It started with short hops than test flights multiple kilometers up with some spectacular landings, both elegant and explosive.

Now the company is preparing to make their next giant leap for their space program.

They're going to send their latest prototype into orbit for the first time ever.

Sure, SpaceX has launched stuff into orbit before.

Lots of stuff actually at this point, Falcon nine launches and landings seem practically routine, but for a number of reasons.

Starship is different.

Like for example, uses a revolutionary new engines.

The Falcon nine relies on the trusty Merlin engine, but a big part of the starship development process has been designing and refining an engine.

The company has dubbed wrapped up in the rapture uses liquid oxygen and methane.

A departure from Merlin's more conventional combination of liquid oxygen and rocket grade kerosene, known as R.

P.

One.

The rapture also uses what's known as a full flow staged combustion system which uses every bit of fuel for thrust.

Unlike Merlin's open cycle system, these changes are designed to make Starships engines more powerful, efficient and reusable all desirable traits for engines that could one day ferry people to and from other worlds To date, starship prototypes have had at most three rapture engines but sn 20 will have six.

The additional three aren't forgetting the craft into orbit.

But don't worry we'll get to that.

No, the other three raptors are optimized to work better in the vacuum of space.

The most obvious difference between them and the sea level optimized raptor is the addition of a giant bell nozzle.

That improves efficiency in space.

So how will SN 20 get into orbit if it only has the three sea level optimized engines plus the added weight of hauling three more engines with their humongous nozzles up there.

Well, the solution is to carry Starship up with a booster rocket called the Super Heavy, which will sport 29 rapture engines.

This will be the first time ever this massive booster stage has flown, SpaceX briefly stacked one stage on top of the other back in august it was only to check the fit, but at 120 m tall, it became the tallest rocket ever assembled One of the major advances SpaceX has made to rocket science is landing the first stage of their rockets safely back on the ground.

Falcon nine boosters gently touching down on drone ships.

Not only looks straight out of science fiction, but have allowed the company to re use their rockets over and over.

Their goal is to master the same trick with Starship and they've been fine tuning just how to bring it back down gently.

If Starship is ever going to land on other planets like mars, they'll have to get it down perfectly if they don't want to flatten the crew or cargo reusability will also drive down the cost of launches.

So SpaceX would like to make both stages capable of soft landing although the proposed design for the Super heavy involves a tower near the launch pad with grabbing arms that would literally catch it as it slowly descended toward Earth for S and 20 and it's super heavy, gentle touchdowns aren't part of the plan.

Its launch is solely focused on getting Starship into orbit and then once it's up there, well who cares how it comes down right now.

The super heavy is expected to hit the water in the gulf of Mexico while fingers crossed Starship reaches orbit before coming down again near Hawaii S.

N 20 has had a few static fire test to make sure it's vacuum and sea level raptors are functioning.

If the super heavy boost Starship in orbit successfully then SpaceX's plans will really start taking shape.

We'll have to perfectly land each stage of the rocket and probably figure out a million other things.

But still the outcome of this upcoming starship launch could give us a very clear glimpse of what's to come.

If you want to learn more about starship.

Check out our countdown to launch playlist and make sure to subscribe.