SpaceX is now focusing on no sooner than Tuesday, Could 19, for the lengthy awaited debut of the third main iteration of its Starship-Tremendous Heavy rocket. The announcement got here the day after it accomplished an built-in tanking take a look at on Monday.
The mission, dubbed Flight 12, won’t solely be the primary launch of what’s collectively known as Starship V3, but additionally the primary launch from Pad 2, the up to date model of the launch infrastructure supporting each launch and catch capabilities. Starship V3 can even use a brand new iteration of the Raptor engines, known as Raptor 3 engines.
“The flight take a look at’s main purpose can be to reveal every of those new items within the flight setting for the primary time, with every factor of the Starship structure that includes important redesigns to allow full and fast reuse that incorporate learnings from years of growth and take a look at,” SpaceX stated on its web site.
The flight profile of the mission is much like earlier Starship take a look at missions, in that it is going to be a suborbital flight. Nevertheless, due to all the brand new parts at play, SpaceX won’t try a catch of both the higher stage, referred to as Ship 39, or the primary stage, referred to as Booster 19.
SpaceX can have Booster 19 carry out a managed splashdown within the Gulf of Mexico (known as Gulf of America by the U.S. Authorities) about seven minutes after liftoff. In the meantime, Ship 39 will goal for its personal aquatic touchdown a little bit greater than an hour into the mission out within the Indian Ocean.
Launch rehearsal full. Throughout a flight-like countdown, greater than 5,000 metric tonnes (11+ million kilos) of propellant had been loaded on the absolutely stacked Starship and Tremendous Heavy V3 automobiles for the primary time pic.twitter.com/e9oZlzc0yz
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 11, 2026
Not like the earlier iterations of its Tremendous Heavy booster, this time round, SpaceX is utilizing an built-in sizzling stage, which exposes the ahead dome of the booster’s gasoline tank throughout sizzling staging. Engineers included a non-structural metal layer that may work in live performance with tank strain to assist protect the liquid methane tank from the fireplace of the higher stage engines.
Because it did with Flight 10 and Flight 11 final 12 months, SpaceX additionally intends to deploy simulator Starlink satellites from the ship higher stage. This time round nevertheless, there can be 22 of them onboard – about double from earlier flights – with two of them that includes new capabilities.
“The final two satellites deployed will scan Starship’s warmth protect and transmit imagery right down to operators to check strategies of analyzing Starship’s warmth protect readiness for return to launch web site on future missions,” SpaceX stated. “A number of tiles on Starship have been painted white to simulate lacking tiles and function imaging targets within the take a look at.”
SpaceX can be testing a much more full model of its warmth protect with Flight 12. Not like earlier missions, throughout which a number of tiles had been deliberately eliminated, this time just one is meant to be lacking at liftoff.
“For Starship entry, a single warmth protect tile has been deliberately eliminated to measure the aerodynamic load variations on adjoining tiles when there’s a tile lacking,” SpaceX stated.
Starship’s twelfth flight take a look at will debut the following era Starship and Tremendous Heavy automobiles, powered by the following evolution of the Raptor engine and launching from a newly designed pad at Starbase. The launch is focused as early as Tuesday, Could 19 → pic.twitter.com/JxmpL2WE4w
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 12, 2026
The Raptor engines additionally underwent notable upgrades since their final flight, providing higher promised efficiency.
“Raptor 3 engines ship elevated thrust, with sea-level variants now producing 250 tf (551,000 lbf) up from 230 tf (507,000 lbf), whereas vacuum engines produce 275 tf (606,000 lbf) up from 258 tf (568,000 lbf),” SpaceX stated. “Sensors and controllers are actually internally built-in and coated by engine thermal safety, eliminating the necessity for particular person engine shrouds on each Starship and Tremendous Heavy. All engine variants can even now characteristic a redesigned ignition system.
“Mass of the Raptor sea-level engines has been lowered to 1,525 kg from 1,630 kg. General vehicle-level mass financial savings attain roughly 1 ton per engine via simplification of the engine itself, vehicle-side commodities, and supporting {hardware}.”
The debut of Starship V3 is a very long time coming and can be vital for NASA’s plans to return people to the Moon. This iteration of the rocket will finally reveal propellant switch capabilities, which can be wanted to help flights of the Human Touchdown System iteration of the rocket.
Each Starship and Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mk.2 designed mission architectures that require a number of launches and for gasoline to shift from a tanker to their respective landers. A propellant switch as such has by no means been finished earlier than in area.
“That first prop switch flight goes to be actually necessary to us for SpaceX and we anticipate to see that and get some actual nice knowledge from it,” stated Tom Percy, NASA’s HLS Techniques Engineering and Integration Supervisor, primarily based on the Marshall Area Flight Middle. He spoke with Spaceflight Now previous to the launch of NASA’s Artemis 2 mission in April.
“I believe extra importantly for me, simply as a long-term imaginative and prescient for area exploration, we all know that multi-launch architectures for deep-space exploration are going to must turn out to be a typical factor. And so all of the issues that each suppliers (each SpaceX and Blue Origin) are doing to handle the event and the understanding of learn how to coordinate a number of launches to have the ability to construct these greater exploration programs goes to assist us not just for the Moon, but additionally for Mars and past.”
