Elon Musk’s Starship rocket launched for the 12th time on May 23 and ended largely successfully with some hiccups along the way. The giant 408-feet-tall vehicle lifted off at 4 am IST [6:30 pm EDT] from Starbase, Texas, as the first of SpaceX‘s Version 3 rocket from the newly built pad 2.
While the liftoff was initially flawless, one of the 33 Raptor engines of the Super Heavy Booster shut down shortly after launch – but the remaining 32 were enough for the rocket to progress. The hot-staging maneuver required for separation of the Booster from the upper stage (also called Starship) went exactly as planned, allowing the two stages to achieve remaining objectives.
Liftoff of Starship! pic.twitter.com/LQLdjK5V6K
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 22, 2026
Following stage separation, the Super Heavy was to perform a flip maneuver and attempt a boostback burn. It ran into trouble here as well as all the planned engines failed to light up. As a result, the whole sequence ended early and the Booster made a hard splashdown, crashing into the Gulf of Mexico.
Not a smooth sailing for Elon Musk’s Starship
The upper stage (Starship), meanwhile, continued its ascent but it wasn’t a smooth sailing. During the ascent, Starship lost one of its engine, and flew with just five functioning ones. But on the upside, SpaceX said this demonstrated the Ship’s engine-out capabilities and it was able to achieve the planned trajectory. The loss of engine also forced SpaceX to skip the in-space engine relight of one of the six engines.
Moreover, all 20 dummy Starlink satellites and two modified satellites to image Starship in space was deployed successfully.
“In the final minutes of flight, Starship performed a maneuver to intentionally stress the structural limits of the vehicle’s rear flaps and a dynamic banking move to mimic the trajectory that future missions returning to Starbase will fly,” SpaceX said a statement.
In the final stages, Starship guided itself to the splashdown above the Indian Ocean and crashed, creating a giant fireball.
This was the first Starship mission since October 2025 and the first of this year. While this test flight didn’t achieve anything different than other missions, it did gather crucial data on the new V3 rocket, that may go on to land NASA astronauts on the Moon and Mars.
NASA administrator Jared Isaacman congratulated SpaceX and its CEO Elon Musk on the mission saying the launch has brought humanity “one step closer to the Moon… one step closer to Mars.”
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