Washington: The most powerful rocket ever built, Starship, will undergo a launch rehearsal the following week, and SpaceX hopes to conduct its first test flight the following week, the private space company announced on Thursday.

Photos of the enormous Starship, which will one day carry astronauts to the Moon and beyond, have been released by SpaceX, showing it on its launchpad at the company's facility in Texas.

SpaceX tweeted, "Starship fully stacked at Starbase." The team is aiming for a launch rehearsal the following week and, subject to regulatory approval, Starship's first integrated flight test the following week.

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The Federal Aviation Administration must give SpaceX the go-ahead before they can conduct the orbital test launch.

The 33 Raptor engines on the Starship's first-stage booster were successfully test-fired by SpaceX in February.

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To avoid lifting off during the test-firing, also known as a static fire, the 230-foot (69-meter) Super Heavy booster was fastened to the ground.
A reusable capsule for crew and cargo as well as a first-stage booster make up a starship.

For the Artemis III mission, which is scheduled to launch no later than 2025, NASA has chosen the Starship capsule to transport its astronauts to the Moon. Using its own heavy rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), which has been in development for more than ten years, the US space agency will launch astronauts to lunar orbit on its own in November 2024.

Starship is more powerful and larger than SLS. More than twice as much thrust as the Saturn V rockets used to launch the Apollo astronauts to the Moon, it produces 17 million pounds of thrust.

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In the future, SpaceX plans to launch a Starship into orbit, refuel it with another Starship, and then send it on its way to Mars or beyond.
Other super-heavy rockets in development include the New Glenn from Blue Origin, the Long March 9 from China, and the Yenizei from Russia.