SpaceX
SpaceX rocket fairing reappears on Mr Steven after six week hiatus
A hop and a skip away from SpaceX’s first Falcon 9 Block 5 recovery, the company’s famous fairing recovery vessel Mr Steven was caught by Teslarati photographer Pauline Acalin performing some unusual maneuvers at sea, hauling what can only have been the intact fairing half recovered after SpaceX’s March 30 launch of Iridium NEXT-5.
Why exactly the fairing half was aboard Mr Steven for high-speed trials and eventual delivery to Berth 240 – SpaceX’s future Mars rocket factory – is not entirely clear. The most obvious explanation is that these new operations are in some way related to Falcon 9 payload fairing drop tests hinted at recently by CEO Elon Musk, tests that would allow the company to hone the accuracy of the autonomous parafoils currently used to recover them. In light of Mr Steven’s newly upgraded net, the goal is to gently catch each fairing before they touch down on the ocean’s surface – per SpaceX’s Hans Koenigsmann, even partial immersion in seawater precludes any future attempts at reuse.
SpaceX technicians offload the Iridium fairing half from Mr Steven while docked at Berth 240, SpaceX’s BFR (Mars rocket) factory in-waiting. (Pauline Acalin)
While we originally speculated that water intrusion into the fairing halves’ aluminum honeycomb composite structures – a common failure mode in the history of the material’s use in aerospace – would pose a problem for fairing reuse sans net capture, the actual reason Koenigsmann gave was the fact that the environment inside Falcon fairings must be kept extraordinarily clean to avoid damaging the highly sensitive satellite and spacecraft payloads housed inside. In retrospect, it makes a whole lot of sense that cleaning a fairing thoroughly enough after exposure to seawater/sea spray and its multitudes of organic material, minerals, and simple saltwater could pose an extremely expensive (if not outright intractable) problem for routine reusability. Hence Mr Steven and his wonderfully analog recovery hardware (i.e. a giant net).
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- Fairing aboard, Mr Steven performed rapid turns and high-speed sprints with the fairing half aboard. (Pauline Acalin)
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- Mr Steven and his fancy net 2.0, caught on May 7. Bright yellow…for style. (Pauline Acalin)
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- On May 16, he arrived at Berth 240 with fairing half in tow. (Pauline Acalin)
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- Note the distinctive yellow netting draped over the fairing stand aboard Mr Steven. It’s unclear if this is actually the new yellow net spotted last week, or if it’s actually webbing dedicated to securing the fairing cradle. (Pauline Acalin)
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- It’s unclear why the Iridium fairing has been brought once again to Berth 240, aside perhaps from temporary storage. (Pauline Acalin)
After approximately six weeks of rest after its return to Port of San Pedro aboard Mr Steven, the fairing half found itself speeding around the mouth of Port of San Pedro aboard the net boat Mr Steven on May 16, after which it was carefully offloaded at SpaceX’s recently-leased Berth 240 facilities, set to one day become the company’s first Mars rocket and spaceship factory (currently housed in a giant tent a few miles away).
A careful scan of the day’s aviation activities showed no tracked helicopter flights that could have been involved in fairing drop tests, and it’s equally implausible that SpaceX would choose (or be permitted) to attempt to catch a 1000 kg autonomous parafoil a handful of miles from densely populated Los Angeles. Mr Steven’s distinctive yellow net – a brand new upgrade – was also visibly strewn about the vessel’s deck, over top of a basic wooden fairing stand, atop of which sat the sooty Iridium fairing half. Given the lengthy journey, it has made to be aboard Mr Steven, May 16’s unusual day of testing is presumably just the beginning of a number of outings, perhaps culminating in fairing drop and catch tests with a helicopter.
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- Regardless of why it’s there, the contrast of the dilapidated urban landscape and cutting-edge flight-proven rocket hardware is absolutely breathtaking.(Pauline Acalin)
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- Jump maybe 6 months ahead, and one can already begin to imagine that the first BFS test article may end up being craned aboard a barge before the exact same backdrop. (Pauline Acalin)
Regardless, the whole event was an incredible spectacle, caught in awesome detail by Pauline Acalin. One can only begin to imagine what other sights might one day – perhaps fairly soon – grace the dramatic dockside space SpaceX now owns at Berth 240.
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- It’s difficult to imagine how Mr Steven’s already vast net could plausibly be expanded by a factor of two in each dimension. I certainly can’t wait to see how SpaceX engineers and technicians tackle the task. (Pauline Acalin)
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- Fairing aboard, Mr Steven performed rapid turns and high-speed sprints with the fairing half aboard. (Pauline Acalin)
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- Mr Steven and the Iridium fairing half berthed at SpaceX’s Berth 240. (Pauline Acalin)
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- Mr Steven returns to port with the Iridium fairing half aboard. (Pauline Acalin)
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- Mr Steven out and about with a recovered but unreusable fairing half in May 2018, presumably for some sort of practice. (Pauline Acalin)
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- Mr Steven returns to port with the Iridium fairing half aboard. (Pauline Acalin)
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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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