Elon Musk’s Starship is set for test flight on Monday

Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX is all prepared to lift off its giant stainless rocket Starship for a test flight — possibly on Monday — which aims to carry humans to the space exploration mission after its success.

Paulo Lozano, director of MIT’s space propulsion laboratory said while quoted in NPR: “It’s a very complex machine; it has so many different components.” It is the largest space rocket built to date and it will be successful if all the engines perform well.

On Friday, US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted SpaceX permission for a test flight by saying: “After a comprehensive licence evaluation process, the FAA determined SpaceX met all safety, environmental, policy, payload, airspace integration and financial responsibility requirements.”

Musk said while standing before Starship a year ago: “Eventually the Sun will expand and destroy all life. It is very important – essential in the long-term – that we become a multi-planet species.”

According to Musk who is also the CEO of Twitter and Tesla, the Starship will work as a multi-planetary vehicle, which would allow the astronauts and space agencies to carry their payloads at a cheap cost. He also believes that his ship will be carrying people to Mars.

Other than space exploration, the company has other business interests such as Starship could launch a large number of the company’s internet-providing “Starlink” satellites — a pivotal component of SpaceX’s future.

Tim Farrar, the president of TMF Associates, a telecom consulting firm was of the view that Starship would allow the network to rapidly grow.

Despite its exceptionalism, SpaceX acknowledged that the first flight could be risky.