Starship is still in a pretty early stage of the rocket development process. And it’s not clear whether the vehicle will hit all its marks today — or even make it farther than the April test launch.
For his part, CEO Elon Musk likened the odds of success to a coin flip.
If all does go according to plan, it will look like this: Super Heavy will light up its engines and soar out over the Gulf of Mexico.
The booster will burn through its fuel in just a couple minutes before falling away from the Starship spacecraft.
Super Heavy will then be discarded into the ocean, though SpaceX will attempt to reignite its engines on the way down to practice how the vehicle could one day land back on dry ground so it can be be reused on future missions.
Starship, meanwhile, will light up its own six engines and propel itself to faster and faster speeds, with the goal of entering Earth’s orbit. From there, the mission is to complete nearly one full loop around the world and splash down off the coast of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean.
If all goes as planned, the mission should last about one and a half hours from beginning to end.
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