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SpaceX to shrink, tweak Starship’s forward flap design, says Elon Musk
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says that there is a “slight error” with the current design of Starship’s forward flaps, necessitating a few small but visible changes on future prototypes of the spacecraft.
Measuring 9m (30 ft) wide and approximately 50m (~165 ft) from tip to tail, Starship is the combined upper stage, spacecraft, tanker, and lander of a two-stage, fully-reusable rocket with the same name. While SpaceX has a long ways to go to achieve it, the company’s ambition is for Starship and its Super Heavy booster to be the most easily and quickly reusable spacecraft and rocket booster ever built, nominally enabling the same-day reuse of both.
Beyond a Space Shuttle-style heat shield of blankets and ceramic tiles, the Starship upper stage is meant to achieve that reusability by descending through the atmosphere and landing unlike any other spacecraft, plane, or rocket ever flown. Instead of flying, gliding, or knifing through the atmosphere nose or tail-first, Starship freefalls perpendicular to the ground for the last few dozen kilometers (~10-20 mi) before aggressively flipping into a vertical orientation at the last second and landing propulsively on its tail. Now, according to Elon Musk, two of the four ‘flaps’ that largely make that exotic maneuver possible are set for a small but significant redesign.
Probably slightly further forward, smaller, more inward. No funny looking static aero at top, as static aero no longer directly in flow.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 18, 2021
Over the course of five suborbital test flights of full-scale Starship prototypes completed between December 2020 and May 2021, SpaceX took that exotic landing concept from the drawing board and subscale wind tunnel testing to reality. Though four of those five tests ended in destruction, their respective Starship prototypes really only failed in the last 15-30 seconds of test flights that were more than six minutes long.
After reaching an apogee of 10-12.5 km (~6.2-7.8 mi) over the course of some four and a half minutes, all five Starship prototypes successfully shut down their Raptor engines, tipped over onto their bellies, and then used a combination of small pressurized gas thrusters and four large flaps to stably fall back to Earth. Much like a skydiver can tweak their body, arms, and legs to control their orientation and attitude, Starship uses two pairs of forward and aft flaps to achieve a very similar level of control.
Thanks to Starship’s significant surface area and relatively low mass shortly before landing, that unprecedented freefall-style descent naturally slows the rocket to just 100-200 mph (~50-100 m/s) while simultaneously allowing SpaceX to avoid the massive complexity and added mass of structural wings or fins like those on the Space Shuttle. Further, whereas the Shuttle used its wings to glide (albeit like a brick) and land on very long runways, Starship is designed to use three of its six Raptor engines to flip into a vertical orientation and land much like SpaceX’s own spectacularly successful Falcon boosters.
During the actual process of reentry, in which Starship uses a heat shield made up of ~15,000 ceramic tiles to slow from orbital (Mach 25 or ~7.5 km/s) to subsonic speeds, those same flaps also come in useful to control the vehicle’s angle of attack and thus the degree of extreme heating experienced. According to Musk, to improve the moment arm (i.e. leverage or, all else equal, torque) of Starship’s forward flaps and reduce or remove undesirable aerodynamic characteristics, SpaceX is going to shrink those forward flaps further, move them closer together and more towards the tip of Starship’s nose, and angle them toward the ship’s leeward side (back).
Apparently, those relatively minor changes mean that a portion of Starship’s forward flaps will no longer be directly subjected to reentry heating, potentially allowing SpaceX to entirely remove static “aerocovers” that wrap around the ship’s flaps to prevent superheated plasma and gas from reaching sensitive components. Ironically, SpaceX’s thermal protection team completed the installation of heat shield tiles on one of those forward flap aerocovers for the first time ever just a few days ago – a structure and portion of heat shield that will apparently no longer be needed on future Starships.
For now, though, it looks like Ship 20 will attempt Starship’s first orbital launch with its now-outdated forward flaps. Depending on how far along Ship 21 production is, the next prototype could feasibly sport that new flap design.
NASA has filed a procurement notice announcing its intent to add six post-certification missions to SpaceX’s existing Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract. The agency said it would order up to three of those missions immediately upon adding them to the contract, with the remaining three available as needed through the end of the International Space Station’s planned operations in 2030.
