Super Heavy rolls past SpaceX headquarters ahead of launch

SpaceX has moved its Super Heavy Booster 19 across Starbase in Texas at night, and the footage looks exactly as absurdly large as you would expect: the booster crawls past the company’s headquarters on a self-propelled modular transporter, with the next Starship test flight now expected on 22 May.

The transport happened in darkness and in strong wind, which only made the scene more theatrical. Booster 19 dwarfs the surrounding offices, vehicles, and workers, a reminder that Starship is still the largest and most powerful rocket system ever built.

Starship is already a moving target

The full stack stands about 124 m tall, and Elon Musk has said it could grow by another 15% to 20% in the future. That would push SpaceX even further beyond today’s heavy-lift rivals, which are still trying to match Starship’s scale rather than surpass it.

SpaceX is also trying to keep the production line moving. Musk said the Starship line is already fully loaded, and the company expects to build about 10 more Starship ships and roughly 5 Super Heavy boosters by the end of the year.

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A Starship launch window that keeps slipping

The 22 May target follows another delay, which is hardly unusual for Starship. SpaceX has made a habit of pairing dramatic hardware moves with equally dramatic schedule slips, because a vehicle this ambitious is rarely boring and almost never on time.

If this flight does go ahead on 22 May, the interesting question is less whether the rocket will look impressive and more whether SpaceX can turn all that motion, noise, and metal into a cleaner test than the last one.