On Thursday, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk gave a presentation on the design, development and testing of the company's Starship. This is the first time Musk has given a formal presentation on the space venture since September 2019.
Bloomberg | Getty ImagesDuring his update, Musk relayed confidence that the SpaceX Starship, designed for trips to the moon and Mars, will get to Earth's orbit for the first time in 2022.
"I feel at this point highly confident that we'll get to orbit this year," Musk said.
However, there are a few operational challenges for the Starship moving forward. Though he has a "rough estimate" that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will give SpaceX approval to try a launch to orbit from Boca Chica, Texas in March, Musk admitted SpaceX doesn't have much insight into where things stand with the government agency. He also touched on technical improvements, such as fixing issues with the Starship's chamber.
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Musk also clued the audience in on potential business opportunities for the Starship, though he shied away from revealing any names.
"There's going to be some future announcements that I think people will be pretty fired up about," he said. "There are a lot of additional customers that will want to use Starship [but] I don't want to steal their thunder. They're going to make their own announcements."
You can watch Musk's full update here:
SpaceX also released an animation simulating how a crewed Starship would voyage to Mars, which can be watched here:
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