Starship V3 – SpaceX launched Starship Version 3 on Friday at about 6:30 P.M. EDT in the rocket’s first test in seven months, measuring 408 feet tall and generating 18 million pounds of thrust. The flight aimed to prove booster separation and a planned splashdown, while Sta
Around 6:30 P.M. EDT on Friday, SpaceX sent Starship Version 3 into the sky for its first test in seven months—one more step toward a future that NASA is already timing.
The flight. the twelfth test of Starship overall and the first of V3. lifted off with the rocket fully stacked with its booster. At 408 feet (124 meters) tall, Starship V3 is the tallest and most powerful rocket ever built, producing 18 million pounds of thrust. SpaceX designed the entire vehicle to be reusable. but for this demonstration the company was not attempting to recover either the booster or the rocket after the test.
The launch did not go perfectly at the start. In the initial stage of the flight. one of the 33 engines did not light as expected. yet the vehicle continued its ascent. After a couple of minutes. the booster separated from Starship and began its own descent. falling back to Earth to splash down in the Gulf of Mexico as planned a few minutes later. Starship then carried on—but with another complication: one of its six engines was also out. SpaceX said that the engine problem could change the scope of the mission.
Still, the mood on the ground was unmistakably celebratory. Whoops and cheers could be heard from SpaceX’s team even as the technical hiccup played out.
The test was built around three key milestones: launch, separation from the booster, and a planned splashdown. After the vehicle separated. Starship deployed 20 dummy Starlink Internet satellites at an altitude of around 195 kilometers. along with two operational satellites tasked with scanning Starship’s heat shield and sending image data back to Earth for further analysis.
About 47 minutes after lift off, reentry began. During this phase, Starship was set to carry out landing maneuvers that include a flip.
NASA’s top leadership was watching closely before the flight. NASA administrator Jared Isaacman praised SpaceX ahead of the test, tying Starship’s future to NASA’s Artemis timetable. He said. “We’re looking forward to meeting up with you all in low Earth orbit. ” referring to Artemis III in 2027. That mission will send NASA’s Orion crew capsule to dock with either (or both) a modified version of Starship and a Blue Moon spacecraft.
The stakes are larger than a single test flight. The 2027 Artemis III mission is described as a stepping stone toward NASA potentially using Starship to ferry astronauts from lunar orbit to the moon’s surface. with a landing planned for as soon as 2028. But the schedule has been under pressure: the rocket has already seen initial tests end in explosions. and the NASA watchdog—the Office of the Inspector General—has warned that SpaceX may be unable to deliver Starship in time for NASA’s upcoming Artemis missions.
Friday’s largely successful demonstration comes as SpaceX pushes toward major business and mission milestones at the same time. The company is moving to go public as soon as next month. and SpaceX has long pitched Starship as a workhorse capable of dramatically increasing how much it can loft into orbit in a single flight—up to 100 metric tons of cargo in its reusable configuration. The plan is to use that capability to grow its Starlink satellite Internet service. and eventually to build artificial intelligence data centers in space.
For now. the test continues to run on its own carefully planned arc: booster splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. Starship deployed satellites and began reentry. with landing maneuvers still ahead after lift off at about 6:30 P.M. EDT. It’s a moment the rocket’s engineers and NASA planners will be talking about long after the engines stop—because the next months are supposed to decide whether the vision catches up to the calendar.
SpaceX Starship V3 Artemis III NASA Orion Blue Moon Starlink reusable rocket Gulf of Mexico splashdown heat shield satellites engine issues