Elon Musk's SpaceX preps Starship for 4th flight firing all 33 engines

Elon Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX is making preparations for the fourth flight test of its Starship rocket, the world's most powerful launch vehicle ever developed, to take humanity, eventually to Mars and beyond.

The Hawthorne-based company conducted a static fire of the rocket Wednesday at its Starbase in South Texas, igniting all 33 Raptor engines.

The $180-billion-worth aerospace firm conducts such static tests commonly ahead of its flight. SpaceX could launch the Flight 4 Starship possibly this month, reported Space.com.

There have been three earlier flights of the Starship.

In the last test, SpaceX lifted off its rocket and it eventually entered the space for the first time. The third-flight was regarded major success on March 14, as it lifted off from Boca Chica, Texas.

The 165-foot-tall (50 meters) Starship was constructed in 2019 and several of its prototypes have been tested since then.

The rocket is 100 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty and 31 feet higher than the Saturn V — the second-tallest rocket.

Elon Musk’s Starship resilience

The Starship is covered with a coating of 18,000 lightweight ceramic hexagonal tiles to ensure its survival during atmosphere reentry.

The rocket is developed to take astronauts to the Moon under Nasa’s Artemis III mission. The billionaire has also set an aim to make the spacecraft reusable in the future.

Nasa is under contract with SpaceX worth $4.2 billion and over $1.8 billion has already been paid.