SpaceX is launching the world’s biggest rocket – follow live

With one hour to go until the Starship launch window opens, here’s what to expect if all goes to plan.

Following the countdown, there are several key moments to look out for, beginning with the lift off itself. Several of the early Starship prototypes failed at this stage, however the last orbital launch attempt made it off the pad without any fuss.

Next comes Max Q at around 50 seconds after lift off, which is the moment of peak mechanical stress on the rocket.

Between two and three minutes after lift off is stage separation, which is where everything went wrong last time. SpaceX has tried to rectify this problem by adding an engine fire that will separate Starship from its Super Heavy booster.

While Starship continues on its journey around the planet, the booster rocket will attempt to come back down to land on a drone ship.

Roughly an hour and 17 minutes after the lift off, Starship will begin its reentry from orbit. 13 minutes later, SpaceX says there will be “an exciting landing”.

Here’s roughly what it will all look like:

We have a new update from SpaceX – and it’s good news!

“All systems and weather are go for the second integrated flight test of Starship,” the space company writes on X.

There is less than two hours to go until the launch window opens for what is not only the world’s biggest rocket, but also the world’s loudest.

SpaceX has issued a noise advisory, warning residents of Cameron County in Texas that Starship’s 33 Raptor engines may cause a disturbance.

I was in Cape Canaveral earlier this year to watch the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which is relatively small by comparison. It was still the loudest thing I have ever heard.

The frequency of the launches mean locals are pretty much unfazed by it these days, with one telling me that it’s becoming like an airport. You can read the full story here:

SpaceX boss Elon Musk – who also heads several other multi-billion dollar companies – has had a busy few days, attracting hundreds of headlines and countless column inches after being accused of promoting an anti-semitic conspiracy theory on his platform X.

It’s led to criticism from the White House, as well as the loss of major advertisers Disey and IBM.

Despite the furore, the world’s richest person will be focussed on the Starship launch for the next few hours.

“Getting back to productive matters,” he wrote on X. “Starship flight 2 launches in ~6 hours!!”

If successful, today’s Starship launch will be the 84th time this year that SpaceX has sent a rocket into orbit – a record-extending figure.

The majority of the orbital launches in 2023 have been with reused Falcon 9 rockets, with today’s effort marking only the fifth time a new rocket has been used. It will also be the first time ever that SpaceX has succeeded in sending its Starship rocket into orbit, as well as the biggest rocket in history to achieve the feat.

This chart shows how quickly Falcon 9 rocket launches ramped up in recent years, and how reliable they have become. SpaceX will be hoping Starship can become its next workhorse.

The 20 minute launch window for today’s attempt is set to open in less than three hours. We’ll have a live stream on this page in around two hours, as well as all the latest weather reports and updates concerning this historic effort.

Starship and its Super Heavy booster are already stacked and ready to go at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas, with the private space company sharing an image of the giant rocket system on X. It’s still the middle of the night at Starbase, but a giant spotlight is illuminating the scene as the final preparations get underway.

After being taken apart to make the required fixes to launch tomorrow, Starship has once again been stacked, and is standing tall* on its launchpad.

*Taller than any other rocket, for that matter.

SpaceX says the launch window for the rearranged Starship launch will open at the same time it had planned for today: 7am local central time, which is 1pm UK time.

A live video will start about 35 minutes before, SpaceX says on its launch page.

Elon Musk has announced that the launch is postponed until Saturday, as suspected.

No information yet about timings, though the SpaceX livestream is showing the same time: 7am local central time.

As the world awaits for news out of SpaceX (see below), Elon Musk has posted. But it’s not about Starship – rather it’s about free speech and X:

His previous post was a retweet of the SpaceX post below, about Starship being stacked, so he knows people are interested. And he is well known to keep a very close eye on Starship.