Overview
- Starship V3, scheduled to lift off Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. ET from SpaceX’s Starbase in Texas, will fly a suborbital test from the new Pad 2.
- The Super Heavy booster carries 33 new Raptor 3 engines expected to deliver about 18 million pounds of thrust, a power jump tied to larger tanks, three bigger grid fins, and integrated hot‑staging hardware.
- The test plan calls for the Ship upper stage to relight one of its engines in space and to release 22 mock Starlink satellites to prove basic deployment steps.
- If all goes to plan, the 65‑minute flight ends with the booster splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico and the upper stage coming down in the Indian Ocean.
- NASA’s lunar lander plan depends on Starship developing in‑orbit refueling, and Reuters reports SpaceX could publish an IPO prospectus shortly after the test.