SpaceX Starship: Ship 39 has completed its first full static fire, launch not before May

This first part of the month has been "dominated" by media attention for the Artemis II mission, which has brought humanity a bit closer to the Moon. Now that the mission is over and the astronauts have returned to Earth, attention turns to what comes next, namely the launch of Artemis III, when the lunar lander based on SpaceX's Starship and the Blue Origin Blue Moon MK2 will be tested in low Earth orbit (LEO).

The twelfth flight of Starship (Flight 12) is now expected no earlier than May, according to Elon Musk, accumulating some delays on the schedule. This suborbital mission will utilize Ship 39 and Super Heavy Booster 19 as hardware, and it will be the first with the third-generation units (V3). Once again, the first stage is expected to land in the Gulf of Mexico while the upper stage will be made to land in the Indian Ocean near the shores of Australia.

SpaceX Starship and New Tests Ahead of Launch

Musk has also stated that two successful suborbital missions will be needed before attempting to recover Ship using Mechazilla (the first orbital mission of this vehicle). At the end of March, Super Heavy Booster 19 completed some tests while in recent hours, Ship 39 has completed for the first time a full-duration static fire, testing the new Raptor 3 engines with their decidedly clean design.

Let’s remember that Starship will have to undergo several tests before becoming an operational vehicle. One critical point will be increasing launch capacity into orbit not only for the Starlink V3 satellites (useful for increasing profits for the American company) but also to create tanker versions and those for fuel transfer to demonstrate the transfer of cryogenic propellant between two units.

There will also be the HLS (Human Landing System) version which could be used for Artemis IV and Artemis V, bringing humanity back to the surface of the Moon. There are some renders and information about this version, but SpaceX has reportedly been conducting non-public tests alongside NASA for some time.

The launch of Artemis III is expected around summer 2027, and SpaceX could be surpassed by Blue Origin for NASA's choice of the lunar lander if Starship HLS is not ready in time. Clearly, this is completely different hardware with many positives (mass on the lunar surface) but also challenges (height from the ground, number of supplies in orbit, etc.). One possibility is that Elon Musk's company accelerates in the coming months, after the first third-generation units successfully complete their respective missions.