How To Watch SpaceX’s Starship Launch And Circle The Planet On Thursday

SpaceX plans to launch Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, on Thursday morning from Starbase in Texas after the original plans to launch on Monday were scrubbed. And you can watch the entire thing live, thanks to the beauty of the internet.

The launch is currently scheduled for anytime during a 62-minute window starting at 9:28 a.m. ET and ending at 10:30 a.m. ET. That’s 6:28 a.m. PT and 7:30 a.m. PT, of course. The livestream, which is available on YouTube, is scheduled to start at 8:45 a.m. ET / 5:45 a.m. PT.

“All systems currently green for launch,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted shortly after midnight Eastern time on Thursday.

As I explained on Sunday, this launch is a big deal for space enthusiasts because it’s the first time this rocket, the biggest on the planet, will be tested by flying around the Earth in about 90 minutes, eventually crashing into the Pacific Ocean—assuming all goes to plan. The rocket won’t have any crew for this test, but that could change in the near future.

SpaceX plans to use the Starship rocket to put humans on the Moon in 2025 with Artemis 3, the first time anyone has set foot on the Moon since 1972. And the Artemis 2 mission is scheduled for November 2024, which will put astronauts on a slingshot mission around the Moon without actually landing them on the surface.

And while the Moon is exciting in itself, since many of us weren’t alive to see the first landings from 1969 to 1972, the big hope is that all of this effort will one day get us to Mars. SpaceX even released a new animated video recently showing what it might look like when we’re making regular trips to the red planet.

Monday’s plans to launch were scrubbed over a pressurization problem. But that happens, since, as the old saying goes, space is hard. But it’s that high level of difficulty that makes space so exciting. Cross your fingers for this one.