{"id":683829,"date":"2026-05-20T21:45:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T21:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/683829\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T21:45:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T21:45:08","slug":"spacex-is-about-to-launch-the-most-powerful-rocket-ever-built-heres-how-to-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/683829\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX Is About to Launch the Most Powerful Rocket Ever Built. Here\u2019s How to Watch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alright, we don\u2019t want to jinx it, but it\u2019s looking like SpaceX will finally attempt to launch Starship V3 during the evening of Thursday, May 21. This new iteration of the company\u2019s super-heavy-lift rocket is the biggest, most powerful launch vehicle ever built. A successful maiden voyage could signal the start of a new era for SpaceX\u2014and the spaceflight industry writ large<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Late Tuesday evening, SpaceX shared<\/a> several photos of Starship V3 getting stacked on the launch pad at Starbase, Texas. The company had planned to launch Flight 12 on Tuesday but has bumped the mission back by 24 hours every day since Sunday. Now, the latest target appears to have stuck. As of Wednesday afternoon, SpaceX is aiming<\/a> to launch Starship V3 during a window that opens at 6:30 p.m. ET on Thursday.<\/p>\n

SpaceX\u2019s live webcast of the flight test will begin about 45 minutes before liftoff, and you can watch via the company\u2019s website<\/a>, its X page<\/a>, or any of the third-party livestreams below.<\/p>\n

Starship V3 faces its first test <\/p>\n

This mission will be the 12th test flight of SpaceX\u2019s Starship rocket, but the first for this version of the vehicle. CEO Elon Musk has said<\/a> that almost every part of Starship V3 is different from its predecessor, Starship V2. Indeed, engineers not only made this rocket bigger but also gave<\/a> it numerous upgrades to support increased payload capacity and\u2014in theory\u2014quicker turnaround between flights.\u00a0Starship V3 is also designed for orbital refueling, which will be critical for missions to the Moon and beyond.<\/p>\n

The rocket\u2019s journey to the pad hasn\u2019t exactly been smooth. It has faced several setbacks during pre-launch testing, including a booster explosion in November<\/a> and a Raptor 3 engine blowup in April<\/a>. As for the repeated Flight 12 delays this week, SpaceX has not offered an explanation, but the Occupational Health and Safety Administration is currently investigating the death of a contractor<\/a> who reportedly fell from a scaffold at Starbase on Friday. It\u2019s unclear whether the incident is related to the delays.<\/p>\n

Despite this, the targeted Thursday launch window continues to hold firm. The primary goal of this flight test will be to demonstrate each new element of Starship V3 in the flight environment, validating its capabilities. The booster\u2019s main objectives will be executing a successful launch, ascent, stage separation, boostback burn, and splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. Since this is the booster\u2019s first flight, SpaceX will not attempt to catch it using the Mechazilla launch tower\u2019s chopstick arms.<\/p>\n

Following booster separation, the Starship upper stage will continue on a suborbital trajectory. While in space, it will deploy 20 dummy Starlink V3 satellites and two modified Starlink satellites that will use cameras to beam imagery of the Starship\u2019s heat shield back to Earth. SpaceX will also attempt to relight one of the upper stage\u2019s Raptor engines in space. About 65 minutes after liftoff, Starship will reenter the atmosphere for a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n

If this all goes according to plan, Flight 12 will mark a major milestone for SpaceX\u2019s Starship program. The company needs to prove that V3 is ready to fly before it can ramp up its launch cadence. This test flight is the first step toward commercial viability, which would open the door to missions that are currently too ambitious to launch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alright, we don\u2019t want to jinx it, but it\u2019s looking like SpaceX will finally attempt to launch Starship…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":683830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,20188,128,285,5437,5436,28179],"class_list":["post-683829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rocket-launches","tag-science","tag-space","tag-spacex","tag-starbase","tag-starship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}