SpaceX launches Starship Flight 7 on January 16: Watch it live

Watch Live! SpaceX launches Starship mega rocket for Flight 7 test mission – YouTube

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SpaceX will launch the seventh test flight of its Starship mega rocket on Thursday (January 16), and you can watch the action live.

The 400-foot (122-meter)-tall spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from SpaceX’s Starbase in South Texas on Thursday at 5:00 p.m. EST (2200 GMT; 4:00 p.m. Texas time).

You can watch the action live here on Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX, or directly through the company. Coverage begins approximately 35 minutes before launch.

A large silver rocket rolls vertically down a street at night — The upper stage of SpaceX’s Starship mega-rocket rolls to the launch pad at the company’s Starbase site on January 9, 2025, ahead of a planned test flight on January 15. (Image credit: Elon Musk via X)

Starship is the largest and most powerful rocket ever built. It consists of two stages, both designed to be fully and quickly reusable: a giant booster called Super Heavy and a 165-foot (50-meter) tall spacecraft called Starship, or simply Ship.

Related: SpaceX’s Starship Flight 7 test flight will use simulated Starlink satellites for the first time

Starship has flown six times so far – twice in 2023 and in March, June, October and November last year. October’s mission included an unprecedented capture of Super Heavy by the launch tower’s “stick” arms – a feat SpaceX hopes to repeat on today’s flight.

But the company is also planning something new for Flight 7: If everything goes according to plan, Ship will deploy ten mock versions of SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites. These dummy spaceships won’t stay in space for long; They will follow the ship’s flight path and sink into the Indian Ocean about an hour after takeoff. (SpaceX eventually plans to catch Ship with the stick arms, but will not attempt this on Flight 7.)

Today’s flight will likely be the first of many for Starship in 2025; SpaceX plans to make serious progress on the mega rocket in the coming weeks and months.

“This new year will be transformative for Starship, with the goal of enabling full system reuse online and flying ever more ambitious missions as we gradually work toward sending people and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon and Mars can,” wrote SpaceX previewing Flight 7’s mission.

Editor’s note: This story was updated on January 15 to reflect SpaceX’s latest launch date.

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SpaceX launches Starship Flight 7 on January 16: Watch it live

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