The reason for the expansion is straightforward. NASA cited recently shortened ISS mission durations, technical issues and schedule delays encountered by Boeing, the allocation of missions between Boeing and SpaceX, and the ongoing technical challenges of maintaining a reliable crew transportation capability as the driving factors behind the decision. Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner has still not been certified for crewed flights, and a cargo-only Starliner mission was not included on NASA’s most recent mission manifest. With Boeing effectively sidelined for the foreseeable future, SpaceX is the only American company capable of rotating crews to the station.
The history behind this contract tells the fuller story of how SpaceX got here. NASA originally awarded SpaceX its Commercial Crew contract in 2014 for $2.6 billion. In 2022 NASA modified the contract to add five missions covering Crew-10 through Crew-14, worth $1.436 billion, bringing the total contract value at that point to $4.9 billion. The recent May 18 filing by NASA extends that runway further, with Crew-12 currently docked at the station and Crew-13 assigned and targeting a mid-September 2026 launch.
According to a report by SpaceNews, NASA stated in its filing: “It is necessary to award additional PCMs to SpaceX given the recently shortened ISS mission durations, technical issues and schedule delays encountered by Boeing, the allocation of missions between Boeing and SpaceX, NASA’s projections for when an alternative crew transportation system may become available, and the ongoing technical challenges of maintaining a reliable capability for crewed flights to ISS.”
No dollar value for the new six missions has been publicly confirmed yet, but based on the 2022 precedent of roughly $287 million per mission, the new block could represent close to $1.7 billion in additional contract value. With SpaceX simultaneously preparing Starship as NASA’s Artemis lunar lander, filing its S-1 for a June IPO, and now absorbing more ISS crew rotation work, the company’s role as the primary contractor for American human spaceflight is no longer a matter of circumstance. It is NASA policy.
In a notable intersection of Big Tech powerhouses, Meta, led by Mark Zuckerberg, has partnered with Canadian energy infrastructure giant Enbridge on a significant renewable energy initiative that will rely on battery technology from Elon Musk’s Tesla.
The project, which was announced this week, marks another step in Meta’s aggressive push to power its expanding data center operations with clean energy, dispelling many of the complaints people have about them.
This new development is located near Cheyenne, Wyoming, and will feature a 365-megawatt (MW) solar farm paired with a 200 MW/1,600 megawatt-hour (MWh) battery energy storage system, also known as BESS. Tesla is providing the batteries for the project, valued at roughly $200 million.
The story was originally reported by Utility Dive.
This Wyoming project represents the first phase of Enbridge and Meta’s joint “Cowboy Project.” Once operational, it will deliver power to Meta’s regional data centers through Cheyenne Light, Fuel, and Power under Wyoming’s Large Power Contract Service tariff.
This tariff, originally developed in collaboration with Microsoft and Black Hills Energy, is designed specifically for large loads like data centers. It ensures that the renewable supply serves hyperscale customers without impacting retail electricity rates for other users.
The battery system will operate under a long-term tolling agreement, providing dispatchable capacity that enhances grid reliability. During periods of high demand, the utility can access the backup generation, addressing one of the key challenges of integrating large-scale renewables with the explosive growth of data center electricity demand driven by artificial intelligence.
This latest collaboration builds on prior joint efforts between Enbridge and Meta in Texas, including the 600 MW Clear Fork Solar, 152 MW Easter Wind, and 300 MW Cone Wind projects. Together with the Wyoming initiative, the companies have now partnered on roughly 1.6 gigawatts (GW) of combined solar, wind, and storage capacity.
The deal highlights the intensifying demand for reliable, low-carbon power from technology giants. Meta has committed to supporting its data center growth with renewable energy, joining peers like Microsoft and Google in seeking large-scale solutions. Enbridge’s Allen Capps described the project as “one of the larger utility-scale battery installations supporting U.S. data center operations and growth.”
The involvement of Tesla’s battery technology adds an intriguing layer, linking two of the world’s most prominent tech leaders—Zuckerberg and Musk—in the clean energy transition.
As data centers continue to drive unprecedented electricity load growth across the United States, projects like this one illustrate how hyperscalers are turning to strategic partnerships with traditional energy players and innovative storage solutions to meet both sustainability goals and reliability needs.
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.
NASA just gave SpaceX more crew missions because Boeing can’t certify
Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12
