SpaceX Targets May 19 for Starship V3 Debut from Pad 2

SpaceX is now targeting no earlier than Tuesday, May 19 for the long awaited debut of the third major iteration of its Starship-Super Heavy rocket. The announcement came the day after the company completed an integrated tanking test. During a flight-like countdown, more than 5,000 metric tonnes (11+ million pounds) of propellant were loaded on the fully stacked Starship and Super Heavy V3 vehicles for the first time.

The mission, dubbed Flight 12, will be the first launch of what is collectively referred to as Starship V3. It will also mark the first launch from Pad 2, the updated version of the launch infrastructure supporting both launch and catch capabilities. Starship V3 will use a new iteration of the Raptor engines, referred to as Raptor 3 engines.

“The flight test’s primary goal will be to demonstrate each of these new pieces in the flight environment for the first time, with each element of the Starship architecture featuring significant redesigns to enable full and rapid reuse that incorporate learnings from years of development and test,” SpaceX said on its website. The test will evaluate a host of changes made to both the launch vehicle and the launch infrastructure as SpaceX prepares to support the Artemis 3 mission in 2027.

The flight profile remains a suborbital flight similar to previous Starship test missions. Because of all the new elements at play, SpaceX will not attempt a catch of either the upper stage, called Ship 39, or the first stage, called Booster 19. Booster 19 will perform a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about seven minutes after liftoff. Ship 39 will aim for its own aquatic landing a little more than an hour into the mission out in the Indian Ocean.

This version uses an integrated hot stage, which exposes the forward dome of the booster’s fuel tank during hot staging. Engineers included a non-structural steel layer that will work in concert with tank pressure to help shield the liquid methane tank from the fire of the upper stage engines.

The upper stage will deploy 22 simulator Starlink satellites, about double from previous flights, with two of them featuring new capabilities. “The last two satellites deployed will scan Starship’s heat shield and transmit imagery down to operators to test methods of analyzing Starship’s heat shield readiness for return to launch site on future missions,” SpaceX said. “Several tiles on Starship have been painted white to simulate missing tiles and serve as imaging targets in the test.”

Starship’s twelfth flight test will use a far more complete version of its heat shield. Unlike previous missions in which multiple tiles were intentionally removed, this time only one is intended to be missing at liftoff. “For Starship entry, a single heat shield tile has been intentionally removed to measure the aerodynamic load differences on adjacent tiles when there is a tile missing,” SpaceX said.

The Raptor 3 engines also underwent notable upgrades. “Raptor 3 engines deliver increased thrust, with sea-level variants now producing 250 tf (551,000 lbf) up from 230 tf (507,000 lbf), while vacuum engines produce 275 tf (606,000 lbf) up from 258 tf (568,000 lbf),” SpaceX said.