Elon Musk says SpaceX is planning to launch its next-gen Starship rocket for the first time as early as January or February of 2022. Musk announced the timeframe for the next launch of the new prototype during a virtual meeting of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

“We’ll do a bunch of tests in December and hopefully launch in January,” Musk said. “There’s a lot of risk associated with this first launch, so I would not say that it is likely to be a success, but I think we will make a lot of progress.”

Dozen Starship flights planned for 2022

He also said there could be around a dozen flights conducted next year with hopes that Starship can go into commercial service by 2023 and start launching “real payloads.”

The company has spent around two years scaling up the Starship test program. The Federal Aviation Administration has been conducting an environmental review for the orbital launch before handing a launch license, and recently agency said it plans to complete the review by the end of 2021.

The first orbital launch will see the rocket blast off from SpaceX’s Starbase development facility in Texas and escape Earth’s gravity before coming back for a splash-down landing near Hawaii. The future of Starship’s payloads also involves carrying astronauts.

Starship to play a major role in fulfilling Musk’s ambitions

NASA chose the vehicle as its human landing system for Artemis mission astronauts to be sent to the Moon, and Musk’s ambition to colonize Mars centers around several Starship flights.

Previously, SpaceX tested out a variant of its super-powered Raptor engine. The company shared a video of its Raptor vacuum engine placed onto a Starship prototype firing for the first time. The Raptor vacuum engine is basically a “space” version of the Raptor engines that will take off underneath the Super Heavy booster.