SpaceX has launched the newest version of its giant Starship rocket from a recently completed second pad at its Starbase manufacturing and test facility in South Texas.
This is the twelfth Starship test and the first demonstration of the rocket in seven months. As per the statement, 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.
The 407-foot rocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from SpaceX’s company town, Starbase, Texas, at 5:30 pm local time. Just a few minutes later, the upper stage ship separated from the Super Heavy booster and continued on into space.
According to the statement, fully stacked with its booster, the rocket is 408 feet (124 meters) tall and packing 18 million pounds of thrust; it is the tallest and most powerful rocket ever built. The entire vehicle is designed to be reusable, but SpaceX is not attempting to recover the booster or the rocket after this test.
The test flight aimed to show that Starship V3 can successfully launch, separate from its booster, and then splash down in the Indian Ocean.
Once separated from its booster, the spacecraft deployed 20 dummy Starlink Internet satellites at an altitude of around 195 kilometers, as well as two operational satellites that are designed to scan Starship’s heat shield and beam images back to Earth for further analysis.
“The new Starship V3 vehicle includes four passive connection ports on its back, or leeward, side (opposite the heat tiles on its belly), which are designed for docking and ship-to-ship fuel transfers,” as per the reports.
