SpaceX prepares for Starship’s twelfth flight test

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]rapidly running leak checks on gas and fluid tanks. The booster goes to internal power and its engines get their final priming for launch while the ship's engines begin their ascent bleed profile and arms the automatic flight safety system.

[00:00:14]>> Yeah. And once we pass t-minus 40 seconds, we still have the ability to rapidly recycle the count under certain conditions back to t-minus 40 seconds and hold there to assess what happened, review the data, and decide if we can proceed again all the way down to t0. We estimate we have around 5 minutes of hold time there.

[00:00:35]The flame diverter on pad 2 activates at around tminus 17 seconds, and it enters what is essentially the point of no return at TUS 10 seconds. And there's a chance we could recycle, but the closer we get to t minus 10, the lower that chance becomes.

[00:00:52]>> All right, we are coming up on two minutes. We have completed propellant loading on the booster. Just shut down the fuel pump for loading onto the ship.

[00:01:02]So, we're closing all of that out now.

[00:01:06]Two minutes to go. One kind of exciting aspect to V3, we're not going to start the engines up in kind of different sets. All 33 of those Raptors going to turn on all at once. You're going to see the booster move off the pad a whole lot quicker.

[00:01:23]Once again, if you've just joined us, this is the first flight for version three of Starship. the ship, which is the upper part, the the black part there at the top, the booster, which is the part below that, have been completely redesigned, as well as the launch pad that you see it sitting at, as well as the engines that power both the ship and the booster. Today's test flight is a massive step forward in our developmental program.

[00:01:53]>> All right, and we're coming up here on Tminus one minute. So, let's go to the pad and let the rocket do the talking as V3 fully comes alive.

[00:02:07]>> T-minus 1 minute All right. So, we did hit the hold at tminus 40. Again, this is something that is built into the timeline. Not surprising as we are doing this this first flight off of pad two.

[00:02:48]Sounds like we might already be clear.

[00:02:50]We held for a second just to make sure that the quick disconnect vents were basically ready for their final throwbacks.

[00:03:00]We'll hang tight for a couple of seconds.

[00:03:04]I think we're about to reset. And the reset is in.

[00:03:08]>> Counting down. First flight of Starship V3.

[00:03:13]Psych back to rapid recycle.

[00:03:19]All right. So, hold here for a second.

[00:03:24]Looks like we're still managing some pressures in the ship. Quick disconnect.

[00:03:41]All right. It's still going to hang out for a couple of seconds here at T minus 40. Again, not not surprising. This is new vehicle, new pad doing all these things for the very first time. Right now, we are holding looking at some pressures in the quick disconnect and hold reset. And we're rolling.

[00:04:07]Flight directors go for launch.

[00:04:14]back to rapid recycle. So, we're going to hold a t-minus 40 again.

[00:04:27]Hang tight for a second. We'll see what trip this last one.

[00:04:34]As a reminder, we can hang out for quite a few minutes at T-minus 40 if we need the extra time.

[00:04:41]You're not actively loading propellant onto the vehicle anymore. So, the main thing you're kind of keeping an eye on is all of the temperatures inside those propellant tanks.

[00:05:21]All right, we're continuing to hang out here at Tminus 40.

[00:05:37]and taking a look right now at our diverter. So that that water diverter underneath the system did trip a hold, but that basically just gives the team a the a chance to look at it, see if it's something that we need to troubleshoot in data or if it's something that we can clear this hold.

[00:05:59]So continuing to hang tight. T-minus 40 seconds. Starship and Super Heavy fully loaded on the pad.

[00:06:08]Rock is rolling.

[00:06:16]230 flight directors go for launch.

[00:06:27]Kick back to rapid recycle again.

[00:06:31]Again, just a reminder, said it before, new pad, new rocket, learning new things about this hardware performing in the flight environment.

[00:06:49]Taking a look at some of the sensors on the arm that manages the quick disconnect to the ship.

[00:07:06]I promise we're not just trying to prolong the anticipation. Teams taking a look.

[00:07:17]We've got a couple more minutes where we can hang out here. Again, it's not an unlimited time to to pause at Tminus 40.

[00:07:25]We're keeping an eye on the propellant temperatures inside the vehicles. So, we've got probably about 3 minutes or so left of hold time.

[00:07:40]Team's taking a look at the hold that tripped on that that arm for the quick disconnect on the tower.

[00:08:01]Continuing to hold. Got a couple minutes to try and clear this issue.

[00:08:52]Still holding tminus 40. Still troubleshooting this issue.

[00:09:00]Probably got about a minute or a minute and a half left of hold time.

[00:09:43]Flight control team confirmed. Still working through the issue.

[00:09:49]Still have a short amount of hold time still remaining.

[00:10:28]Still holding t-minus 40.

[00:11:15]All right, still still continuing to hold here at T minus 40.

[00:11:20]While we do that, the team's looking at again looking at temperatures of the propellant inside those tanks. We kind of check that against simulations that we've run in the past. There's some margin in those. We're still holding no decision yet.

[00:11:45]Sounding like we have the fix in place.

[00:11:50]Hold reset. Clock is rolling.

[00:12:03]We're back into rapid recycle.

[00:12:17]All right, we're back at our Tminus 40 hold.

[00:12:21]Standing by to see what tripped us this time.

[00:12:49]All right, it is sounding like we are not going to be able to clear this issue in time today. So, we are going to be standing down from a launch.

[00:13:02]So, if you're if you're just now joining us, we got the vehicle totally loaded.

[00:13:07]We hit a couple of different holds as we work through that count. Again, new rocket, new pad. We're learning about a a lot about these systems as we execute them for the first time. And we're not able to basically troubleshoot all of these issues in those final seconds to get to launch. But that essentially makes this a wet dress rehearsal. We were able to fully load the vehicles and we're going to take the time now, figure out what tripped us up before launch and then actually get into a flight tomorrow. We do have the ability to essentially rapidly recycle. We are expecting to be able to make another flight attempt tomorrow, but obviously stay tuned to our social media uh at SpaceX OnX and our website spacex.com.