SpaceX
SpaceX’s first orbital Starship begins assembly as steel heat shield passes tests
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says that the company’s South Texas workforce has already begun to fabricate the first orbital-class Starship prototype, while Hawthorne engineers and technicians are in the midst of performing small-scale testing of the vehicle’s unprecedented stainless steel heat shield.
To be assembled out of hexagonal tiles of (presumably) stainless steel, Starship’s metallic heat shield will be one of the most crucial aspects of the orbital spacecraft, particularly with respect to ensuring that it’s extraordinarily easy to reuse. To survive extreme interplanetary-velocity reentry conditions at Mars, Earth, and beyond and remain in a functional, flight-ready condition after landing, SpaceX will need to implement the world’s first orbital-class, large-scale metallic heat shield with an immature technology known as transpirational cooling.
By quite literally drilling tiny holes (pores) into heat shield plates at the hottest parts of Starship’s hull, transpirational cooling effectively allows a large portion of the heat of reentry to be wicked away by the flash evaporation of a liquid, typically water. For SpaceX’s Starship, it’s likely that the coolant of choice would be either liquid water or liquid methane, the former of which offers better cooling per unit of mass at the cost of added plumbing complexity and spaceship mass, while the latter would make use of the same propellant fueling the ship at the cost of worse cooling per unit of mass. Either way, SpaceX will be heading into unproven territory, demanding extensive ground and flight testing to first ensure that the concept is truly viable and then to verify that it can be made as reliable and reusable as it simply has to be.
Tests like those shown on March 17th by Musk indicate that SpaceX is indeed deep into the process of extensive and often destructive testing, something the company has proven to be exceptionally good at. It’s unclear if the above test of Starship’s hexagonal heat shield tiles – likely made out of a variant of 300-series stainless steel – involved tiles with active or passive cooling, but Musk suggested that the hot-spots created with spin-forming torches reached temperatures as high as 1650 Kelvin (2500ºF/1400ºC. Unlike the ablative heat shields SpaceX is familiar with building and operating through its Crew and Cargo Dragon spacecraft, a stainless steel heat shield would be expected to almost entirely resist erosion (i.e. ablation) during extremely high-velocity reentries of at least 12-14 km/s (~31,000 mph, Mach 40+).
Update on the fairing and the unknown “2nd fairing” pic.twitter.com/5PMBYyBDAi— Austin Barnard? (@austinbarnard45) March 16, 2019
Meanwhile, Musk also confirmed that SpaceX has decided to skip constructing a replacement nosecone/fairing for Starhopper, a functional Starship prototype that will be used to conduct extremely short hop tests like Falcon 9’s development-era Grasshopper and F9R test articles. Over the last several weeks, SpaceX technicians have been rapidly assembling what was initially assumed to be the replacement fairing Musk had previously suggested would be built. Instead, the duo of stainless steel barrel sections – relying on steel much thinner than the heavy-duty stuff used to build Starhopper – are apparently the beginnings of the first orbital-class Starship prototype, said by Musk to be aiming for flight-readiness as early as June 2019 around two months ago.
While still an extraordinarily ambitious target for a vehicle that has yet to conduct any integrated hops or flight-tests in any form, the fact that SpaceX is began the process of building the first orbital Starship in late February could actually give the company’s engineers and technicians a fighting chance to complete Starhopper testing and Starship assembly over the next 90-100 days.
If stacked atop each other, the two new steel sections in work would likely stretch a solid 20-30 meters (65-100 ft) tall. Meanwhile, the first orbital-grade tank domes and/or conical nose section is also in the process of being welded together out of smaller segments, already fast approaching something ready to be installed inside the steel barrel sections.
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Elon Musk
Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12
Starship V3 reached space, survived reentry, and proved it can fly with engines out.
After two scrubbed attempts, SpaceX launched Starship V3 on Friday, May 22 from the brand new Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas, completing the most technically complex test flight the program has attempted and moving the bar in ways that matter for everything from commercial satellites to the first human Moon landing since 1972.
The Super Heavy booster lost an engine early during ascent and several more failed during its boostback burn, sending the stage into an off-nominal descent that ended in a hard landing in the Gulf of Mexico. SpaceX had planned a soft splashdown rather than a tower catch on this first V3 flight, so losing the booster was expected to be acceptable within the test parameters.
Ship 39 told a different story. The Starship upper stage reached its planned sub-orbital trajectory despite losing one of its vacuum Raptor engines, with the remaining engines compensating for the loss and keeping the vehicle on course. The spacecraft then survived atmospheric reentry, completed its belly-flip maneuver, and made a controlled upright splashdown in the Indian Ocean west of Australia.
Watch Starship’s twelfth flight test https://t.co/caRB1thMlg
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 22, 2026
The payload test is where Flight 12 separated itself from every previous Starship mission. SpaceX deployed 22 objects including 20 Starlink simulator satellites sized like next-generation V3 Starlink units, plus two specially modified satellites equipped with cameras that scanned Starship’s heat shield from orbit and transmitted imagery back to operators.
