FINALLY! SpaceX is on the edge of Starship's First Orbital Launch attempt...

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]SP X is about to set a world record launching the largest and heaviest object humanity has ever put into orbit.

[00:00:06]And that object, it's Starship, the spacecraft that's set to completely transform space exploration over the next decade. This big update just dropped straight from the latest FCC license modifications SP X filed right as NASA's Orion spacecraft successfully completed its lunar flyby. So, when exactly will Starship finally reach orbit for the first time? Why did SpaceX change the mission profile right now?

[00:00:34]Does it have anything to do with NASA's moon plans? Let's dive in. At last, NASA has broken its own record on April 7th.

[00:00:42]Orion successfully carried four astronauts through a lunar flyby, looping around the far side of the moon, where sunlight is completely blocked, allowing them to study the solar corona.

[00:00:53]The agency confirmed it on X, saying Artemis 2 has reached its maximum distance from Earth. On the far side of the moon, 252,756 mi away, Reed, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy have now traveled farther from Earth than any humans in history and now begin their journey home. Now, only one major challenge remains. A safe re-entry and splashdown in the Pacific expected around April 10th. That day could become a historic celebration for NASA with teams raising a glass to a flawless mission. Or it could bring back uneasy memories of Artemis 1 when Orion returned with a heavily damaged heat shield, a situation that raised serious concerns. But even if everything goes perfectly, we are only halfway through the story because the ultimate goal is still the same. Putting humans back on the moon. And for that, NASA is placing huge expectations on a completely different beast, the Starship human landing system, the crude lunar lander version of Starship. Right now, this vehicle is still deep in intensive and highly secretive testing at Starbase.

[00:02:01]Even with 247 surveillance, there are almost no visible clues about its progress. But before we even get to hls, just reaching orbit remains a major hurdle. Every Starship flight so far has been suborbital. Impressive, yes, but still far from the stable orbital performance needed for inspace refueling, traveling to the moon landing, and making the trip back. And that's where the pressure builds. While Orion is moving forward at remarkable speed, SpaceX is under growing pressure as the prime contractor for a system that could reshape humanity's future, turning the moon into a true human outpost. Because SpaceX isn't a traditional contractor like Loheed Martin or Boeing. It's the world's leading private space company. And with that comes a different level of responsibility. Now, the recent changes make the picture much clearer. But flight 13, that's where things get really interesting. SpaceX has updated the FCC license again. And this time, the wording clearly shifts. The first stage, the Superheavy booster, remains suborbital, but the second stage, the Starship upper stage, is now approved to reach and maintain a true orbit for the first time in this test campaign.

[00:03:13]There's no room for confusion here. The FCC explicitly authorizes frequencies and communication systems for an orbital second stage. That means Starship will perform an orbital insertion burn, coast in orbit for a period of time, collect long duration data, and only then execute de-orbit. Yes, this would be the first time the Starship upper stage is officially allowed to enter a real orbit. And it would also become the largest and heaviest object ever sent to orbit in a single launch. Think about that for a second. A vehicle about 52 meters tall, roughly the height of a 15story building with a mass around 1,000 tons. The ISS. The entire station weighs about 450 tons. It is the largest and heaviest humanmade object ever in orbit, but it was never launched in one piece. It was assembled over more than 40 missions across a decade. So, the first orbital flight of Starship could leave an impact just as powerful as the Apollo missions nearly 50 years ago. Are you excited for flight 13? Drop ago Space X in the comments below. So, when will flight 13 launch? First, they're taking more time to prepare properly.

[00:04:26]This is a critical phase with a long list of milestones still ahead. Getting the first ship 40 into orbit, successfully catching ship 41 or 42 and eventually catching the booster as well.

[00:04:38]But catching both stages is extremely difficult. It requires two fully operational launchpads and right now pad 1 is still not fully upgraded. Second, the IPO factor. SpaceX submitted a confidential filing with the SEC around April 1st, 2026.

[00:04:56]This is the first official step toward going public while keeping detailed financials private for review. And the targets are ambitious. A valuation around $1.75 trillion, possibly up to 2 trillion, raising about 50 to 75 billion, maybe more. If successful, this would become the largest IPO in history, far surpassing Saudi Aramco. So any Starship test, whether successful or not, could impact that plan. Delaying into May makes sense. Many in the industry believe this IPO won't just affect SpaceX. It could trigger a broader boom across the space sector as it reshapes valuations across the board.

[00:05:38]Stocks like Rocket Lab, AS, Space Mobile, and Intuitive Machines have already surged following the confidential filing news. Then July could be the window for flight 13. As mentioned earlier, this would be Starship's first true orbital flight.

[00:05:53]So, all eyes are now on ship 40, and so far it's in a very solid state. Ship 40 has been fully tiled with heat shield tiles inside Mega Bay 2 at Starbase.

[00:06:04]This is the most critical step for protecting the vehicle during re-entry.

