The rocket, peaking 120 meters into the Texas sky, is the world biggest and most powerful rocket system. The propulsion system is called the super heavy booster which is made up of 33 main engines giving it 16.7 million pounds of thrust. With the power generated by the engine, the starship could bring 250 tonnes and 100 people on a trip to Mars. 

The launch is set to take place at 2 p.m. BST and will fall short of a full earth orbit. If the starship reaches the three minute mark without complications, the booster will separate from the spacecraft, falling into the Gulf of Mexico, while the spacecraft continues over the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans before eventually falling into the ocean somewhere near Hawaii. 

While future missions will carry crew and satellites, this debut test flight will be unmanned. Additionally, SpaceX will not attempt to land or recover the vessel, as they will do in future missions. 

“It’s a very risky flight. It’s the first launch of a very complicated, gigantic rocket,” said Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO in a Twitter spaces on Sunday. “Set expectations low,” he said “probably tomorrow will not be successful.”

Musk says there is a 50% chance of success in this launch, and hopes to glean important information and data about how the vehicle ascends to space and how it flies back to earth. 

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Once fully operational, the next stage of the rocket’s testing would see a crew be deployed to fully orbit the earth before re-entering the atmosphere, as well as launch satellites into low-earth orbit such as Musk’s own Starlinks internet service satellites.

Musk predicts an 80% chance that one of the Starships will attain orbit by year’s end, and a few more years after that before the mission can achieve full reusability. 

You can watch the launch live on YouTube here.