SpaceX Pushes to Get Starship Rocket Ready for Mars by Next Year

SpaceX is shifting personnel and resources to its powerful new rocket, hoping to have the vehicle ready for a Mars mission next year.

- Micah Maidenberg & Becky Peterson

Elon Musk's space company is making an enormous bet on Starship, which stands roughly 400 feet tall at liftoff and remains in an experimental phase. SpaceX is aiming to address the technical challenges ahead with Starship while continuing to fly the operational spacecraft and rockets.

In recent months, employees have been moving into Starship roles, including some Dragon spacecraft staffers who were reassigned in mid-May, according to people familiar with the matter. SpaceX has also been making big investments in its complex in Texas for the vehicle, and has similar plans for Florida.

The company faces near-term pressure to show that Starship can function as Musk and other executives have promised. It is behind schedule on work preparing a variant of Starship for a National Aeronautics and Space Administration mission to the moon currently set for 2027, people familiar with those efforts have said.

This year, SpaceX struggled with back-to-back Starship flight tests that ended in explosions. The incidents disrupted airline traffic in Florida and the Caribbean region as debris fell.