SpaceX launches Starship Flight 7 on January 16: Watch it live

On January 16, 2025By Littum

Watch live! SpaceX launches Starship megarocket on Flight 7 test mission – YouTube

SpaceX is set to launch the seventh test flight of its Starship mega-rocket on Thursday (January 16), and you can watch the action live.

The 400-foot-tall (122-meter) Starship is scheduled to lift off from SpaceX’s Starbase site in South Texas on Thursday at 5 p.m. EST (2200 GMT; 4 p.m. local Texas time).

You can watch the action live here on Space.com courtesy of SpaceX or live via the company. Coverage begins approximately 35 minutes prior to launch.

a large silver rocket rolls vertically down a road at night — The upper stage of SpaceX’s Starship megarocket will roll out to the launch pad at the company’s Starbase site on January 9, 2025 ahead of a scheduled test flight on January 15. (Image credit: Elon Musk via X)

Starship is the largest and most powerful rocket ever built. It consists of two stages, both of which are designed to be fully and rapidly reusable: a giant booster called the Super Heavy and a 165-foot-tall (50-meter) spacecraft known as the Starship, or simply Ship.

Related: SpaceX’s Starship Flight 7 test flight will deploy simulated Starlink satellites for the first time

Starship has flown six times to date – twice in 2023 and in March, June, October and November last year. October’s mission featured an unprecedented capture of the Super Heavy by the launch tower’s “chopstick” arms — a feat SpaceX wants to repeat on today’s flight.

But the company also plans to do something new on Flight 7: If all goes according to plan, Ship will deploy 10 fake versions of SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites. These dummy spacecraft do not stay in space long; they will follow the Ship’s trajectory and splash into the Indian Ocean about an hour after departure. (SpaceX plans to eventually capture Ship with the chopstick arms, but will not attempt to do so on Flight 7.)

Today’s flight will likely be the first of many for Starship in 2025; SpaceX plans to make serious progress on the mega rocket in the coming weeks and months.

“This new year will be transformative for Starship, with the goal of bringing system-wide recycling online and flying increasingly ambitious missions as we iterate toward being able to send people and cargo to Earth orbit, the moon and Mars,” SpaceX wrote in -one Flight 7 mission preview.

Editor’s note: This story was updated on January 15 to reflect the latest launch date from SpaceX.