Starship Mk1 at the Boca Chica facility, waiting to come together.
Many of the details of the update have been kept secretive. The live stream is expected to begin around 8 p.m. EDT, but the exact location in Boca Chica is still unknown. For much of the week, the only information released seemed to be rumors on Twitter.
Starship Mk1 after the nose was mounted.
There’s already progress in Boca Chica. On September 27 the two parts of Mk1, the body and the nose, were assembled together. With that pivotal step, the body of the spaceship is complete. Starship Mk1 stands at about 165 feet (50 meters) with the nose attached. According to reports from the FCC, Starship Mk1 could start test flights in Boca Chica starting October 13.
The announcement from SpaceX comes at an exciting time for the aerospace company. On Twitter, Musk has been posting photos of Mk1’s progress this week. These tweets are how many are keeping up to date with Starship, but the announcement on Saturday will offer the company’s official report and hopefully future plans for the craft.
Before Mk1 was assembled in Boca Chica, Starship’s prototype, Starhopper, successfully completed its final test flight on August 27 at the same facility in Texas. During this test, Starhopper proved it could lift off on its own, hover in the air without attachments to the ground for almost a full minute, and then land on another pad yards away.
Starship is expected to be the most innovative rocket in the SpaceX fleet. Looking toward the future, it’s expected to be utilized in bringing humans back to the Moon, and eventually Mars. The Starship family of rockets might also be used for travel on Earth. Starship could make the trip from New York to Los Angeles in about 25 minutes.
