Tag: Starship

Link here. The testing has apparently verified the fueling system of Superheavy at the new launchpad.

Starship Flight 12 took another step toward launch, with Booster 19 completing an initial test campaign on the newly commissioned Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas. Culminating in a short Static Fire test, the series of tests was a first for Pad 2, the Block 3/V3 Super Heavy Booster, and for the upgraded Raptor 3 outside of single engine testing.

As the inaugural vehicle to undergo operations on this pad, B19’s campaign served as both a booster qualification test and a commissioning milestone for the expanded launch infrastructure, paving the way for a long-awaited static fire test of its Raptor 3 engines.

Lots of details worth reading. Ground testing will now shift to Starship. All in all, it does appear that an early April launch is likely.

Based on a tweet posted by Elon Musk on March 7, 2026, SpaceX now targeting early April for next and 12th Starship/Superheavy test orbital flight.

According to this update at nasaspaceflight.com, the Superheavy booster, the 19th prototype and the first version 3 booster, is now on the launchpad for final checks.

On March 8, Booster 19 left Mega Bay 1 and rolled down Highway 4 towards the launch site and Pad 2. This is the start of pad commissioning and booster engine testing for Block 3.

Booster 19 is mounted on Pad 2 to conduct multiple tests over the coming days. This will likely include ambient pressure testing, tanking tests with Liquid Oxygen (LOX) and Liquid Methane (LCH4), spin primes, and eventually a static fire, maybe even a couple of static fires. These tests are not only to help test the booster but also to test all of the pad systems.

While crews have run operations with the Pad 2 tank farm many times, they have never loaded an actual booster with propellant. With a booster finally on the pad, this will help in the final commissioning process.

For these initial pad and booster check-outs, #19 does not have all 33 engines installed. It appears the company wants to test the launchpad fueling system first, with the minimum number of engines needed.

Meanwhile, the Starship prototype that will fly, #39 in the series, is in the assembly building after completing its own series of tanking and launchpad tests.

I want to highlight two numbers — 19 and 39 — in order to illustrate how SpaceX does things versus NASA. Not only has SpaceX already completed eleven test flights of Starship/Superheavy, it has tested or flown 19 and 39 prototypes of each, in one manner or another. The company has a very rich history of hardware and testing as it ramps up towards operational flights. This practically guarantees that those operational flights will not only occur relatively soon, they will be relatively safe and robust.

This was all done in less than a decade, though most of the testing of those prototypes has occurred in the last six years.

NASA meanwhile began work on SLS about fifteen years ago, and has built two rockets total, and so far flown only one. Though the agency did a lot of tests of pieces of the rocket, it flew only one test launch, in 2022. SLS’s design is so cumbersome and expensive, the agency could not afford to fly it multiple times. Thus, much of its testing was done on computer screens, in simulations.

Which rocket would you want to fly on when both are operational?

Link here. The story details the repeated tank tests just completed on Superheavy booster prototype #19, intended to fly on the 12th Superheavy/Starship test flight now targeting a mid-March launch.

The article also describes the extensive repairs and upgrades to the Massey test stand facility following the explosion during a static fire test in 2025.

It does appear that the issues that caused the two recent blow-outs of Superheavy boosters in the past few months have been fixed, and that flight testing will resume in about a month.

According to a recent tweet by Elon Musk , the next Starship/Superheavy test launch will occur “in 6 weeks,” placing that launch sometime in mid-March.

Musk provided no other information, but this announcement suggests the company’s engineers now understand and have corrected the issues that caused two Superheavy ruptures during two different tank tests in recent weeks. It also suggests that the launchpad repairs and upgrades will soon be completed, and that a new version 3 Superheavy prototype is ready to go, replacing one that was damaged during those tank tests.

The mission specifics however remain unclear. SpaceX could repeat the flight path of the last few tests, in an orbit low enough so that the atmosphere will bring Starship down over the Indian Ocean. In such a flight the company would test refueling within Starship, restarts of its Raptor engines, and deployment of dummy or even real Starlink satellites.

