Is deliberate launch on Thursday was scrubbed on account of a technical subject.
SpaceX is targeting a launch window that opens at 6:30PM Jap time at this time, Might 22, for the Starship V3’s debut flight. The corporate needed to scrub its plans for V3’s first flight, and Starship’s twelfth general check flight, on Might 21 after encountering technical points. It was already counting down for launch on Thursday night from Starbase, Texas when it needed to stand down. A hydraulic pin holding the spacecraft’s tower arm in place wouldn’t retract, Elon Musk revealed on X.
The V3 model of Starship is roughly 5 ft taller than the earlier iteration and options several significant upgrades. Each the Tremendous Heavy and Ship levels are geared up with the corporate’s extra highly effective Raptor 3 engines, which might ship “elevated thrust.” Its Tremendous Heavy’s 33 Raptor 3 engines can ship a mixed thrust of over 18 million kilos, permitting the spacecraft to hold heavier payloads. That is a obligatory functionality for longer journeys into area. “Starship and Tremendous Heavy V3 will debut superior avionics capabilities designed for top flight-rate, full reusability, and enhanced reliability,” SpaceX wrote in its website.
For this flight check, SpaceX merely goals to display its new {hardware} for the primary time. The aim is a profitable launch, ascent, stage separation and touchdown. SpaceX won’t try and catch it with the launch tower’s mechanical arms, prefer it had been doing with earlier variations of the booster. The corporate stated that since it is the “first flight check of a considerably redesigned automobile,” it will likely be touchdown Tremendous Heavy at an offshore location within the Gulf of Mexico (renamed the Gulf of America in 2025 by President Donald Trump) for now.
As for the upper-stage Ship, the corporate will try and deploy the 20 Starlink satellite tv for pc simulators and two modified Starlink satellites it is carrying. The 2 modified satellites may have check {hardware} deliberate for Starlink V3 and can scan the Ship’s warmth defend. The photographs it takes will assist the corporate analyze whether or not the warmth defend is efficient sufficient for future missions to have the ability to return to their launch website. The higher stage may also conduct maneuvers to deliberately stress its rear flaps, in addition to mimic the trajectory future missions will take to return to Starbase.
You’ll be able to watch tonight’s launch try on SpaceX’s X account or within the video embedded beneath.
Watch Starship’s twelfth flight check https://t.co/wxna6dy4Lh
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 21, 2026
