SpaceX fired six Raptor engines on the company's next Starship rocket Monday, clearing a major hurdle on the path to launch later this month on a high-stakes test flight to get the private rocket program back on track.
Starship ignited its Raptor engines Monday morning on a test stand near SpaceX's Starbase launch facility in South Texas. The engine ran for approximately 60 seconds, and SpaceX confirmed the test-firing in a post on X: "Starship completed a long duration six-engine static fire and is undergoing final preparations for the ninth flight test."
SpaceX hasn't officially announced a target launch date, but maritime warnings along Starship's flight path over the Gulf of Mexico suggest the launch might happen as soon as next Wednesday, May 21. The launch window would open at 6:30 pm local time (7:30 pm EDT; 23:30 UTC). If everything goes according to plan, Starship is expected to soar into space and fly halfway around the world, targeting a reentry and controlled splashdown into the Indian Ocean.
Elon Muskβs SpaceX is getting its own official company town. Residents of an area around SpaceXβs Starbase launch site in southern Texas voted overwhelmingly on Saturday to incorporate as a city β also named Starbase. According to results posted online by the Cameron County Elections Department, there were 212 votes in favor and only six [β¦]
The near-unanimous decision β 212 votes in favor to just 6 against, according to county election data β formalizes SpaceX's dominance in the remote coastal area it has rapidly reshaped over the past seven years.
SpaceX employees and their families make up virtually all the residents within the roughly 1.5-square-mile zone, which was previously known as Boca Chica.
The city's first elected officials β all current or former SpaceX staff who ran unopposed β were swept into office on the same ballot.
Becoming a city will help us continue building the best community possible for the men and women building the future of humanity's place in space ππ«
Bobby Peden ran unopposed for mayor of Starbase, receiving 216 votes.
Peden has worked at SpaceX for over 12 years, and his current title, according toΒ LinkedIn,Β is "VP - Texas Test & Launch."
Incorporating as a city moves local controls like zoning rules and building permits away from Cameron County officials and puts them directly in the hands of the new, SpaceX-aligned city commission.
A shortage of housing is causing problems for SpaceX, with hundreds of workers looking to move to the area for the company's Starship program that one day aims to send a spacecraft to Mars.
SpaceX previously tried to buy out locals near Boca Chica Village, claiming it was "not safe" to live there anymore. While many took the buyout, some stayed.
About 500 people, mostly the families of roughly 260 employees, live on-site.
The vast majority of Starbase's 3,100-plus workforce commutes daily, many from Brownsville nearby, where there is a nine-foot-tall golden bust of Musk on the road leading into the SpaceX facility.
Commuters from Brownsville drive past a golden bust of Musk.
Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images
Despite the near-unanimous vote, the incorporation has been met with resistance from some.
The South Texas Environmental Justice Network activist group has held protests and called on Texas to contact their state representatives to oppose the plans.
"Boca Chica Beach is meant for the people, not Elon Musk to control," the organization said in a statement on its site. "For generations, residents have visited Boca Chica beach for fishing, swimming, recreation, and the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe has spiritual ties to the beach. They should be able to keep access."
The vote caps a stunning, decadelong transformation of the once-sleepy Boca Chica village.
SpaceX has rapidly terraformed the quiet coastline into a futuristic industrial campus, all geared towards Musk's goal of reaching Mars.
Away from the headlines about his eye-watering wealth, DOGE cuts, and dreams of colonizing Mars, Elon Musk's footprint across the US and the wider world has been steadily expanding. We use maps and satellite imagery to track the exponential growth of the Elon empire from his Starbase close to the Mexican border to his vast new Starlink and Boring Company development in Texas.
SpaceX is having trouble with Starship's upper stage after back-to-back failures, but engineers are making remarkable progress with the rocket's enormous booster.
The most visible sign of SpaceX making headway with Starship's first stageβcalled Super Heavyβcame at 9:40 am local time (10:40 am EDT; 14:40 UTC) Thursday at the company's Starbase launch site in South Texas. With an unmistakable blast of orange exhaust, SpaceX fired up a Super Heavy booster that has already flown to the edge of space. The burn lasted approximately eight seconds.
