What are you looking for, when is it and how to watch it live

(CNN) — SpaceX has received a launch license allowing the fourth test flight of Starship, its massive moon rocket.

When is this and at what time?

Starship, the most powerful launch vehicle ever built, is expected to lift off Thursday during a 120-minute launch window that opens at 8 a.m. ET.

Here we leave you time for other places in the world:

• Mexico City, Mexico: 6 am.
• Bogota, Colombia: 7 am.
• Buenos Aires, Argentina: 9 am.

Where to look?

A live broadcast of the flight test will be available on the SpaceX website approximately 30 minutes before launch.

The vehicle includes a Starship spacecraft on top and a rocket booster known as the Super Heavy. It will launch from the company’s private Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches, gave SpaceX flight test approval on Tuesday and said the company “has met all safety and other licensing requirements for this rocket flight.”

What are you looking for?

According to the agency, SpaceX has proposed three scenarios for Starship’s re-entry into the atmosphere that would not require an investigation if the ship were lost. These potential failures include heat shield failure, some loss of vehicle control mid-flight, and engine failure during landing.

“If another anomaly occurs with Starship, an investigation may be required, just as if an anomaly occurred with the Super Heavy rocket booster,” the agency said in a statement.

“In addition, the FAA approved a mission profile that included controlled and uncontrolled entry of Starship. “If SpaceX decides to conduct an uncontrolled entry, it must communicate this decision to the FAA prior to launch,” the statement said. “Thus, the loss of Starship would be considered a planned event and no investigation would be necessary.”

Each of Starship’s test flights has different goals based on lessons learned and milestones achieved on previous flights.

This time, SpaceX will focus on “demonstrating the ability to recover and reuse Starship and Super Heavy.” The primary objectives will be a soft landing and splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico using the Super Heavy launch vehicle and achieving a controlled entry into the Starship,” the company said in a statement.

If successful, Starship is expected to land in the Indian Ocean.

SpaceX has made several updates to Starship’s software and hardware to incorporate lessons learned from the third flight.

“Starship’s fourth flight will aim to bring us closer to the future of rapid reuse on the horizon,” SpaceX said. “We continue to develop Starship by putting flight hardware into a flight environment to learn as quickly as possible, while creating a fully reusable transport system designed to carry crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond.”

Three previous test flights

The first two attempts to launch Starship into orbital speed in 2023 ended in explosions: the spacecraft and booster exploded before reaching their intended landing sites.

SpaceX has been known to make major setbacks early in spacecraft development, and says those setbacks help the company quickly implement design changes that lead to better results.

SpaceX has said its approach to rocket development is focused on speed. The company uses an engineering method called rapid spiral development. Essentially, this process comes down to a desire to quickly create prototypes and volunteer to fly them to learn how to build better ones, faster than if the company relied solely on ground testing and simulation.

After Starship’s explosive first and second test flights, the company immediately tried to frame those failures as successes.

The third test flight, lasting nearly an hour in March, went through several stages before aborting on re-entry rather than ditching into the Indian Ocean.

Much depends on the ultimate success of Starship. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly characterized the rocket as essential to the company’s core mission: taking humans to Mars for the first time.

It’s important to note that the Starship spacecraft is also the vehicle chosen by NASA to carry astronauts launched from the United States to the Moon for the first time in more than five decades as part of its Artemis program. The space agency is in a race with China to become the first to establish a permanent lunar outpost and set a precedent for deep space settlements.