With three words, «Starship fully stacked,» SpaceX founder Elon Musk is seeing his vision of the future become reality. On Friday, Musk shared photos of a prototype Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket together on a launchpad with the business end down and the pointy end up.
Musk had previously posted views of the Super Heavy rocket — a 29-engine behemoth that’s meant to escort Starship on a test flight into orbit for the first time — on the pad at SpaceX’s development facility in Boca Chica, Texas.
Musk’s photo collection shows the Starship spacecraft being lifted to the top of the Super Heavy rocket and put into place. The pair reach nearly 400 feet (122 meters) in height.
When asked how it feels to see the space combo fully stacked, Musk replied on Twitter with «Dream come true.» The SpaceX founder estimated it could take two weeks to work through a to-do list, including the installation of more heat shield tiles on Starship.
SpaceX has been conducting a series of short test flights in Texas with Starship prototypes, some of which survived the process and some of which exploded. The orbital Starship will be the most ambitious test yet and the first with the massive Super Heavy rocket needed to boost it to space.
A launch date for the test flight has not been set yet, and will depend on many factors, including finishing up the work on Starship and Super Heavy and getting approval from the Federal Aviation Administration. Sending Starship to orbit will be a big step toward Musk’s even bigger dreams: carrying humans to the moon and Mars.
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