SpaceX Flies Starship V3 for First Time, Loses Engines but Hits Trajectory

SpaceX launched the debut flight of Starship Version 3 on May 22 from a new second pad at its Starbase facility in South Texas, marking the rocket’s first mission since October 2025 and the 12th overall suborbital test. The 408-foot vehicle reached space despite losing one of 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster at liftoff and one of six engines on the Ship 39 upper stage during ascent. The booster’s planned boostback burn failed, sending it into an uncontrolled fall to the Gulf of Mexico rather than a soft splashdown, while the upper stage completed reentry and a banking landing burn before toppling into the ocean as planned.

V3 is a substantial redesign aimed at moving Starship toward operational missions, replacing the V2 interstage ring with hardware integrated atop the booster for hot staging. The flight deployed 22 payloads through Ship’s PEZ-style dispenser, including 20 Starlink dummies and two camera-equipped satellites that imaged the heat shield tiles to test inspection capability. An in-space Raptor relight, considered critical for future lunar and Mars maneuvers, was scrubbed because of the lost upper-stage engine.

The stakes extend beyond SpaceX: NASA is depending on Starship as a crewed lunar lander for Artemis 3, targeted for mid-to-late 2027, with Blue Origin’s Blue Moon as the alternate. NASA administrator Jared Isaacman attended the launch in person, underscoring the program’s reliance on a vehicle that lost more than half a year of flight cadence after a booster was destroyed in November testing.