The reusable Starship system consists of the Ship upper stage and the massive Super Heavy booster, both designed to be recovered and flown again. (Image: SpaceX)SpaceX is aiming to launch the next test flight of its Starship megarocket before the end of August, with plans to attempt the first-ever catch of the vehicle’s upper stage using the launch tower, CEO Elon Musk announced during the company’s first quarterly earnings call since its historic public listing.The mission, known as Starship Flight 14, is expected to mark several major milestones. Along with deploying operational payloads into orbit for the first time, SpaceX plans to attempt catching the 171-foot (52-metre) Ship upper stage using the “chopstick” arms mounted on the launch tower at Starbase in Texas, pending regulatory approval.“Assuming we receive regulatory approval to do so, we will attempt to catch the Ship with the tower on the next flight, which is tentatively scheduled for the end of this month,” Musk said on Tuesday.The upcoming mission follows the successful Flight 13 test on July 24, during which the upper stage completed a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean. According to Musk, the performance of the spacecraft’s heat shield has given the company confidence to attempt the challenging recovery manoeuvre.Also Read | SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket crashes into Moon after 18 months adrift“I don’t want to jinx it or anything, but I think I’d consider the heat shield problem solved at this point,” Musk said.Unlike previous Starship flights, Flight 14 is also expected to place Starlink V3 satellites into operational orbit. Flight 13 carried 20 of the larger next-generation satellites, but they were released on a suborbital trajectory and were not intended to remain in orbit.The reusable Starship system consists of the Ship upper stage and the massive Super Heavy booster, both designed to be recovered and flown again. While SpaceX has already demonstrated successful tower catches of the Super Heavy booster on three occasions, the upper stage has never before been recovered in this way.Story continues below this adAI ambitions and daily Starship launchesSpaceX also outlined its long-term artificial intelligence ambitions, revealing plans to begin launching operational spacecraft for its proposed Starmind orbital AI infrastructure network in 2027.Also Read | Elon Musk’s Starship completes most successful test flight, deploys 20 Starlink satellites before splashdownMusk said the company expects Starship’s launch rate to increase dramatically over the next year to support those plans.“We expect the cadence of flights to be increasing rapidly, and probably a year from now, we will be doing at least one flight a day, possibly more,” he said.The Starmind project is expected to rely on a constellation of AI data centre satellites, requiring frequent Starship launches as the company expands its space-based infrastructure.