SpaceX wants to begin commercial operations of Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever launched, as soon as next year.
The spacecraft has had 11 test flights so far, with varying degrees of success, with another planned in the coming weeks.
The company — which plans to IPO this year, aiming for a $1.5 trillion valuation — hopes it will bring the cost of orbital launches down even further, allowing it to deploy thousands more Starlink satellites, and CEO Elon Musk is still targeting Mars as its eventual destination. Its pace of launching is a stark contrast to NASA’s, whose moon-launch program has been further delayed.