What time is SpaceX’s Starship Flight 9 launch on May 27

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The Starship Flight 9 launch, as it's called, is scheduled to launch no earlier than Tuesday, May 27, at 7:30 p.m. EDT (2330 GMT) from SpaceX's Starbase test site near Boca Chica Beach in South Texas. Like its name suggests, this will be the ninth test flight of the giant SpaceX rocket, but it is the first to attempt to reuse the giant Super Heavy booster, the first stage of Starship.

SpaceX is currently targeting a 7:30 p.m. EDT (2330 GMT) launch time for Flight 9 on May 27, but that time could shift depending on the vehicle's status. It will be 6:30 p.m. local time in Texas. SpaceX has not listed a specific window for the flight, but has followed 30-minute windows in the past, which could put the launch anytime between 7:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. EDT (2330-0000 GMT), if the company does so again.

The launch date, itself, is a no earlier than date, but local officials for the area around SpaceX's Starbase have announced road closures for the area through May 29, suggesting back up days on May 28 and May 29 are possible.

The entire Starship vehicle, when assembled, stands about 400 feet (122 meters), making it the world's largest and most powerful rocket. It is designed to be fully reusable to enable trips to low Earth orbit, the moon (NASA's picked Starship to land Artemis astronauts in 2027), and ultimately fly to Mars.

Yes, you can watch SpaceX's Starship Flight 9 launch. The company will offer a free live webcast of the launch on May 27 starting at 7 p.m. EST (2300 GMT), about 30 minutes before liftoff. You can watch that livestream on SpaceX's Flight 9 mission page, as well as on the @SpaceX X account and X TV app.

Space.com will also simulcast the SpaceX webcast on this page, our homepage and via YouTube.

NASASpaceflight.com will offer its own livestream YouTube, and will include a substantial prelaunch show with views of fueling and more. The channel also offers live 24/7 views of SpaceX's Starship and Starbase operations.

If you plan to travel to South Texas to see Starship Flight 9 in person, there are several places where you can observe the launch.

South Padre Island offers a clear view of the launch from its Cameron County Amphithear in Isla Blanca Park. The nearby shoreline of Port Isabel is another option, but plan ahead as traffic can be heavy at times.

SpaceX's Starship Flight 9 mission is expected to last just over one hour and is hoping to replicate the path of its immediate predecessor, Starship Flight 8 in March, before that mission ended in failure. SpaceX had hoped to attempt a mock Starlink satellite deployment on Flight 7 (among other tests) before attempting a "soft landing" in the Indian Ocean and sinking.

The Starship upper stage will again target multiple in-space objectives, including the deployment of eight Starlink simulators, similar in size to next-generation Starlink satellites," SpaceX wrote in a mission overview. "The Starlink simulators will be on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship and are expected to demise upon entry. A relight of a single Raptor engine while in space is also planned."

The Super Heavy booster, meanwhile, will NOT attempt to return to its launch site and be captured by SpaceX's giant Mechazilla chopsticks. Instead, it will attempt a soft landing in the Gulf of Mexico and be discarded. That's because it is the first time SpaceX is attempting to refly such a huge rocket.

"The booster on this flight test is also attempting several flight experiments to gather real-world performance data on future flight profiles and off-nominal scenarios," SpaceX wrote in the overview. "To maximize the safety of launch infrastructure at Starbase, the Super Heavy booster will attempt these experiments while on a trajectory to an offshore landing point in the Gulf of America and will not return to the launch site for catch." (President Trump has signed an executive order renaming the Gulf or Mexico body of water the Gulf of America.)

If all goes well, the Flight 9 Super Heavy booster should land in the Gulf of Mexico just under seven minutes after launch, with the payload deployment test about 18 minutes after liftoff and the Starship landing in the Indian Ocean about 66 minutes into the flight.