Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has unveiled the latest iteration of his space company’s newly assembled Starship, outlining a speedy development timeline for the centrepiece vehicle of SpaceX’s quest to launch humans to the moon and Mars.

Musk showed a crowd of space enthusiasts and reporters at SpaceX’s rocket development site late on Saturday in the remote village of Boca Chica, Texas, animations of Starship landing on the moon and Mars.

He predicted that the rocket’s first orbital flight could come in the next six months, followed by missions to space with humans aboard the next year.