SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas - SpaceX prepared to launch the biggest and most powerful rocket Thursday, working nonstop after the first shot at a test flight fizzled earlier in the week.The nearly 400-foot Starship was poised to blast off from the southern tip of Texas, near the Mexican border.
SpaceX’s Elon Musk gave 50-50 odds of the spacecraft reaching orbit on its debut.None of the rocket will be recovered. Instead, if all goes well, the first-stage booster, dubbed Super Heavy, would drop into the Gulf of Mexico.
The spacecraft on top would continue eastward, passing over the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans before ditching near Hawaii.
The whole flight, if successful, would last just 1 1/2 hours.The SpaceX Starship stands ahead of the scheduled launch from the SpaceX Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas on April 19, 2023. (Photo by PATRICK T.