First 'Block 3' Starship-Super Heavy Flight Set for May 19th

SpaceX has recently shared via social media and its website that Starship-Super Heavy's twelfth flight tests, the first with a 'Block 3' launch vehicle, is set to occur no earlier than May 19th from Starbase's second launch pad. The flight will utilize Super Heavy Booster 19 and Ship 39.

In preparation for the flight, Super Heavy Booster 19 has performed a thirty-three-engine, fourteen-second static fire on May 7th atop of the second launch pad to verify the set of 'Raptor 3' engines. Not long after, Ship 39 was brought to the pad and placed atop Booster 19 for a wet dress rehearsal that took place on May 11th.

Through the first five months of this year, Booster 19 and Ship 39 have completed other verification tests of their systems and new engines. Booster 19 has also assisted in the commissioning of the second launch pad through propellant loading and smaller static fires, after the first 'Block 3' booster, Booster 18, destroyed itself late last year.

Starship’s twelfth flight test will debut the next generation Starship and Super Heavy vehicles, powered by the next evolution of the Raptor engine and launching from a newly designed pad at Starbase. The launch is targeted as early as Tuesday, May 19 → https://t.co/2gZQUxS6mm pic.twitter.com/JxmpL2WE4w

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 12, 2026

Upgrades and changes were implemented across, increasing the total height of both and notably with the simplification of engine protection systems thanks to the introduction of 'Raptor 3', with liquid methane and liquid oxygen propellant systems modified to support it. Other changes across the Super Heavy Booster and Starship upper-stage for the new version include:

• Integrating Super Heavy's hot-staging ring with the remainder of the vehicle, mainly exposing a reinforced propellant tank dome to the initial thrust of an upper-stage.
• Reducing the total grid fins to three while increasing their size and including catch points on them.
• Addition of four docking points on Starship to enable future ship-to-ship propellant transfer operations.

For Starship-Super Heavy's twelfth flight test, SpaceX is hoping to basically proven all aspects of 'Block 3' booster flight, without risking the second launch pad's catch tower. That will see Booster 19 completing ascent and hot-staging of Ship 39, a boost back towards Starbase, before splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico.

Meanwhile, Ship 39 has a more complex flight plan after completing ascent out of the atmosphere and into almost-orbit, with the company writing:

"[Ship 39] will target multiple in-space and reentry objectives, including the deployment of 22 Starlink simulators, similar in size to next-generation Starlink satellites. The last two satellites deployed will scan Starship’s heat shield and transmit imagery down to operators to test methods of analyzing Starship’s heat shield readiness for return to launch site on future missions."

Ship 39 will also demonstrate an in-space relight of a 'Raptor 3' engine, along with a dynamic entry path to simulate returning from orbit to Starbase during descent and then splash down in the Indian Ocean near Western Australia.

2026, with six and a half months left, will be a critical year for Starship-Super Heavy. The vehicle must make it to orbit to perform a Ship-to-Ship propellant transfer to enable a crewed lunar landing in 2028, which itself may need fifteen flights of the vehicle. Orbital flights are also needed for 2027's Artemis III mission to test Starship's lunar lander variant in Earth orbit.

To meet Artemis goals, the first 'Block 3' flight needs to do better than those of the first three of 'Block 2', which saw Ship 33 being lost to a fire in its engine section in January 2025, another fire causing Ship 34 to be lost in March 2025, and Ship 35 being destroyed during atmospheric reentry following leakages across the vehicle in May 2025. 'Block 2' only had two successful missions, coming in August with Ship 37 and in October with Ship 38. During efforts to fly the previous version of Starship-Super Heavy, the explosion of Ship 36 damaged the only upper-stage static fire site for the remainder of 2025.