{"id":248553,"date":"2026-04-14T03:07:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T03:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/248553\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T03:07:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T03:07:09","slug":"when-is-spacexs-flight-12-south-texas-launch-latest-timeline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/248553\/","title":{"rendered":"When is SpaceX’s Flight 12 South Texas launch? Latest timeline"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday, April 13, marks six months to the day since SpaceX launched a Starship<\/a> into space from its launch facilities in Starbase\u00a0in the Rio Grande Valley.<\/p>\n

SpaceX last launched Starship on October 13, 2025. It was the 11th test flight of Starship overall and the last of five launches in 2025 alone. Last year, the privately owned company that Elon Musk founded with the goal of \u201coccupying Mars\u201d began launching Starship test flights early in the year. The first launch came on January 16, 2025, with others following every two to three months until Flight 11\u2019s October launch. But since then, things have been fairly quiet out at the end of Texas 4, the sole state highway that connects Elon Musk\u2019s Starbase<\/a> to the rest of the world. So, when can space fans expect to see the next Starship blast-off?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Though the SpaceX spacecraft goes by the name \u201cStarship,\u201d it is actually a combination of two separate vehicles \u2014 Starship and Super Heavy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The company describes Starship as a \u201cfully reusable spacecraft.\u201d Musk intends for Starship to be what one day transports humans to the surface of the Moon and to Mars. He also hopes to use Starship to launch\u00a0Starlink satellites \u2014 something that SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rockets already do.<\/p>\n

Super Heavy, meanwhile, is the massive, gravity-defying rocket booster that\u2019s powered by 33 of\u00a0SpaceX\u2019s Raptor engines. It\u2019s those engines that generate the thrust needed to propel Starship beyond Earth\u2019s atmosphere. Like Starship, Super Heavy is also a reusable vehicle that SpaceX has seen some success in returning safely to the Starbase launchpad.<\/p>\n

After Flight 11, Musk estimated that Flight 12 could occur in the first quarter of this year and as soon as March. But that estimate came and went. Musk later changed the estimated launch date to early April. Now, that estimate has been pushed back again to May, at the earliest.<\/p>\n

\u201cNext flight of Starship and first flight of V3 ship & booster is 4 to 6 weeks away,\u201d the tech billionaire said in a post on X<\/a> a few hours before dawn on Friday, April 3.<\/p>\n

While Musk has been teasing Flight 12 for months, local residents have known that the launch was still some time away. But recent activity has indicated that\u00a0SpaceX is getting tangibly closer to a launch date.<\/p>\n

Over the weekend,\u00a0Starbase Mayor Bobby Peden ordered the first road closure of the year<\/a> related to SpaceX activities. The road closure came as SpaceX crews worked to test-fire the latest Super Heavy booster, known as Booster 19.<\/p>\n

Peden has already issued another road closure for Tuesday, April 14<\/a>, that will last from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. The closure orders also cut off access to Boca Chica Beach, an undeveloped beach that lies just past SpaceX\u2019s launchpads.<\/p>\n

Flight 12 is a critical next step in\u00a0SpaceX\u2019s journey to create a manned spacecraft capable of reaching another planet for exploration and for possible colonization. Flight 12 will be the first time that the company puts the newest iteration of its booster rocket \u2014 Version 3 \u2014 to the test. According to Space.com, the third-generation vehicle is about 4 feet taller than the previous generation. It can also carry a heavier payload \u2014 up to 100 tons, versus just 35 tons in Version 2.<\/p>\n

Flight 12 also represents a major milestone for\u00a0SpaceX\u2019s launch facilities<\/a> themselves. The test flight will be the first to launch from the company\u2019s second launchpad<\/a>, which began construction just last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Monday, April 13, marks six months to the day since SpaceX launched a Starship into space from its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2319,2320,820,27,29,28],"class_list":{"0":"post-248553","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-mysacoast","9":"tag-mysasotx","10":"tag-mysastaff","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-texas-headlines","13":"tag-texas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}