Monday 13 October 2025 10:21 BST Comments Support Now From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story. The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it. Your support makes all the difference. Read more SpaceX is set to launch the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built this evening, in what will be a critical test of Nasa’s plans to send humans to the Moon by 2027 – and Elon Musk’s hopes of making it to Mars. Starship’s eleventh flight test is scheduled to lift off from the company’s Starbase facility in Texas at 6.15pm local time (12.15am BST on Tuesday), following a similar 60-minute flight profile to the previous flight test in August. “Starship’s tenth flight test took a significant step forward in developing the world’s first fully reusable launch vehicle,” SpaceX said. “The upcoming flight will build on the successful demonstrations from Starship’s tenth flight test with flight experiments gathering data for the next generation Super Heavy booster, stress-testing Starship’s heatshield, and demonstrating maneuvers that will mimic the upper stage’s final approach for a future return to launch site.” The Super Heavy booster is expected to splashdown in the Gulf of America, while the main Starship craft will perform a water landing in the Indian Ocean. SpaceX is developing Starship to deliver crew and cargo to the surface of the Moon as part of Nasa’s Artemis program. A series of setbacks in earlier Starship tests forced the US space agency to push back its schedule for the lunar landing, which was originally scheduled to take place in 2024. open image in gallery SpaceX performed a static fire test of its Starship rocket at the company's Starbase facility in Texas on 22 September, 2025 (SpaceX) Challenges with the development of the Starship Human Landing System (HLS) mean the crewed flight is now expected to take place no earlier than mid-2027, though former director of Mission Operations at Nasa Paul Hill said it may be even later than that. “The HLS schedule is significantly challenged and, in our estimation, could be years late for a 2027 Artemis 3 Moon landing,” he said at a recent meeting of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel. SpaceX boss Elon Musk eventually hopes to use a fleet of Starship rockets to establish a permanent human colony on Mars, with the first human flights expected to take place as early as 2029, according to the tech billionaire. The latest Starship launch will be live streamed on SpaceX’s website, as well as on its official X page. More about