--- title: "SpaceX Reveals Plans for First Orbital Starship Test Flight" description: "Going Orbital In a document filed with the Federal Communications Commission today, first spotted by The Verge, SpaceX has outlined its plans for the first orbital test flight of its Starship platform. Going orbital is a key stepping stone towards sending the first humans to the Moon since the Apollo missions — and even Mars. […]" date: "2021-05-13" modified: "2021-05-13" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-plans-orbital-starship-flight" categories: - "Space" - "SpaceX" - "Starship" tags: - "elon musk" - "SpaceX" - "Starship" - "the digest" --- # SpaceX Reveals Plans for First Orbital Starship Test Flight ![In a document filed with the FCC, SpaceX has outlined its plans for the first orbital test flight of its Starship platform.]() *\Image: SpaceX\* ## Going Orbital In a [document]() filed with the Federal Communications Commission, first [spotted by *The Verge*](), SpaceX has outlined its plans for the first orbital test flight of its Starship platform. Going orbital is a key stepping stone towards sending the first humans to the Moon since the Apollo missions — and even Mars — making this journey a key inflection point for the Elon Musk-led space company. ## Landing in Hawaii To go orbital, Starship's Super Heavy booster, a gigantic 230 foot rocket stage, will help it take off from SpaceX's facilities in South Texas. "The Booster stage will separate approximately 170 seconds into flight," the document reads. "The Booster will then perform a partial return and land in the Gulf of Mexico approximately 20 miles from the shore." Starship will then continue on to fly between the Florida Straits, go orbital, and make a "powered, targeted landing" about 62 miles off the northwest coast of Kauai in a "soft ocean landing." It's still unclear what such a landing will entail. ## Collecting Data The Elon Musk-led company is hoping to "collect as much data as possible during flight to quantify entry dynamics and better understand what the vehicle experiences in a flight regime that is extremely difficult to accurately predict or replicate computationally." It's an exciting new development in SpaceX's efforts to deliver the first astronauts to the surface of the Moon since 1972 under a contract with NASA. The company has launched five full-scale prototypes of its Starship so far, with the latest one becoming the first to safely land. Perhaps, we will soon see the first one to make it to space. **READ MORE:** [From Texas to Hawaii: SpaceX plans first orbital Starship test]() \[*The Verge*\] **More on Starship:** *[Japanese Billionaire Buys Passage to International Space Station]()* ## 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]()