwhile, intends to take humans to Earth’s neighboring planet Mars on the Starship and make life “multi-planetary.” The billionaire CEO has previously even envisioned a thriving human settlement on the red planet.

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