Elon Musk's SpaceX prepares for 8th Starship launch, pending FAA approval

"Starship Flight 8 flies Friday," Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, said in a post on X Sunday.

For the first time, the upcoming flight has a planned payload deployment and multiple experiments on re-entry geared toward returning the upper stage booster to the launch site to be caught.

The launch will also include the return and catch of the Super Heavy booster that will blast the rocket off the launchpad.

During the flight test, Starship will deploy four Starlink simulators, which are about the same size as next-generation Starlink satellites, SpaceX said.

The Starlink simulators will be deployed in the same sub orbit as Starship and are expected to burn up upon re-entry.

While Starship is in space, SpaceX also plans to relight a single Raptor engine.

If all goes as planned, the launch window will open at 6:30 p.m. ET.

The launch comes more than a month after SpaceX launched Starship Flight 7 from the Starbase test site in Boca Chica, which resulted in Starship experiencing a "rapid unscheduled disassembly" nearly 12 minutes into the flight.

Starship, however, was not as successful.

"Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly during its ascent burn," SpaceX said in a statement Jan. 16. "Teams will continue to review data from today's flight test to better understand root cause. With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today's flight will help us improve Starship's reliability."

SpaceX has investigated what caused Starship to break apart, though the investigation remains open.

For Starship Flight 8 to blast off, the FAA must give its approval, which could come in a few ways.

But also lingering is the open investigation into the Starship Flight 7 mishap. To fly again, the investigation needs to be closed, and the FAA must accept the findings. Specifically, the FAA weighs whether the incident put public safety at risk.

At the time of this writing, the investigation had not been closed, and the FAA had not given approval. Still, it is common for the approval to be issued a day or two before launch, the FAA noted.

SpaceX did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment on the matter.

Fox News Digital's Louis Casiano contributed to this report.