Elon Musk plans first suborbital testflight of Mars-bound Starship spacecraft

Space firm hopes to eventually use it to ferry people and cargo around the Solar System

Elon Musk's SpaceX has applied to test its Starship spacecraft in suborbital flight, marking significant progress towards a manned flight to Mars.

The sleek Starship will fly to an altitude of 22.5km before landing on the same launch pad it will use to take off, according to a new filing with the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The private space firm is building the Starship craft in the hope of eventually using it to ferry people and cargo around the Solar System.

It will be launched on SpaceX's Super Heavy rocket and once it arrives to Mars it will use its onboard rockets to navigate its way to the surface of the planet.

In a major breakthrough for the company, the Starship vehicle will run on liquid methane and liquid oxygen, both of which can be found and manufactured on the Red Planet.

Last month, a Starship prototype called Starhopper successfully launched 150 metres into the air and landed on a separate launch pad.

The test flight in Boca Chica Beach in Texas lasted for just one minute and and paves the way for more advanced tests in the future.

The orbital test flight for the Starship could take place as soon as 13 October, according to the FCC filing.

Mr Musk, who founded the company in 2002, has previously likened the design of the Starship to rockets built by Nasa in the 1950s, saying in a tweet last year that it "looks like liquid silver".

SpaceX's current timeline projects that there will be manned missions to Mars taking place as soon as 2024, though Mr Musk's predictions are known to be occasionally overly ambitious.

He has stated on several occasions that he believes humanity must become an inter-planetary species in order to ensure its survival.

Mars would be the first step towards making this happen, though its atmosphere and environment is incredibly hostile for supporting human life.

One way of making it more habitable, the billionaire entrepreneur claims, is to blast it with nuclear weapons in order to artificially warm it.