[00:06:08]With the tiling complete, teams are now moving into final work, checking the forward flaps, installing additional systems, and preparing for cryogenic proof testing, followed by a static fire later on. But these steps will likely happen after Space X completes its evaluation of flight 12 because any issue found could be applied directly to ship 40. And with new versions, problems are almost expected. So if flight 13 slips into August, that would be completely understandable. Now, let's talk about its booster, booster 20.

[00:06:42]Right now, it's deep inside Mega Bay 1, where the stacking process is moving along at a solid pace. Spac X has already put together several key sections and the liquid oxygen tank looks essentially complete. Just this week, both the LOX landing tank and the A section were moved into the bay, which is a strong sign that the lower part of the booster is coming together nicely.

[00:07:05]The methane tank, on the other hand, hasn't started stacking yet, but the overall rhythm remains encouraging. If flight 12 goes smoothly, the gap between these two missions probably won't be too long. something the whole Starship team is clearly pushing for. One thing worth watching closely is the integrated hot stage ring once it rolls out from the Star Factory and heads into Mega Bay.

[00:07:28]One that'll be the clear signal that methane tank stacking is about to begin.

[00:07:32]So far, booster 20 is progressing roughly on par with booster 19, maybe just a touch behind, but it's still holding the high cadence we've come to expect from this new block 3 generation.

[00:07:44]Speaking of big picture ambitions, while the team at Starbase is busy stacking hardware for the near term, Gwyn Shotwell, the woman who has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Elon Musk for nearly two decades and now serves as SpaceX's president and COO, recently made a statement that turned quite a few heads in the space community. In a late March interview, she made it very clear, almost like a personal declaration. I will be disappointed if within the next 10 years we don't have a settlement on the moon and aren't building a manufacturing facility there. Hopefully, it takes half that time. That statement is not random. Gwyn is seeing a powerful convergence between AI, a field that's rapidly exploding, and access to space becoming cheaper than ever thanks to Starship. The core idea is to build data centers in space with hundreds of thousands, even millions of AI satellites acting as massive computing hubs. But instead of launching everything from Earth with high costs and strong gravity, Spac X wants to shift part of the manufacturing to the moon. Gravity there is only one sixth of Earth's. So if they can use local materials like regalith to build satellites, then launch them into orbit using mass drivers. Electromagnetic launch systems, the process becomes far cheaper and much faster. Gwyn lays out a clear sequence. Robots go first building the initial infrastructure. Then humans follow living and working on site. She believes humans could return to the lunar surface before 2030 with Starship HLS targeting around 2028. This marks an interesting shift. SpaceX has always emphasized Mars as the ultimate destination. But as Gwyn explains, Mars isn't being abandoned. The moon is simply becoming more urgent thanks to the intersection of AI and a real emerging space economy. And what makes this even more compelling is Elon Musk's reaction. He quickly reposted the interview and responded with just one word, true. For Elon, that kind of public agreement doesn't happen often, especially when the plan being discussed is this specific and time bound. It shows that both of SpaceX's top leaders are fully aligned on accelerating efforts toward the moon right now. Not just to land once like Apollo, but to build a base that can grow produce and become a launch point for something much bigger. Tower catch. A rocket recovery method unlike anything else on Earth.

[00:10:08]The kind that once made scientists and rocket engineers drop their jaws when SpaceX pulled off the catch of Super Heavy, a flying metal giant weighing over 200 metric tons as gently as a dragonfly landing on a branch. And yet, more than a year has passed since Starship Flight 8, and the company still hasn't attempted that historic catch again, despite millions of people desperately waiting for it. With Starship Flight 12, it made perfect sense that they skipped the catch attempt. Both the booster and the ship were flying in their brand new version 3 configuration for the very first time.

[00:10:44]So, nobody expected them to push for the high-risk tower catch on the debut flight. But here's what's more interesting. They're also holding off on the catch for flight 13. Instead, booster 20 will once again perform a soft splashdown in the ocean. And that decision is worth talking about. What makes this decision even more surprising is that this isn't some flight proven booster being retired after many missions. This is booster 20, a brand new vehicle with an estimated cost of around $60 million. Nearly half of that value comes from its 33 Raptor 3 engines alone, the single most expensive part of the booster. So, would SpaceX really walk away from months of engineering work and hundreds of tons of precision machined metal? It turns out everything they're doing comes down to trade-offs and priorities. To understand why SpaceX is willing to splash it down, let's look back at the history for a moment. With Starship version 1, it took four flights to gather enough data and confidence before they dared attempt the first tower catch. That milestone finally came on flight 5 in October 2024. With version two, they only needed one warm-up flight, flight 6, before pulling off a successful catch again on flight 7. Why could they accelerate so quickly?

[00:12:00]Because both V1 and V2 used essentially the same Raptor 2 engines. SpaceX knew every single detail. Pressure behavior, thermal responses, the works. That deep understanding carried over directly to the next version. But version 3 is a completely different beast. This is a significantly redesigned vehicle. Three grid fins instead of four, a longer booster, a new interstage, and most importantly, all 33 engines are now the more powerful and simpler Raptor 3.

