Trump to join Elon Musk for latest SpaceX test flight of megarocket Starship
President-elect Donald Trump announced in a post on his social media site Truth Social that he would join SpaceX CEO Elon Musk at the launch of the aerospace company's Starship rocket Tuesday.
Trump's attendance at the launch at Starbase in Texas will be the latest public appearance he and Musk have made together as the Republican continues to signal that the tech billionaire will have a large part to play in his upcoming administration.
Musk, who has regularly appeared at Trump's side both before and after the election, was also among celebrities and prospective cabinet picks who attended Saturday's UFC 309 event with Trump at Madison Square Garden.
Starship launch: How to watch SpaceX conduct latest test of megarocket from Texas
Trump recently selected Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, himself a billionaire and former 2024 presidential candidate, to lead the brand-new non-governmental Department of Government Efficiency. Although the exact nature of the role or powers of the department remain unclear, the position could grant Musk some oversight of several agencies that currently have contracts with his companies, such as NASA.
In the leadup to the election, Musk began regularly appearing at Trump's rallies and emerged as a major donor to his reelection ambitions.
What is the Starship?
During the final weeks of his campaign, Trump frequently raved to audiences about the latest Starship test in October in which SpaceX for the first time managed to nab the booster out of the air. Trump also thanked Musk during his post-midnight victory speech for his help on the campaign trail and again rhapsodized about his rocket.
SpaceX has spent years developing and testing the 400-foot Starship, which is classified as a super heavy-lift launch vehicle and is lauded as the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built.
In its sixth test, the Starship itself is due to fly a similar trajectory over the Gulf of Mexico as in previous flights before landing for the third straight time in the Indian Ocean. As for the booster, SpaceX officials hope to replicate what they did for the first time in the previous test, steering it back autonomously to the landing pad before catching it with two giant mechanical arms.
The Starship is due to play a vital role in NASA's lunar ambitions amid a heated international space race to get back to the moon. As part of the U.S. space agency's ambitious Artemis campaign, its first lunar program since the Apollo era of the 1970s, NASA is paying SpaceX $4 million to develop a spacecraft capable of safely transporting astronauts from orbit to the moon's surface.
Musk also envisions the Starship as being the vehicle that will take humans to eventually colonize Mars. Musk has previously stated his vision of sending the first Starships to Mars in late 2026, the next time that Earth and Mars line up, followed by crewed flights in 2028.
This story has been updated with new information
Contributing: David Jackson, Karoline Leonard, USA TODAY
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected]
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump to join Elon Musk at SpaceX Starship launch in Texas