computer-science

SpaceX's Starship V3—still a work in progress—mostly successful on first flight

Ars Technica · May 23, 2026, 5:54 PM · Also reported by 4 other sources

Space X launched the first test flight of its upgraded Starship rocket and Super Heavy booster Friday, with mostly positive results. The powerful rocket, propelled by 33 methane-fueled main engines, climbed away from Space X's Starbase launch facility in South Texas at 5:30 pm CDT (6:30 pm EDT; 22:30 UTC) Friday. Within a few seconds, the 408-foot-tall (124-meter) rocket, the largest ever built, cleared the launch tower and turned onto an eastward heading over the Gulf of Mexico. Starship splashed down on target in the Indian Ocean a little more than an hour later to conclude the first flight of the latest version of SpaceX's stainless steel mega-rocket. Starship V3 fared better on its debut than the first flights of Starship V1 and V2 in 2023 and 2025. Both past versions of Starship broke apart during launch on their inaugural flights.Read full article Comments

Article preview — originally published by Ars Technica. Full story at the source.

Read full story on Ars Technica → More top stories

Also covered by

Dawn News SpaceX carries out mostly successful Starship test flight Dawn News Elon Musk's SpaceX carries out mostly successful Starship test flight Engadget SpaceX Starship V3's first test flight was largely successful Financial Times SpaceX launches redesigned Starship in successful pre-IPO test

Aggregated and edited by the Scoop newsroom. We surface news from Ars Technica alongside other reporting so you can compare coverage in one place. Editorial policy · Corrections · About Scoop

SpaceX's Starship V3—still a work in progress—mostly successful on first flight

Also covered by

More in computer-science