Washington: SpaceX announced Tuesday it was planning to send its flagship rocket Starship into orbit, a key step in its project to one day reach the Moon or Mars.
The space company co-founded by Elon Musk said the rocket's first orbital flight will happen next week, with liftoff scheduled from Texas at 7:15 am local time (1215 GMT) on Tuesday.
During this test flight, the 14th conducted with Starship, SpaceX will also seek to deliver 26 Starlink satellites.
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The company said the orbital flight would mark an "exciting new phase" for Starship, its largest and most powerful rocket.
"Flight tests until this point have intentionally flown passively safe suborbital trajectories to maximise public safety," SpaceX said on its website.
"By going to orbit, the next phase of developing Starship to be fully and rapidly reusable can begin."
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Several Starship test flights have not gone as planned, with the rockets exploding into fireballs -- or as Musk describes it, "rapid unscheduled disassembly."
Its most recent test flight in July, however, was largely a success, and the first since the company posted the largest initial public offering in history.
Along with orbital flight, Starship has yet to successfully demonstrate several milestones -- such as refueling in space -- before it can be used for commercial flights, or for travel to the Moon or Mars.
