SpaceX prepares to launch its third Starship flight from Texas at 8am ET TODAY after previous tests ended in explosions – with hopes of eventually carrying NASA astronauts to the moon

Elon Musk’s next-generation Starship is set to launch Thursday morning, with the 400-foot-tall, reusable rocket hoping to blast off successfully in its third orbital test.

The spacecraft, now shrouded in a drifting fog bank on the platform, has a launch window of 110 minutes starting at 8:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (1200 GMT).

The most powerful and, to date, one of the largest launch vehicles ever constructed, Starship’s mission concludes with a soft immersion of its Booster 10 in the Gulf of Mexico and a splashdown of its Ship 28 in the Indian Ocean.

Spectators now hope to see live through the haze near SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas, flight test facility on the Gulf Coast.

A SpaceX spokesman described the weather as “marine fog” and noted that several weather balloons in the Brownsville area are collecting more data, including critical wind data, ahead of the launch.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) cleared SpaceX for its third Starship flight on Wednesday morning.

“The FAA determined that SpaceX met all safety, environmental, policy and financial responsibility requirements,” the agency said in a statement.

The FAA’s ‘tiered environmental assessment’ focused on the environmental impact of the Starship’s re-entry and water landing in the Indian Ocean.

SpaceX says it has ‘significantly expanded’ the Starship’s firefighting systems and improved the autonomous systems that should have triggered the destruct command sooner.

Outside the FAA’s recommendations, it also says it has added a “hot stage” separation system connecting the Starship to the Super Heavy Booster, and reinforced the launch pad with flame arresters.

Starship is key to SpaceX’s future of providing reusable, affordable space transportation.

Unlike the Saturn V rocket, which took astronauts to the moon, the rocket — boosters and all — is designed to be completely reusable after returning to Earth in an effort to cut costs.

Nasa is betting that Musk’s company will come through with rockets that will help it get humans to the moon ahead of China in the modern space race. The clock is ticking a modified starship to be ready for a planned lunar landing in 2025.

Alongside NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), it will carry astronauts to the moon, according to the plan.

SpaceX itself is already heavily involved in the astro business, sending supplies and crew to the International Space Station and bringing astronauts back to Earth.