Starship V3: One Scrubbed Attempt. One Hydraulic Pin. One Day’s Delay. Then A Raptor 3-Powered Debut That Completed Most Of Its Objectives And Confirmed The Baseline Vehicle For NASA’s 2028 Moon Landing.
According to Space.com, SpaceX launched the newest version of its Starship vehicle for the first time on May 22, completing most of the planned test objectives for the suborbital flight. Starship lifted off from Orbital Launch Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas at 6:30pm Eastern; one day after a scrubbed attempt when a hydraulic pin in the launch tower failed to retract, preventing an arm with propellant lines from swinging clear of the vehicle.
Flight 12 marked the debut of Starship Version 3; the biggest and most powerful iteration of the rocket to date featuring many upgrades over its predecessors, including Raptor 3 engines on both the Super Heavy booster and Ship upper stage simultaneously for the first time.
The Ship upper stage lost one engine but performed most of its planned objectives and splashed down in the Indian Ocean as planned. The Super Heavy booster failed to perform its boost-back burn correctly and crashed into the Gulf of Mexico, but recovery of the booster was not planned for this flight.
SpaceX’s Starship V3 upper stage successfully deployed all 22 dummy Starlink satellites, with the process appearing to go smoothly and faster than previous payload deployments. Elon Musk congratulated the SpaceX team on “an epic first Starship V3 launch and landing. You scored a goal for humanity.”
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman was present at Starbase for the launch. A lot is riding on the success of Starship V3. NASA has selected Starship as the lander for its Artemis 4 astronauts during a lunar landing mission in 2028.
To check out our previous coverage on SpaceX and the new space race, read our articles here.
