Aerospace company SpaceX continues to prepare the Super Heavy launch vehicle and Starship spacecraft for the first test orbital flight. If everything goes well, then this flight may take place as early as next month. In anticipation of this event, SpaceX posted on its Twitter a short video dedicated to the preparation and testing of prototypes of the Starship spacecraft, which were carried out earlier.

SpaceX has accompanied the aforementioned video with the caption “Gateway to Mars”. Obviously, this concerns the company’s base located near the village of Boca Chica in Texas. This week, SpaceX chief Elon Musk announced that the Starship will be fully ready for its first orbital flight next month. However, in order to conduct flight tests, the company must obtain the appropriate permission from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The regulator wants to make sure that Starship launches are safe, so all kinds of checks can take several months.

Note that to date, SpaceX has made some progress in its quest to launch Starship on a Super Heavy rocket into outer space. This week, static firing tests were carried out on a vacuum version of the Raptor engine. As for Starship orbital flights, the Super Heavy rocket will be equipped with 29 Raptor engines for their implementation. They must provide sufficient acceleration for the Starship to travel beyond Earth’s atmosphere. It is possible that SpaceX will be able to conduct the first orbital tests of the spacecraft before the end of this year.