Starship

Space exploration in 2021 will see some major milestones to look forward to. From maiden flights to fiery endings, long-awaited launches to history-making first steps, here are some of the biggest upcoming events in space exploration this year.

Controlled landings of its Falcon 9 boosters have become almost de rigueur for SpaceX, but Elon Musk has revealed different plans for the Falcon 9's bigger sibling, the Super Heavy booster – catching it using the launch tower arm.

SpaceX's Starship has reached magnificent new heights, today climbing to high altitude before exploding in a spectacular fireball during a landing attempt. Despite this, the first sub-orbital flight of the SN8 prototype was largely a successful one.

Development of SpaceX's Starship spacecraft that is hoped to carry humans to Mars continues at the company’s Boca Chica site in Texas, where the team just performed a 150-meter (500-ft) hop test of a full-size prototype.

Elon Musk has given an update on SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft & booster, stating that a crewed launch could occur next year.

Just a few weeks after its Starhopper prototype completed its final test flight, SpaceX is busy pulling the pieces together for a higher-flying version.

A prototype of the Starship spacecraft that SpaceX hopes to one day send to Mars has has a hugely successful outing.

​​The Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are the stars of the show for SpaceX, but the company's deep space aspirations rest on an even larger and more powerful vehicle known as the Starship. Today it flew this next-gen spacecraft for the first time ever, albeit only for a fleeting moment.

​​Lifting all the pieces needed to colonize Mars off the face off the Earth is going to involve some serious firepower, and SpaceX has just tested out an important piece of the puzzle, engaging a flight version of its Raptor engine for the first time.

​​​Having recently rebranded its BFR to the more benignly named Starship, SpaceX has now added the finishing touches to the first prototype of its super heavy-lift vehicle with hopper tests to commence in the coming months.