SpaceX rolls 7th Starship spacecraft out for testing ahead of next launch (photos)

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We're getting closer to Starship launch number 7.

a black bellied chrome spaceship stands on a concrete pad with a winding creek giving way to a sunset in the distance.
SpaceX's Starship upper stage stands ready for testing ahead of the megarocket's seventh launch. (Image credit: SpaceX)

The world's most powerful rocket is nearing its next test flight.

The seventh launch of SpaceX's Starship megarocket is expected within the next month or so. After a recent static fire of the vehicle's massive Super Heavy first-stage booster, the company has prepped the Starship upper stage for testing of its own.

"Starship ready for testing ahead of Flight 7," SpaceX said in a post on X on Wednesday (Dec. 11), sharing photos of the Starship vehicle on the move to its test stand at the company's Starbase facility in South Texas.

a chrome spaceship stands on in front of a sleek black building.

The Flight 7 Starship upper stage at SpaceX's Starbase facility. (Image credit: SpaceX)

SpaceX has not announced a date for the upcoming integrated test flight (IFT), but an email from NASA to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration identifies Jan. 11as the likely target.

When the Starship upper stage is stacked atop Super Heavy, the integrated vehicle stands nearly 400 feet (122 meters) tall — bigger than any other rocket ever built. The upper stage, known as Ship, measures 165 feet (50 m) tall by itself.

a chrome spaceship stands on in front of three tall rectangular buildings.

Ship 7 on the move. (Image credit: SpaceX)

Starship is the first-ever fully reusable launch vehicle; both Super Heavy and Ship are designed to return to their launch sites to be caught mid-air by the Starship launch tower's "chopstick arms".

SpaceX first attempted to catch Super Heavy during IFT-5, which launched in October. That try succeeded; the chopsticks made a picture-perfect snag of the returning booster.

The company wanted to make another booster catch on IFT-6, which flew on Nov. 19. But communication issues with the tower scuttled that attempt, and Super Heavy instead diverted for a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.

a black bellied chrome spaceship stands on a concrete pad with a winding creek in the distance.

The Starship upper stage stands about 165 feet (50 meters) tall. (Image credit: SpaceX)
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— SpaceX likely to get FAA approval for 25 Starship launches in 2025

— SpaceX's Starship booster was '1 second away' from aborting epic launch-tower catch

IFT-7 will be SpaceX's first Starship launch of 2025. This year saw the launch of four Starship flights, spaced out over March, June, October and November, and doubling the number of Starship flights from 2023.

The number of Starship launches in 2025 is expected to increase again, as Starship checks off boxes toward operational qualification. SpaceX and NASA are eager for Starship's success, as the space agency has tapped the new SpaceX vehicle as the lunar lander for the upcoming Artemis 3 mission to put astronauts on the moon.

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Josh Dinner
Josh Dinner
Writer, Content Manager

Josh Dinner is Space.com's Content Manager. He is a writer and photographer with a passion for science and space exploration, and has been working the space beat since 2016. Josh has covered the evolution of NASA's commercial spaceflight partnerships, from early Dragon and Cygnus cargo missions to the ongoing development and launches of crewed missions from the Space Coast, as well as NASA science missions and more. He also enjoys building 1:144 scale models of rockets and human-flown spacecraft. Find some of Josh's launch photography on Instagram and his website, and follow him on Twitter, where he mostly posts in haiku.

2 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Philly
    SX sure has a lot of "Get-er done" in them. Try something, see how it goes and adjust afterwards. Rinse and repeat until you're very happy but still be willing to push even harder if it you come up with a better "idea-er".

    So many engineer types want to avoid or minimize risks and plan out every detail before starting. Even if they are aggressive the bean counters in management are always pushing to minimize immediate costs and to target "just good enough".

    It seems to be a management miracle, to get teams to work together and focus on the task at hand and putting other projects on the back burner in order to find the best solutions in front of them. I am sure they have rough plans for payload and crew quarters for Starship but at the moment they don't invest a whole lot of time into that, it is launch, catch and re-fly ASAP. Then it will be orbital refueling, ASAP. The rest of it can be refined once those main objectives are reached. Don't lose focus on anything else.

    It would be fun to work there for a few years but I think eventually it would eventually invite some serious burn out. Always going at 125% eventually eats you up but if I was in my 20's or early 30's it would be so much fun. I think back to NASA/Apollo in the 1960's when they were trying to figure out how to go to the Moon.

    Most likely it is even more fun considering they don't have to worry about funding from Congress and playing all the political games the old timers at NASA had to deal with that forced them to have to deal with so many subcontractors all around the country. Being able to work on multiple parts of the entire systems all at once all under one roof has got to be very exciting and it has to encourage some interesting group think solutions.
    Reply
  • Darklurker
    I confess, I've never been a big fan of Musk or his projects. But I've got to admit - visually Starship is a proper-looking rocket. That's the "futuristic" one we've all been waiting for since the 1960's...
    Reply