Winged Musk is stepping up to Mars..."A new world can be built" [This is news]

SpaceX, a space company led by Elon Musk, will attempt the sixth Earth orbit test flight of Starship, a spacecraft that developed the goal of exploring the moon and Mars, as early as the 18th (local time).

According to SpaceX's announcement on its website on the 7th, the scheduled launch time for Starship, which is being prepared at Starbase, a space launch facility on Boca Chica Beach in southern Texas, will begin at 4 p.m. on the 18th Central Time.

However, due to the nature of the test flight, there is a possibility that the launch schedule may be changed later, the company added.

SpaceX said it will experiment with several technologies during the test flight to extend the limits of the Starship spacecraft and rocket propellant (booster) capabilities and bring the whole system closer to reuse.

In particular, the company explained that rocket boosters will be allowed to return to the launch site and land as first succeeded in the previous fifth test flight, experiments to reignite the Raptor engine in space, heat shielding experiments in the process of Starship re-entering and descending into the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean, and changes in maneuvers.

Musk has been developing Starship with the goal of pioneering Mars and allowing humans to migrate.

"Starship is more than twice as powerful as the current Saturn V rocket (a rocket used in the Apollo program in the U.S.) and will be three times more powerful with a thrust of 10,000 tons in about a year," Musk said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

"It is now possible to build a new world on Mars," he said.

AI Anchor: Y-GO
Caption editing: Jeong Eui-jin