SpaceX has launched its upgraded third version of its Starship rocket for the first time, but the test launch didn’t go perfectly for Elon Musk’s spaceflight company.
The 407-foot rocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from SpaceX’s company town of Starbase, Texas, at 5:30 p.m. local time. Just a few minutes later, the upper ship separated from the Super Heavy Booster and continued into space.
The booster flew away from the spacecraft and returned to Earth, where it was scheduled to perform a mock landing in the Gulf of Mexico. However, the booster’s engine did not reignite properly for sustained combustion to deliver it back to the launch site. The booster fell into the water, where it likely exploded.
Meanwhile, the Starship lost one of its six Raptor engines while ascending into space. However, all 20 Starlink satellite simulators, along with two modified Starlink satellites, were successfully deployed to record external imagery of Starship. Roughly an hour after liftoff, Starship simulated an Indian Ocean landing before flipping over and exploding as expected.
Although it didn’t go exactly as planned, this was an important test launch for SpaceX. This was the first substantial change to the upgraded Starship V3 hardware, which has been in development for several months. The company was also testing an entirely new launch pad at Starbase that it had been developing and building for several years.
The test launch also comes at a historic inflection point for SpaceX as a company. IPO applications were released this week, and SpaceX is expected to list on Nasdaq in mid-June. The IPO will reportedly raise about $75 billion for SpaceX, which it plans to use to fuel further development and large-scale AI ambitions, as well as pay down some of its debt related to xAI and Musk’s social media company X. (That means this may be the last Starship test launch that could occur without a stock market reaction.)
SpaceX has invested years and billions of dollars developing Starship, which it believes will be critical to its mission to create life on multiple planets. The company plans to use Starship for NASA’s exploration of the Moon and, ultimately, Mars. But the big task in the near term is delivering more advanced Starlink satellites into Earth orbit. Because Starlink is the only profitable part of SpaceX’s business.
This was the first spacecraft flight since October 2025. SpaceX had planned to attempt a Starship V3 launch earlier, but one of the first upgraded boosters suffered an explosion during a test in November. According to Musk, SpaceX attempted a launch for the first time on Thursday, but ultimately had to postpone the launch because the hydraulic pins on the launch pad arm would not retract.
This new version of Starship features SpaceX’s third-generation Raptor engine with more thrust and a much simpler design. The new booster is designed to increase takeoff speed and make it easier to catch on the launch pad.
This story has been updated to include information about the Starship mock landing.
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