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Update for Nov. 18: SpaceX launched its Starship rocket and Super Heavy booster on its second flight test, but the vehicles exploded during flight. Read our coverage for full details and video.
SpaceX plans to launch its giant Starship vehicle for the second time ever this morning (Nov. 18), and you can watch the action live.
Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, is scheduled to lift off from SpaceX’s Starbase site in South Texas today during a 20-minute window that opens at 8 a.m. EST (1300 GMT; 7 a.m. local Texas time).
You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX, or directly via the company. Coverage is expected to start at around 7:25 a.m. EDT (1225 GMT).
Related: How to watch SpaceX’s 2nd Starship launch on Nov. 18
Read more: How SpaceX’s 2nd Starship rocket test launch will work
SpaceX is developing Starship to get people and cargo to the moon and Mars, as well as perform a variety of spaceflight duties closer to home. NASA picked Starship to be the first crewed lunar lander for its Artemis program, and the vehicle has several private moon missions on its docket as well.
The nearly 400-foot-tall (122 meters) vehicle consists of two elements, both of which are designed to be fully and rapidly reusable — a first-stage booster called Super Heavy and 165-foot-tall (50 meters) upper stage known as Starship.
The duo has flown together only once to date, on a test flight that lifted off from Starbase on April 20. The mission aimed to send the upper stage partway around Earth, ending with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii. But Starship’s two stages failed to separate as planned, and SpaceX intentionally destroyed the vehicle high over the Gulf of Mexico.
Related: Incredible photos of SpaceX’s 1st Starship launch
Saturday’s test flight will be a reprise of the April mission, attempting to accomplish what that debut jaunt could not.
If all goes according to plan, Super Heavy will splash down in the Gulf of Mexico about seven minutes after launch. Starship, meanwhile, will head east out over the ocean, attain something close to orbital velocity and come down in the Pacific near Hawaii about 90 minutes after liftoff.
Saturday’s launch was originally supposed to occur on Friday (Nov. 17), but SpaceX delayed things by a day to swap out one of Super Heavy’s grid fins. These waffle-iron-shaped structures help the booster steer its way back to Earth after launch.
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Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, “Out There,” was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor’s degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.
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