SpaceX founder Elon Musk shared new images of the Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket on the launch stand at the company's Starbase launch site outside Brownsville, Texas.
Starship and Super Heavy "represent a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond," per SpaceX's website. The company also said "Starship will be the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed."
It's certainly a massive spacecraft. SpaceX said that between Starship, Super Heavy, and the payload they are transporting its craft is more than 394 feet tall with a 30-foot diameter. All told, it's supposed to have "the ability to carry in excess of 100 metric tonnes to Earth orbit."
SpaceX transported Starship and Super Heavy from its assembly site to Starbase on August 3. The company will now subject the craft to a battery of tests, Space.com reported, to prepare it for an orbital launch attempt "which could occur within the next few months" if all goes well.
That would just be the first stop on Starship's journey from the U.S. Gulf Coast to Mars. Then it's just up to SpaceX to build 1,000 more of them—Musk said in 2019 that he thought it would take that many of the spacecraft to establish the first city on Mars over the course of two decades.