Elon Musk shares glimpse of SpaceX's Starship booster at launch pad ahead of crucial test

SpaceX Starship is heading toward another round of crucial tests before the gigantic rocket makes its first orbital flight later this year. The rocket recently underwent a series of static fire tests wherein a few of its Raptor 2 engines were fired at the Boca Chica launch site in Texas. Earlier today, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shared a picture of the Starship Super Heavy Booster suspended on a tower at the launch pad. 

Sending Starship to orbit main goal of the year for Musk

In a recent tweet, Musk said that sending Starship to orbit in its inaugural flight is one of his main goals this year besides releasing the Fully Self Driving (FSD) feature in his Tesla vehicles. "Many other things, of course, but those are the 2 giant kahunas. Will require insane work by many super talented people, but, if anyone can do it, they can", Musk tweeted. 

SpaceX is cautiously moving ahead with the static firing of engines, especially after the recent incident with the Booster. Earlier in July, the Booster caught fire during the engine spin start test, which is a sequence to ignite the Raptor engines. Since the engines are too powerful to start all at once during the tests, Musk had said that SpaceX will conduct the tests with a few engines at a time. 

At the time of the launch, the Super Heavy Booster will be equipped with 33 Raptor engines, each of which would generate 230 tons of force. The second stage of the rocket, called the Ship that will carry cargo and crew, will have six engines. Both the Booster and the Ship together make the Starship rocket. 

It is worth noting that Starship is already bagging launch contracts even before its orbital flight. Recently SpaceX announced that a Japanese company Sky Perfect JSAT Corporation has chosen the rocket to launch its Superbird-9 communications satellite to a geosynchronous orbit in 2024. Besides, Starship will also carry humans for the first time under the Polaris Program which was announced by billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman and is targeted for launch in December this year. 

Starship also has a contract for space tourism as part of the 'Dear Moon' project which is an idea of Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa who wishes to take a trip around the Moon next year.