SpaceX plans to make the first test flight of Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, designed to send astronauts to the moon and eventually beyond. The launch is scheduled for 7:00 a.m. (12:00 GMT) from the sprawling Texas base of the private space company owned by billionaire Elon Musk.

If Monday’s attempt is delayed, a backup time will be scheduled later this week.

The American space agency NASA has chosen the Starship capsule to deliver its astronauts to the moon as part of its planned Artemis III mission before the end of 2025. The Starship consists of a reusable capsule carrying crew and cargo, and a Super Heavy first stage launch vehicle. The 164-foot-tall (50 meters) Starship spacecraft sits atop a 230-foot-high superheavy rocket.

SpaceX successfully tested 33 Raptor engines in the first stage of a Starship launch vehicle in February. The super-heavy rocket booster was tied to the ground during a test called static fire to prevent it from taking off. The rocket never flew in the full first stage propulsion configuration.

“Maybe, success, excitement is guaranteed!” Musk wrote on Twitter late Friday.

NASA will launch astronauts into lunar orbit in November 2024 using its own heavy-duty rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS), which has been in development for more than a decade.

Starship is both bigger and more powerful than SLS. It produces 17 million pounds of thrust, more than double the power of the Saturn V rockets used to send Apollo astronauts to the moon. SpaceX envisions eventually putting the Starship into orbit and then refueling with another Starship so it can continue its journey to Mars or beyond.

The idea of ​​multiple launches, which is Musk’s broad strategy, is to lower the price. Earlier last year, he said each Starship flight could cost “less than $10 million.” Other superheavy rockets in development include New Glenn from Blue Origin, Long March 9 from China, and Yenisei from Russia.