SpaceX is set to launch the Starship, with a daring attempt to capture the rocket booster.

• On Sunday, SpaceX will attempt its fifth test flight of the Starship rocket.
• From 8 a.m. ET to 8:30 a.m. ET, the company has a 30-minute window to launch Starship from its facility in Brownsville, Texas.
• SpaceX intends to employ the launch tower's arms to try and capture the rocket's booster.

On Sunday, SpaceX will attempt to catch its Starship rocket's booster during its fifth test flight.

Elon Musk's company has a 30-minute window, from 8 a.m. ET to 8:30 a.m. ET, to launch Starship from its Starbase facility near Brownsville, Texas. If SpaceX fails to launch within that time frame due to weather or technical issues, the company will reschedule the attempt for a later date.

If the launch is successful, Starship will reach space and then travel halfway around the Earth before returning to Earth and splashing down. Meanwhile, the "Super Heavy" booster will separate from Starship and land on the launch tower's arms.

The Federal Aviation Administration granted SpaceX permission to launch Starship's fifth flight on Saturday, ahead of the previously predicted timeline.

There will not be any people on board the fifth Starship flight.

The Starship rocket system has been launched on four spaceflight tests, with each flight achieving more milestones than the previous one. These tests took place in April and November of last year, as well as in March and June.

During the June flight, the company's rocket completed its first successful flight test, with Starship splashing down in the Indian Ocean after surviving the intense forces of reentering the atmosphere. Meanwhile, the rocket's booster returned safely and made a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.

NASA has awarded SpaceX a multibillion-dollar contract to use the Starship system as a crewed lunar lander for the Artemis moon program, with the aim of making it a reusable method for flying cargo and people beyond Earth.

Before launching crewed missions, SpaceX anticipates flying hundreds of Starship missions.

SpaceX highlights its focus on utilizing past flight experiences in its development of the large rocket.

The FAA's superfluous environmental analysis is delaying the launch of SpaceX's fifth flight earlier than October, as both the company and Musk have criticized the agency.

Despite the FAA and partner agencies at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Commerce Department's National Marine Fisheries Service conducting assessments more quickly than anticipated, SpaceX has still had to pay fines to environmental regulators regarding unauthorized water discharges at its Texas launch site.

Goals for fifth flight

SpaceX will be looking to surpass the fourth test flight's milestones.

The company aims to retrieve the booster and employ the "chopstick" arms on the tower to capture the vehicle in this flight, as it considers this daring maneuver crucial to its objective of making the rocket entirely reusable.

The booster catch attempt was the culmination of years of preparation and months of testing by SpaceX engineers, who poured tens of thousands of hours into building the infrastructure to increase the chances of success, as stated on the company's website.

The company stated that the catch attempt must fulfill thousands of criteria to prevent the booster from diverting from the return trajectory and crashing into the Gulf of Mexico.

SpaceX stated that they do not accept any compromises on ensuring public and team safety and a return will only be attempted if conditions are suitable.

The rocket

The Super Heavy booster, when fully stacked with Starship, reaches a height of 397 feet and has a diameter of about 30 feet.

The Super Heavy booster, standing 232 feet tall, initiates the rocket's journey to space. At its base are 33 Raptor engines, generating 16.7 million pounds of thrust, which is approximately double the 8.8 million pounds of thrust produced by NASA's Space Launch System rocket during its maiden launch in 2022.

The Starship, standing at 165 feet tall, is equipped with six Raptor engines, three of which are used for atmospheric flight and the other three for space operation.

The rocket propulsion system utilizes liquid oxygen and liquid methane, necessitating over 10 million pounds of propellant for launch.