Occasionally today, SpaceX hopes to conduct a major test flight of its next-generation starship rocket, with the vehicle’s prototype still flying at very high altitudes. The company plans to launch this massive rocket at an altitude of about 8 miles or 12.5 kilometers above the SpaceX facility in Boca Chica, Texas. This test is to demonstrate the capability of the starship to launch and land upright, which the spacecraft is expected to do on Earth and in other worlds. SpaceX aims to use Starship to send cargo and people to deep space locations such as the Moon and Mars. Such a test would help demonstrate Starship’s ability to perform a controlled flight and see if the rocket’s hardware – especially the three main raptor engines – were performing as expected. Launch and landing is part of the test today. The launch and landing are part of today’s test. On its website, SpaceX claims that the starship prototype will actually “make a landing turn maneuver”, the first of its kind for a vehicle of this size. Many details about this maneuver are not publicly available, but this is a dangerous test that could easily go wrong, with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk giving the plane only a “1/3 chance” of success. The SpaceX self-test reduces the chance of a proper launch and landing. “With such a test, success is not measured by accomplishing specific goals, but rather how much we can learn, which will inform and improve the probability of success in the future as SpaceX accelerates the growth of Starship,” SpaceX wrote on its website. But if all goes well, the aircraft will lead the company to carry out more ambitious tests in the future, eventually ending in orbit around Starship’s first orbit. For this test, SpaceX plans to provide a live stream of the aircraft, which will go live shortly before takeoff. However, it is difficult to give a definite time for when it will happen. The Federal Aviation Administration has lifted air traffic controls around Boca Chica from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET released up, and there are flight restrictions on Wednesdays and Thursdays this week as well. “The table is as dynamic and variable as all dynamic experiments,” writes SpaceX. The company will provide updates via Twitter, so be sure to follow SpaceX throughout the day to get a glimpse of this rocket’s flight.