This was the first time SpaceX has test-fired a "flight-proven" Super Heavy booster, and it paves the way for this particular rocketβdesignated Booster 14βto fly again soon. SpaceX confirmed a reflight of Booster 14,Β which previously launched and returned to Earth in January, will happen on next Starship launch With Thursday's static fire test, Booster 14 appears to be closer to flight readiness than any of the boosters in SpaceX's factory, which is a short distance from the launch site.
SpaceX plans to launch the eighth full-scale test flight of its enormous Starship rocket as soon as Monday after receiving regulatory approval from the Federal Aviation Administration.
The test flight will be a repeat of what SpaceX hoped to achieve on the previous Starship launch in January, when the rocket broke apart and showered debris over the Atlantic Ocean and Turks and Caicos Islands. The accident prevented SpaceX from completing many of the flight's goals, such as testing Starship's satellite deployment mechanism and new types of heat shield material.
Those things are high on the to-do list for Flight 8, set to lift off at 5:30 pm CST (6:30 pm EST; 23:30 UTC) Monday from SpaceX's Starbase launch facility on the Texas Gulf Coast. Over the weekend, SpaceX plans to mount the rocket's Starship upper stage atop the Super Heavy booster already in position on the launch pad.
SpaceX launched an upgraded version of its massive Starship rocket from South Texas on Thursday, but the flight ended less than nine minutes later after engineers lost contact with the spacecraft.
For a few moments, SpaceX officials discussing the launch on the company's live webcast were unsure of the outcome of the test flight. However, within minutes, residents and tourists in the Turks and Caicos Islands, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico shared videos showing a shower of debris falling through the atmosphere along Starship's expected flight corridor.
The videos confirmed Starshipβthe rocket's upper stageβbroke apart in space, or experienced a "rapid unscheduled disassembly" in SpaceX-speak. This happened well short of the spacecraft's planned trajectory, which would have seen it fly halfway around the world and splash down in the Indian Ocean after more than an hour of flight.
SpaceX plans to launch the seventh full-scale test flight of its massive Super Heavy booster and Starship rocket Thursday afternoon. It's the first of what might be a dozen or more demonstration flights this year as SpaceX tries new things with the most powerful rocket ever built.
There are many things on SpaceX's Starship to-do list in 2025. They include debuting an upgraded, larger Starship, known as Version 2 or Block 2, on the test flight preparing to launch Thursday. The one-hour launch window opens at 5 pm EST (4 pm CST; 22:00 UTC) at SpaceX's launch base in South Texas. You can watch SpaceX's live webcast of the flight here.
SpaceX will again attempt to catch the rocket's Super Heavy boosterβmore than 20 stories tall and wider than a jumbo jetβback at the launch pad using mechanical arms, or "chopsticks," mounted to the launch tower. Read more about the Starship Block 2 upgrades in our story from last week.
SpaceX launched its sixth Starship rocket Tuesday, proving for the first time that the stainless steel ship can maneuver in space and paving the way for an even larger, upgraded vehicle slated to debut on the next test flight.
The only hiccup was an abortive attempt to catch the rocket's Super Heavy booster back at the launch site in South Texas, something SpaceX achieved on the previous flight on October 13. The Starship upper stage flew halfway around the world, reaching an altitude of 118 miles (190 kilometers) before plunging through the atmosphere for a pinpoint slow-speed splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
The sixth flight of the world's largest launcherβstanding 398 feet (121.3 meters) tallβbegan with a lumbering liftoff from SpaceX's Starbase facility near the US-Mexico border at 4 pm CST (22:00 UTC) Tuesday. The rocket headed east over the Gulf of Mexico, propelled by 33 Raptor engines clustered on the bottom of its Super Heavy first stage.
The sixth flight of SpaceX's giant Starship rocket, set for takeoff on Tuesday from South Texas, will test the vehicle's limits in new ways.
Most importantly, SpaceX will attempt to briefly reignite one of Starship's six Raptor engines in space. SpaceX tried this on Starship's third launch in March but aborted the engine restart after the rocket lost roll control during the flight's coast phase.
A successful engine relight demonstration would pave the way for future Starships to ascend into stable, sustainable orbits. It's essential to test the Raptor engine's ability to reignite in space for a deorbit burn to steer Starship out of orbit toward an atmospheric reentry.
