SpaceX moves next Starship spacecraft to launch pad for testing (photos)

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SpaceX has moved its newest Starship spacecraft to the launch pad for testing ahead of the megarocket's upcoming 11th test flight.

The company documented the milestone today (Sept. 17) via X, in a post that shared three photos of the shiny silver Starship upper stage.

In one of those images, the 171-foot-tall (52-meter-tall) spacecraft — known as Starship, or just "Ship" — is rolling down a road at SpaceX's Starbase site in South Texas at nighttime. In the other two, Ship is at the pad, nestled in the grasp of the launch tower's "chopstick" arms.

The likely next steps are pressurization and engine tests, which will ensure Ship is ready to fly. The same prep work will also be done with Super Heavy, the huge booster that makes up the bottom half of the fully reusable, stainless-steel Starship.

The upcoming test flight, whose target date has not yet been announced, will be the 11th for Starship.

Flight 10, which launched on Aug. 26, was a complete success, according to SpaceX; both Super Heavy and Ship hit their splashdown targets (Super Heavy in the Gulf of Mexico and Ship in the Indian Ocean), and the upper stage deployed eight dummy versions of SpaceX's Starlink satellites — a first for a Starship flight.

It was a welcome bounceback for SpaceX, which had lost Ship prematurely on the previous three test launches.

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— Starship and Super Heavy explained

Flight 11 will be the final mission of Starship Version 2, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has said. The company will then shift to testing Version 3 of the vehicle, which will stand about 408 feet (124.4 meters) tall — roughly 10 feet (3 m) taller than Version 2.

If Version 3 testing and development go well, a small, uncrewed fleet of these vehicles could launch toward Mars as early as next year, according to Musk. That would be a big step toward achieving his, and SpaceX's, chief long-term goal — helping humanity settle the Red Planet.