SpaceX launched the newest version of its giant Starship rocket Friday (May 22), from a recently completed second pad at its Starbase manufacturing and test facility in South Texas. Liftoff occurred at 6:30 p.m. EDT (2230 GMT), sending the massive 408-foot-tall (124-meter) vehicle skyward on its 12th suborbital test flight.
It was the first Starship mission since October 2025, and the first-ever flight of Starship Version 3 (V3), a next-generation build of the rocket that features a complete design overhaul meant to evolve the vehicle toward operational missions. And today's suborbital Flight 12 was a significant step toward that ambitious goal, even if it was a day later than planned after a glitched thwarted a first launch try on Thursday. . .Starship has a number of boxes to check before NASA certifies the vehicle to fly astronauts, but V3 has been built with those goalposts in mind. . .SPACE.com
SpaceX just launched Starship V3 — its most powerful megarocket yet — into space for the 1st time in spectacular Flight 12 test (video)
The payloads were deployed as planned over a 10-minute span, beginning roughly 17 minutes after launch, via Ship's "PEZ dispenser"-like door. The two modified Starlink satellites were tasked with scanning Starship's heat shield tiles, in a test meant to assess the ability to inspect them for possible damage prior to reentry.
Shortly after the final two Starlink simulators deployed (the ones with cameras that SpaceX nicknamed "Dodger Dogs" after the famed hotdogs at Dodger Stadium), SpaceX broadcast the spectactular video they captured as they flew away from Starship.
Nothing Starship accomplished on Flight 12 was particularly groundbreaking for SpaceX; the mission goals and trajectories were broadly similar to those of the previous few test missions.
However, even successfully following a previously blazed trail was huge for Starship V3, given that it's a brand-new vehicle with a variety of modifications and upgrades over its predecessors. And V3's road to the launch pad was a bit rocky. . .
NASA is relying on Starship as one of the crewed lunar landers for its Artemis program, which aims to eventually establish a permanent human presence on the moon. The space agency has also contracted Blue Moon, a Blue Origin spacecraft, to land Artemis astronauts on the moon, and has indicated a willingness to fly with whichever private lander is ready when it's time for the missions to get off the ground.
The next of those missions is Artemis 3 — the follow-up to April's Artemis 2, which flew four astronauts aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft on a successful 10-day mission around the moon. NASA is targeting mid to late 2027 for Artemis 3, which will launch Orion to low Earth orbit (LEO) to rendezvous and dock with one or both of the private lunar landers, and late 2028 for the first lunar landing on Artemis 4. . ."