[00:12:31]Flight 12 was the very first time this entire new configuration flew together.

[00:12:36]That means flight 13, only the second flight of V3, still carries a lot of unknowns in real world conditions. How Raptor 3 performs all the way through descent, how the booster handles atmospheric pressures at different flight phases, the aerodynamics of the new three grid fin setup, and a bunch of new flight software that still needs real validation. When you have that many unknowns, attempting a tower catch, one of the most precise and highest stakes maneuvers in all of rocketry, would be an unnecessary risk right now. This is exactly the cold, calculated trade-off SpaceX is making. For SpaceX, successfully catching the booster is already a technically solved problem.

[00:13:17]What they need more than another demonstration is pure flight data from this brand new vehicle. Data no other company on Earth can generate yet. data on Raptor 3 behavior, on the three grid fin aerodynamics, and on how a full V3 booster actually performs during re-entry. That kind of information is extremely valuable, especially when China and Europe are still trying to catch up. But there's another critical reason. Imagine the worst case scenario.

[00:13:44]They attempt the catch with booster 20 and it goes wrong. The loss wouldn't stop at $60 million. A 200 ton steel structure coming in at the wrong speed or angle could slam into the tower.

[00:13:55]damage the Mechazilla arms, destroy propellant lines, and potentially trigger a chain reaction explosion.

[00:14:02]Total damage could easily reach 300 to$500 million. We've already seen clear warnings of both sides of this risk. The explosion of ship 36 at Massie showed that even hardware sitting on the ground can cause massive destruction. And launchpad 1 has been offline since flight 11 for major upgrades, and it's still not back. Losing even one pad creates huge schedule pressure. If they lost pad 2 as well in a catch failure, the setback would be far worse than anything we've seen before. Overall, we're going to see a slightly less heartpounding and dramatic launch. But in return, the future of Starship will be much safer. So, do you agree with this trade-off? If yes, drop a yes in the comments below. And if you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the channel. Space is about to get a lot more exciting. So, hit that subscribe button so you don't miss any of the good stuff. The big question millions of people are asking is which flight will SpaceX attempt the next Superheavy tower catch? Flight 14, flight 15. The truth is it's not as simple as picking a number. It depends on a whole chain of prerequisites SpaceX is building step by step and more importantly what they choose to prioritize. According to Elon Musk himself, right now their priority isn't catching the Superheavy booster, it's catching the ship. Back at the end of February 2026, Musk clearly stated on X that SpaceX will only attempt a tower catch with the ship after completing two consecutive clean splashdowns with no explosions, driving the risk of a Starship breaking apart on land down to a very low level first. It's exactly the same methodical road map they followed with superheavy prove it's safe in the ocean before bringing the tower into play. And the reason the ship has to clear such a strict bar becomes obvious when you look at history. On flight 10, ship 37 survived re-entry but tipped over and exploded immediately after hitting the Indian Ocean. The cause traced to a burnthrough in the engine bay, likely from a clogged chill line.

[00:16:06]Starships simply aren't built to survive high-speed water impact. the thin stainless steel body, residual tank pressure after re-entry, even a minor issue at the end of the flight can turn into a catastrophic explosion. Every splashdown is essentially a race to complete all safe shutdown sequences before the hardware touches the water.

[00:16:26]That's a brutal constraint to engineer around, which is exactly what makes a successful ship catch so much more significant than catching the booster ever was. The super heavy separates early, flies through thinner air, and returns in roughly 7 minutes. Its trajectory is shorter and far more predictable. The ship, on the other hand, has to go all the way to space, survive the vacuum, then come screaming back into the atmosphere at nearly 25,000 kmh with surface temperatures exceeding 1,400° C. It has to arrive at the exact right point in space with the exact right speed, angle, and orientation for the Mechazilla arms to make the catch. All after its heat shield has endured one of the most extreme thermal environments ever engineered. A successful ship catch wouldn't just be a spectacular moment.

[00:17:16]It would be definitive proof that the entire re-entry and thermal protection system actually works. Musk has said the best window for that first ship catch is likely somewhere between flight 13 and flight 15, but it all depends on how cleanly the VA 3 flights go. So, will flight 14 bring a super heavy catch?

[00:17:36]Realistically, no. SpaceX will likely use it to complete that second clean ship splashdown. Flight 15 possible in theory, but there's a much bigger variable. The status of launchpad 1. Pad 1 is still deep in a major rebuild. New foundations, new flame trench, expanded tank farm, new orbital launch mount going in piece by piece. The site is active, but it won't be ready for dual stack operations this year. The dream scenario of catching Superheavy at pad 1 and Starship at pad 2 simultaneously is still out there, just not in 2026.

[00:18:12]Either way, this is the trade-off SpaceX keeps making, except the short-term cost of splashing hardware into the ocean in exchange for the data and confidence needed to build something that flies more often, costs less, and fails less.

[00:18:26]That's the whole game.