It is possible however that this next test flight will go into a full orbit, and circle the Earth once or several times. SpaceX has said that in 2026 it intends to do a Starship refueling test using two Starships, launched several weeks apart. To do this more ambitious mission however it first needs to do at least one full orbital flight of Starship. Since the company has already tested on previous orbital test flights the restart of Starship’s Raptor engines — proving its capability to do a controlled re-entry — there really is no reason it can’t go for a full orbit on the next flight. There is even the possibility that Starship will come back to Boca Chica and be caught the company’s tower chopsticks, though this remains unconfirmed.

Link here. First, it appears construction of a second launch tower in Florida is about to begin. Second, the launchpad needed for the next orbital test flight of Starship/Superheavy is nearing completion.

Not only does this suggest the next test flight is only a matter of weeks away, the first launch out of Florida is not far in the future.

SpaceX has now confirmed that it is doing trial runs of a barge specifically designed for transporting Starship/Superheavy from the manufacturing facility in Boca Chica to its Florida launchpads.

[SpaceX’s Vice President of Launch, Kiko] Dontchev also clarified that both the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage would be tilted to a horizontal position for maritime transit, in response to an artist’s rendering of a Starship traveling vertically aboard a vessel. “Initial deliveries are a single booster or ship per trip, with the plan to move to multiple vehicles per transit sooner than later,” he wrote. “You’ll thank me later.”

These barge trials, combined with the fact that SpaceX has already shipped significant Starship/Superheavy components to Florida even as it builds rocket manufacturing facility there, strongly suggest the first Florida launches are not too far in the future, possibly even this year.

The eleventh orbital test launch of Starship/Superheavy is scheduled for 6:15 (Central) today. It will be the last flight for version 2 of Starship, and will also include the second reuse of a Superheavy booster.

Starship will repeat its flight plan from the previous flight, testing the deployment of dummy Starlink satellites, the relighting of its Raptor engines once in orbit, and various new configurations of its thermal protection system. It will come down in the Indian Ocean, either controlled or not. Future flights will use version three, and quickly move towards orbital flights and a return to Boca Chica for a tower chopstick capture and later reuse.

Superheavy, which flew previously on the eighth test flight, will do more engine configuration tests on its return, and will attempt a soft vertical splashdown in the Gulf.

You can watch SpaceX’s X live stream at the link above. I have also embedded Space Affairs youtube feed below.
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Superheavy after the October 2024 flight,
safely captured during the very first attempt

Link here. The update comes from a presentation given this week by Bill Gerstenmaier, SpaceX’s executive in charge of build and flight reliability, at the American Astronautical Society’s Glenn Space Technology Symposium in Cleveland.

Lots of new details. First, almost no tiles fell off during this flight. More significant, they found that the use of metal tiles won’t work. They tested three, and found that “The metal tiles… didn’t work so well.”

Gestenmaier also outlined how the flight provided the necessary data for sealing the gaps between the tiles better.

Gerstenmaier pointed to a patch of white near the top of Starship’s heat shield. This, he said, was caused by heat seeping between gaps in the tiles and eroding the underlying material, a thermal barrier derived from the heat shield on SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft. Technicians also intentionally removed some tiles near Starship’s nose to test the vehicle’s response.

“It’s essentially a white material that sits on Dragon and it ablates away, and when it ablates, it creates this white residue,” Gerstenmaier said. “So, what that’s showing us is that we’re having heat essentially get into that region between the tiles, go underneath the tiles, and this ablative structure is then ablating underneath. So, we learned that we need to seal the tiles.”

They hope to do the 11th test flight in October, repeating the same suborbital configuration of previous flights, using the same version 2 of Starship. The plan will then be to follow up with a first suborbital flight of version 3 in 2026, followed quickly by orbital flights. During one of those orbital flights they will also try to do a chopstick catch of Starship. They also hope to do the first refueling tests next year.

All in all, it appears the test program is proceeding as hoped, and is about to accelerate significantly.