--- title: "Elon Musk Shares New Pic of Giant Starship Rocket Booster" description: "SpaceX has made progress towards building the Starship rocket booster called Super Heavy. Check out the photo of the giant starship here." date: "2021-06-15" modified: "2021-06-23" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-picture-starship-rocket-booster" categories: - "Elon Musk" - "Future Society" - "Space" - "SpaceX" - "Starship" - "The Industrialists" tags: - "elon musk" - "SpaceX" - "Starship" - "super heavy" - "the digest" --- # Elon Musk Shares New Pic of Giant Starship Rocket Booster ![SpaceX has made big progress towards building its first flightworthy prototype of its Starship booster called Super Heavy.]() *\Image: SpaceX\* ## Booster Butt SpaceX has made big progress towards building the first flightworthy prototype of its Starship booster called [Super Heavy](). An image shared by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk early Tuesday morning shows just how tall the booster prototype already is, towering above the intrepid billionaire inside High Bay, a 265 feet tall vertical assembly structure at the company's South Texas testing facilities. The image shows the "aft section" or the rear-facing section of the Super Heavy booster. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1404707141102059520 SpaceX has hugely ambitious plans to launch its first Starship prototype into orbit. The space company wants to complete the first orbital test flight [as early as next month]() — and it will need a Super Heavy booster to do just that. The company's blazing pace however suggests it may just have a chance. ## Rocket Stacking The gigantic towering structure will eventually stand 230 feet tall and is meant to launch a Starship spacecraft prototype, which alone stands at 160 feet tall, into orbit. Musk also [shared a nighttime video]() of the view from on top of High Bay, a vertigo-inducing height. To get both rocket and booster off the ground — let alone stacked on top of each other — SpaceX is currently constructing a [gigantic 400-foot launch tower]() made up of massive prefabricated steel segments. According to the latest pictures, SpaceX is about halfway there. [According to *Teslarati*](), SpaceX is only two prefabricated sections away from reaching its full height. If all goes according to plan, we could soon see a Starship prototype being hoisted on top of a Super Heavy — a momentous occasion in the launch platform's years-long development. But whether the first Starship orbital launch test will end in [yet another explosion]() remains to be seen. **More on Starship:** *[The Air Force Seems to Be Investing Heavily in SpaceX’s Starship]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()