The imminent flight will test an upgrade of Starship that aims to improve the vehicle’s capabilities — and ability to survive the trip home from space — as well as carry out an experimental maneuver designed to test how satellites might deploy from this “new generation” of the spaceship. Initially scheduled to launch on Wednesday, SpaceX is now targeting Thursday due to weather, the company shared on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that Musk purchased in 2022. Thursday is also when Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is set to make a second attempt to get its New Glenn rocket off the ground for its maiden flight. Blue Origin is seeking to use New Glenn to better compete with SpaceX, which has dominated the global launch market for years. The Super Heavy rocket booster, the vehicle’s bottommost portion known as the first stage, gives the initial thrust after takeoff. The booster will fire its 33 Raptor engines for about 2 ½ minutes to propel the attached uncrewed Starship vehicle away from the launchpad toward space. For the first time, one of those 33 Raptor engines will have been to space before: SpaceX said it is reusing an engine recovered from the Super Heavy booster flown during the company’s fifth test flight in October. Testing out the ability of the Raptor engines to fly multiple missions is key for SpaceX: The company intends to reuse every portion of the Starship system in order to drive down costs as well as cut down on the time between missions. The highly anticipated launch will mark the seventh flight of the fully integrated Starship system. Will Super Heavy booster repeat midair landing maneuver? After burning through most of its fuel, the Super Heavy booster will then detach from the Starship spacecraft, which will ignite its own engines and begin soaring through space. The gargantuan booster will steer itself back toward the launch site and attempt a soft touchdown, landing precisely between two massive metal pincers, or “chopsticks,” attached to SpaceX’s launch tower, nicknamed “Mechazilla” by CEO Elon Musk. SpaceX's Super Heavy booster is caught by two massive metal pincers, or "chopsticks," attached to a launch tower during SpaceX Starship's fifth flight test, near Brownsville, Texas, on October 13, 2024. Kaylee Greenlee Beal/Reuters SpaceX pulled off the maneuver for the first time in October. During the next test flight in November, however, it aborted a Super Heavy touchdown attempt on terra firma after sensors at the landing zone were damaged during the initial launch. Engineers found “critical hardware” did not pass a health check. Instead, the Super Heavy booster splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico and was not recovered. During the upcoming trial, SpaceX will once again have the option to switch paths midflight and execute an ocean splashdown of the booster if safety issues arise. But SpaceX indicated its hopes are higher, noting in a blog post that hardware “upgrades to the launch and catch tower will increase reliability for booster catch.” The upgrades include better protection for sensors on Mechazilla that failed during the November test flight and triggered the company to divert to an ocean landing. A next-generation spaceship Meanwhile, the Starship spacecraft, or the rocket’s upper stage that’s designed to carry satellites or humans, will test a suite of upgrades the company has made. The spaceship’s propulsion system, for example, has been altered to increase the propellant volume by 25%. The ability to hold more fuel allows the craft to fire its engines for a longer duration. Prior to this test flight, the Starship spacecraft could hold about 1,200 metric tons (2.6 million pounds) of oxidizer and fuel, the company previously said. SpaceX's megarocket Starship is prepared for a midweek test flight from Starbase near Brownsville, Texas, on Monday. Eric Gay/AP In a big first, Starship will also attempt to deploy 10 satellite “simulators,” SpaceX said, that will be “similar in size and weight” to the company’s next generation of Starlink internet satellites. The simulators will not stay in space, the company noted. Instead, they will travel on a suborbital path, much like the Starship spacecraft, which is slated to splash down in the Indian Ocean about one hour after takeoff. Before this particular spacecraft reaches its watery demise, however, SpaceX will test a few other key objectives. While the Starship vehicle is in space, SpaceX will attempt to reignite one of its engines — testing out how the spacecraft might light up its propulsion system more than once on future missions that require more than one engine burn. The company tested relighting a Starship engine during the November test flight, deeming that trial a success. Starship's Super Heavy Booster is grappled at the launch pad in Starbase near Boca Chica, Texas, on October 13, 2024, during the Starship Flight 5 test. SpaceX successfully "caught" the first-stage booster of its Starship megarocket Sunday as it returned to the launch pad after a test flight, a world first in the company's quest for rapid reusability. (Photo by SERGIO FLORES / AFP) (Photo by SERGIO FLORES/AFP via Getty Images) Sergio Flores/AFP/Getty Images