The next Starship mission has a tentative launch date: March 14
Enlarge / SpaceX's Starship rocket completes a fueling test on Sunday night. (credit: SpaceX)
After SpaceX completed a fueling test of its third full Starship stack on Sunday night, successfully loading more than 10 million pounds of methane and liquid oxygen propellant onto the rocket, it was only a matter of time before the world's largest rocket took flight.
Now, we have a tentative date. In a post on the social media site X, the company posted a link to watch "Starship's third flight test" at 7:30 am ET (11:30 UTC) on March 14. Published on Tuesday morning, the social media post was 'hidden,' but somehow discovered late Tuesday night.
Nevertheless, this is a credible date that the company is working toward. The hardware, following the fueling test on Sunday night at the company's Starbase site in South Texas, appears to be in good shape. And although SpaceX has yet to receive its launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration, the agency recently announced that it has closed its investigation into the second Starship test flight in November. So a mid-March launch date is plausible from a regulatory standpoint.