THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX’s Super Heavy booster arrives at pad ahead of first orbital Starship launch.

SpaceX placed a Super Heavy booster on the launch pad at Starbase in Texas Monday, as it continues testing and preparations for the first planned orbital flight of Starship, scheduled for launch as soon as Sept. 28, pending final approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The Super Heavy booster, with the tail number B21, departed its assembly building shortly before midnight local time and was placed on the launch mount at Pad 2, roughly two hours later. The stainless-steel booster stands 236 feet tall (72 meters) and boasts a diameter of 9 m (29.5 ft). By comparison, a Falcon 9 rocket has a diameter of 3.7 m (12 ft). The downcomer pipe that carries methane fuel down the center of the Super Heavy Booster’s liquid oxygen tank to the Raptor engines at its base is roughly the size of an entire Falcon 9 rocket.

I’m expecting an Earth-shattering kaboom, but hopefully only the kind that gets muffled a bit by the launch pad’s water deluge system.