According to Elon, the Megarocket spacecraft could make the first orbital flight in November

SpaceX expects its giant Starship rocket to lift off on its first flight very soon. CEO Elon Musk said the company is preparing to attempt the first-ever orbital test flight of the two-stage reusable system as early as late October, with a November launch being “more likely.”

musk divided the update via Twitter, in response to a thread about a recent test of Booster 7’s engines. “We will have two boosters and ships ready for orbit by then, with a full-stack production of about one every two months,” Musk wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.

The SpaceX system, consisting of the Starship spacecraft and the Super Heavy Booster, is a fully reusable, super-heavy launch vehicle designed to fly to Earth orbit, the Moon, and possibly even more destinations like Mars. Under a contract with NASA, SpaceX must prove Starship can do this land humans on the moon by the end of 2025 as part of the space agency’s Artemis 3 mission.

The orbital test flight involves launching a fully stacked Starship rocket into space, where it will enter Earth orbit, make less than one full orbit, and reenter Earth’s atmosphere. The upper stage will plummet approximately 62 miles (100 km) off the northwest coast of Kauai, Hawaii, while the Super Heavy Booster will land in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s entirely possible that the booster can do that Attempt an assisted vertical landing at the launch sitebut that is not confirmed yet.

The Starship prototype 24 is currently being tested at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas. Both the booster and spacecraft are designed to be fully reusable and powered by SpaceX’s next-generation Raptor engines (33 for the booster and six for the spacecraft). The company recently conducted a seven-engine static fire test on Starbase, but the prototype was later rolled back to the Starship factory for “pre-flight robustness upgrades,” SpaceX said wrote on twitter.

It wasn’t clear what these upgrades might be, especially after the company declared the engine test a success. But Musk later cleared on Twitter: “Our focus is on reliability upgrades for flight with Booster 7 and the completion of Booster 9, which has many design changes, especially for the RUD isolation of the entire engine.” By “RUD isolation” Musk is referring to “quick unscheduled disassembly,” an industry hoax that refers to the accidental destruction of a piece of equipment or vehicle.

Hopefully Elon doesn’t plan on destroying anything any time soon. In fact, SpaceX had previously taken a more aggressive development approach to Starship, launching prototype after prototype in a series of high-altitude tests that often ended in spectacular explosions. On the other hand, the company has seemingly made progress in developing its massive rocket, even at the cost of some crashed prototypes. In May, SpaceX introduced its latest Starship prototypewhich promises the company could soon be ready to test its orbital flight capabilities.

But Musk has been overly optimistic about Starship’s timelines in the past. In June, Musk stated that Starship was ready for it first orbital flight in July shortly after receiving the green light from the Federal Aviation Administration for the site expansion in Boca Chica. A possible launch in October or November means SpaceX has fulfilled a stellar list of regulatory requirementswhich has yet to be confirmed.

It’s not clear if Musk’s latest proposed timeline is another overly optimistic explanation, or if Starship could actually be ready for launch before the end of 2022. In any case, time is ticking until the massive rocket flies.

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