The broader significance of what was tested on Friday goes well beyond one mission. Every future Starship deployment, whether it is a batch of operational Starlink V3 satellites, cargo bound for the Moon, or eventually crew headed to Mars, depends on SpaceX being able to inspect and certify the heat shield quickly between flights. The camera-equipped satellites deployed on Flight 12 are the first step toward making that inspection process automated and data-driven rather than manual and time-consuming. If SpaceX can scan the heat shield from orbit after every reentry and flag damaged or missing tiles before the vehicle even lands, it fundamentally changes the turnaround time between flights. For a program that needs to refuel Starship in orbit using ten or more tanker launches before a single Moon mission can depart, launch cadence is everything. Friday’s payload test can be seen as building the maintenance infrastructure for rapid reusability.
Elon Musk took to X, following the successful tests, and noting: “Congratulations @SpaceX team on an epic first Starship V3 launch and landing!” “You scored a goal for humanity.”
The stakes behind that goal are concrete. NASA has selected Starship as the Human Landing System for Artemis IV, targeting a crewed Moon landing in 2028, and SpaceX has yet to demonstrate a full orbital flight, in-orbit refueling, or docking with an Orion capsule. Flight 12 proved V3 can fly, survive reentry, and deploy payloads under engine-out conditions. That is the foundation everything else has to be built on, and with a SpaceX IPO targeting June 2026, the timing of that proof of concept could not have been more useful.
SpaceX has decided to stand down from what was supposed to be the first test launch of Starship’s v3 rocket tonight after a minor issue with a hydraulic pin delayed the flight once more.
The company scrubbed its first test flight of the upgraded Starship v3 on May 21 in the final minutes of the countdown. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk quickly took to social media platform X, explaining that a hydraulic pin on the launch tower’s “chopsticks” arm failed to retract properly.
Musk added that the company would fix the issue this evening. SpaceX will attempt another launch tomorrow night at 5:30 p.m. CT, 6:30 p.m. ET, and 3:30 p.m. PT.
The hydraulic pin holding the tower arm in place did not retract.
If that can be fixed tonight, there will be another launch attempt tomorrow at 5:30 CT. https://t.co/DJAdvDYQpH
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 21, 2026
The countdown for Starship Flight 12 — featuring the taller and more capable V3 stack with Booster 19 and Ship 39 — had been progressing smoothly until the late-stage issue surfaced. The Mechazilla tower arm, designed to secure the vehicle on the pad and eventually catch returning boosters, could not complete its retraction sequence.
SpaceX teams immediately began troubleshooting the hydraulic system for an overnight repair.
Starship V3 introduces several significant upgrades over earlier versions. These include greater propellant capacity, more powerful Raptor 3 engines, larger grid fins, enhanced heat shielding, and an improved fuel transfer system.
We covered the changes that were announced just days ago by SpaceX:
SpaceX unveils sweeping Starship V3 upgrades ahead of May 19 launch
The changes are intended to increase payload performance, support higher flight rates, and advance the vehicle toward operational missions, including Starlink deployments, NASA Artemis lunar landings, and future crewed Mars flights. The debut flight from Starbase’s new Launch Pad 2 marked an important milestone in scaling up the fully reusable Starship system.
This stand-down highlights the intricate challenges of preparing the world’s most powerful rocket for flight. Despite extensive pre-launch checks, a single component in the ground support equipment can force a scrub.
The incident aligns with Starship’s proven iterative development approach. Previous test flights have encountered both successes and setbacks, each providing critical data that refines hardware and procedures. Some outlets may call some of these flights “failures,” when in reality, they are all opportunities for SpaceX to learn for the next attempt.
With V3, SpaceX aims to reduce ground-system dependencies and increase launch cadence to meet ambitious long-term goals.
Elon Musk
SpaceX just filed for the IPO everyone was waiting for
SpaceX filed its public S-1, revealing $18.7 billion in revenue and billions in losses.
SpaceX publicly filed its S-1 registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 20, 2026, making its financial details available to the public for the first time ahead of what could be the largest IPO in history.
An S-1 is the formal document a company must submit to the SEC before going public. It includes audited financials, risk factors, business descriptions, and how the company plans to use the money it raises. Companies are required to file one before selling shares to the public, and it must be published at least 15 days before the investor roadshow begins. SpaceX had already submitted a confidential draft to the SEC in April, which allowed regulators to review the filing privately before it went public.
The S-1 reveals that SpaceX generated $18.7 billion in consolidated revenue in 2025, driven largely by its Starlink satellite internet division, which posted $11.4 billion in revenue, growing nearly 50% year over year. Despite that growth, the company lost about $4.9 billion in 2025 and has burned through more than $37 billion since its founding.
SpaceX just forced Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile to team up for the first time in history
A significant portion of those losses trace back to xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, which was recently merged into SpaceX. SpaceX directed roughly 60% of its capital spending in 2025 to its AI division, totaling around $20 billion, yet that division lost billions and grew revenue by only about 22%.
SpaceX plans to list its Class A common stock on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX, with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America leading the offering. The dual-class share structure means going public will not meaningfully reduce Musk’s control, as Class B shares he holds carry 10 votes per share compared to one vote for public Class A shares.
The company is targeting a raise of around $75 billion at a valuation of roughly $1.75 trillion, which would make it the largest IPO ever. The investor roadshow is reportedly planned for June 5.
Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12
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