SpaceX eyes mid-March for first test of upgraded Starship rocket

The delayed first test of SpaceX’s upgraded Starship rocket is now slated for mid-March, according to a post from CEO Elon Musk on his social media site X. This third version of Starship, or V3, is larger and more powerful. Crucially, the company plans to use Starship V3 to launch its next-generation Starlink satellites, which will be capable of faster data speeds but weigh more and are larger. It’s also the first version of the rocket that is meant to dock with other Starships in Earth orbit, a capability the company needs in order to reach the moon or Mars. This all comes as SpaceX is racing toward an IPO later this year, and under pressure from the Trump administration to return U.S. astronauts to the surface of the moon before the end of his second term. Starship, the most powerful rocket ever developed, is currently a key part of NASA’s mission to fulfill that goal. SpaceX was making progress toward a launch of Starship V3 in late 2025. But in November, the booster stage suffered an explosion during testing that blew out an entire side of the steel rocket. The company said it was performing “gas system pressure testing” when the explosion happened, but has yet to offer a more detailed breakdown of what went wrong. The company has been hoping to move on from the second version of Starship, which was a mixed bag. It was able to successfully reach orbit with Starship V2, deploy dummy versions of the next-generation Starlink satellites, and catch multiple booster stages after they returned to the launchpad. But Starship V2 also suffered a number of explosions and setbacks of its own. Some of those came as a result of SpaceX’s developmental approach, which involves pushing the test vehicles to — or past — their limit and then iterating based on what the company learns. Others were more unexpected, like when one of the Starship vehicles that sits atop the booster stage erupted in a massive fireball during ground testing last June. SpaceX has come to dominate the global launch market over the last decade, and it is relying on Starship to maintain that dominance. But competition is creeping in at the edges. Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin launched its first mega-rocket, known as New Glenn, for the first time in January 2025 and again in November. The company launched its inaugural commercial payload for NASA on that second flight and also completed the first landing of its booster stage. Blue Origin is planning a third launch of New Glenn in late February and hopes to send its own lunar lander to the moon sometime after that. While New Glenn is smaller than Starship, Blue Origin revealed late last year that it is developing a larger version of the vehicle that more directly competes with SpaceX’s super-heavy rocket.