Elon Musk to host major presentation on SpaceX’s Mars-bound Starship spacecraft

SpaceX plans an orbital launch of its Mars-bound rocket Starship in early 2022 (Elon Musk)

Elon Musk will host a presentation on SpaceX’s Mars-bound Starship next week.

It is the first time that Mr Musk has given such an update on the spacecraft since 2019.

SpaceX is expected to conduct a test that will see Starship go into orbit for the first time. Recent months have seen a range of high-altitude flights, but attempts to conduct that major orbital test have been delayed, in part because of regulatory problems.

Starship is SpaceX’s big hope for the future of space travel, with chief executive Elon Musk saying it is key for his plans to head onto the Moon and Mars, and that its vast size is required to carry the cargo needed to go and live on other planets.

The update will take place on Thursday, 10 February at 8pm Texas time, Mr Musk said. (Texas is in two time zones, but Mr Musk is likely referring to the Central Time Zone, which would put the event at 9pm eastern time or 2am in the UK.)

The announcement came at the end of a run of tweets during which Mr Musk was asked about the future of Starship. Mr Musk had announced that SpaceX’s other Falcon 9 vehicle is expected to launch about once a week in 2022, and a follower replied to ask how that would change when Starship came into use.

“Starship is in a different league. Orders of magnitude more mass to orbit than Falcon. Necessary for creating a self-sustaining city on Mars,” he wrote.

“Starship aspires to be the first fully reusable orbital launch vehicle, the holy grail of rocketry. This is the critical breakthrough needed to make life multiplanetary.”

He then announced the time for the new presentation, though did not give any clues to what it might contain or what was planned.

Mr Musk has given a number of such presentations through the life of Starship, which has been renamed and redesigned in a number of ways since it was first discussed in 2005. In the past, they have focused not only on new announcements but also on building excitement about the project.

At the last update, in 2019, Mr Musk said that SpaceX was hoping to put Starship into orbit within six months. He recognised then that the target was “nuts”, and the company is still yet to meet it.