Elon Musk has tested his enormous Starship rocket three times so far this year, and three times the rocket has gone pop.
SpaceX, the company behind the venture, says every one of those spectacular failures is a valuable learning opportunity.
And ‘valuable’ might be the appropriate word, with Musk previously saying every Starship test flight costs between $50 million to $100 million (£37 million to £74 million).
Today, the South African billionaire’s space business is going to have another go.
This evening will mark the 10th flight attempt for what is the world’s largest rocket. The launch window will open at 6.30pm, which is 12.30am UK time.
There have already been problems at the launch site in Starbase, a city on the Texas coast near the Mexican border which was incorporated by Musk in May this year.
A flight was intended to take place yesterday, but it needed to be postponed due to ‘an issue with ground systems’, SpaceX said.
In a post on his social media site X, Musk blamed a ‘liquid oxygen leak’ for the delay.
However, the business marked a more minor success earlier today when its Dragon spacecraft docked with the International Space Station on a resupply mission for an issue-free 33rd time.
The 10th test flight of Starship can be watched on a livestream here.
Several experiments will be incorporated into the event, including a selection of tile options for the exterior to show which protect the ship best upon reentry.
SpaceX said ‘hardware and operational changes have been made to increase reliability’ after investigations into the loss of the rocket on its ninth flight.
Ultimately, the company’s engineers want to create a launch system which is ‘rapidly and fully reusable’.
That includes the use of an extraordinary ‘chopsticks’-like structure to catch the rocket and steady it as it lowers down to earth.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web
browser that
supports HTML5
video
Musk, who acted as an adviser to US President Donald Trump for a controversial few months earlier this year before leaving the White House in May, hopes the rocket will one day take people to Mars.
He hopes to send his first Starships without astronauts to the Red Planet next year, a very ambitious timetable particularly after the series of critical failures.
The 54-year-old has not spoken much about the upcoming test flight on social media, but shared a post saying: ‘One day, we’ll look back at Starship’s early launches and say: this is where humanity’s journey to Mars truly began.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.