Elon Musk Shares The Odds Of Starship Flight 5 Being Successful In Late August Or Early September

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SpaceX's chief Elon Musk has shared his predictions for the upcoming test flight of the Starship rocket in Texas. SpaceX is due to conduct Starship Flight 5 soon, and according to Musk, the test could take place late next month or in early September, depending on the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) approval. For Flight 5, SpaceX has upped the stakes by quite a bit as it will try to catch the 232 feet tall Super Heavy booster with the launch tower's catch arms. These arms are responsible for stacking the second stage Starship on the booster during pre launch preparations, and Musk believes that there is a 50% chance that a tower catch will be successful.

SpaceX Can Fly Starship Flight 5 In Late August Or Early September, Says Musk

Musk shared the latest details for Starship Flight 5 during a video conference earlier today. He started off by sharing that the test flight could take place in "two or three weeks" depending on the FAA license, which could arrive at the "end of August" as early as possible and could also go to early September. Commenting on what he would consider a success for this test, Musk outlined that SpaceX "would like to catch the mecha. . the. . booster in the mechazilla arms." This sounds "kind of insane" due to the booster's size, he added, but he believes it's "got a decent chance of working" that could take a couple of tries before functioning well.

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The other objective for SpaceX is to test its heat shield for the second stage Starship. Its fourth test flight was the first time that this ship made a soft landing on the water despite its flap catching fire. As part of its fixes before Flight 5, SpaceX upgraded all of the ship's tiles, and landing precision will be another objective since the Flight 4 ship