Starship Flight 12 Full Analysis: What Went Well & What Went Wrong | Starship Update

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]Starship is back. Version 3 has made its long-awaited debut on Flight 12 as the vehicle has returned to the skies after a seven-month wait. SpaceX has also unveiled plans for a crude Starship mission to fly by Mars and the Marmarmac 31 transport barge, aka you'll thank me later, is on route to Starbase. We have got an action-packed show for you this week with in-depth coverage from right here in Starbase and all the way out to the Indian Ocean. So, without further ado, let's go ahead and dive into this week's Starship update.

[00:00:40]Let's start this week off with the undisputed star of the show, Starship Flight 12. Now, it's worth mentioning that we already gave this flight a full breakdown in our last episode of this week in space flight. So, if you're looking for a quick rundown of everything that happened, that is the perfect place to start. But, this is Starship update after all. So, we're going to go much deeper into details and taking a closer look at all the different aspects of the flight. So, sit tight. Let's begin with the booster side of things because several moments really caught our attention. First and foremost, it was genuinely impressive to see booster 19 successfully light all 33 Raptor 3 engines right from the start.

[00:01:14]And while it's true that one engine was lost during ascent, it happened well after the halfway point of booster's ascent. And honestly, from that point on, the overall performance wasn't that different from some of the previous flights that were still flying with the Raptor 2s. So, that's promising. Another point was the massive 270°ree roll program the rocket performed right off the launch mount. This was to align itself with the desired downrange trajectory. On pad one, the roll wasn't nearly as extreme because the vehicle was more or less already facing its desired direction of travel. But pad 2 is oriented differently, which required a much more aggressive roll maneuver this time around to point the rocket down range. For this flight, being the first with both new pad infrastructure and a brand new launch vehicle, we expected a much quicker liftoff. SpaceX can now hold the rocket down on the pad and bring the engines up to full throttle before release, unlike pad 1.

[00:02:03]On top of that, the Raptor 3 engines deliver significantly higher thrust, giving Starship a much higher thrust to weight ratio. As a result, just putting this launch side by side with Flight 11 really shows how much faster the stack gets off the pad. Now, from ignition to first motion and from first motion to tower clear, the improved booster performance and the higher thrust to weight ratio were also clearly visible in the speed at hot staging. Starship version one used to stage at around 5,300 km/h. Version two brought a bigger and heavier Starship, while the booster more or less stayed the same, which dropped the staging speed to roughly 4,700 km/h. But version three now has surpassed both. On flight 12, the rocket was already traveling over 5700 km/h at the moment of hotstaging. Another change here was in the hot staging sequence.

[00:02:49]Instead of shutting down all but three engines like before, SpaceX now shuts down all but five with two engines from the inner ring of 10 joining the central cluster of three. We also learned the plan for the boost back burn was to ignite all 33 Raptor 3 engines. Yeah, you heard that right. All 33. That's pretty remarkable when you think about it. Without Starship on top and a majority of the propellant already used during ascent, the booster would have weighed a fraction of what it did at liftoff. It appears that only about 10% of propellant remained according to SpaceX's graphics on stream. That would have roughly translated to about 12 or 13 gs of deceleration right from the start of the boost back burn, depending on the booster's dry mass and assuming full thrust across all engines. But of course, with the boost back burn scheduled to last a full minute, it seems obvious that all 33 engines wouldn't stay lit for that entire duration. Unfortunately though, we never got to see how the burn exactly would have progressed because several engines were lost almost immediately, forcing an abort of the boost back maneuver, which brings us directly to the hot staging event itself. For Starship version 3, SpaceX planned to perform the directional flip of the booster by first lining up the Arvac engines and then bringing up the sea level engines in a staggered sequence to push the booster in a desired direction. On this flight, engine number one was first fired on the ship, followed shortly after by the other two. That sequence should have driven the booster straight up into the flip, but instead the booster flipped sideways and began to immediately rotate. We're still not 100% certain if that was the intended outcome, though.

[00:04:14]SpaceX did know on their website after the flight that it had performed a directional flip, so it's possible that was the outcome that they were going for. We'll need at least one more flight to get a clearer answer. We also have to give a big shout out to the booster's grid fins and the entire guidance and navigation team. After rolling out of control following the boost back abort, the booster was able to regain attitude control once it descended into thicker atmosphere. The grid fins then successfully guided it all the way down to its watery grave in the Gulf after failing to relight any further Raptor engines. And the booster was cooking.

[00:04:44]The last recorded data, at least on stream, had shown it was still traveling at 1,454 km an hour or 93 mph when the altitude was reading zero. So very much still supersonic if true. What an impact that must have been. I mean like just instantly vaporized or something. But while they didn't have a successful boost back or landing burns, they still pulled a huge amount of valuable data on the aerodynamic performance and control of those grid fins. Now, it's time to dive into the ship side of flight. And there is a lot to unpack here. As you've probably seen by now, ship 39 experienced an early engine out with one of the Arvac engines shutting down just 36 seconds after ignition. That meant the remaining five engines had to burn longer than planned to make up for the lost thrust. About 70 seconds longer, in fact. On the live camera feeds, we could see clear signs of damage in the engine section, and it was obviously very hot down there. Several components were glowing a bright red, including part of the inoperable Arvac that faced the sea level engines. The sea level engines were also slightly gimbled left in the engine bay camera view, actively compensating for the thrust imbalance caused by the lost Arvac. Once the ship had completed its ascent burn and entered the coast phase, attitude control was critical. But ship 39 handled it flawlessly though, maintaining a stable orientation throughout the entire coast. Version 3 ship design has introduced several new vents for attitude control. So this successful demonstration was a very important milestone heading into later flights. We also saw the successful deployment of all 20 Starlink simulators along with the two modified V2 mini satellites that SpaceX has affectionately called the Dodger dogs.

[00:06:19]So far, SpaceX has only released one short video from the cameras from these satellites. So, we're hoping to see more footage dropping in the coming weeks.

[00:06:26]With the help of the attitude control indicators on SpaceX's stream, we can see ship using its new thrusters to roll and deliberately present its heat shield towards those deployed satellites.

[00:06:35]Because of the lost Arvac during ascent, SpaceX made the call to skip the planned inspace engine relay demonstration. That decision also meant the satellites stayed much closer to the ship than they otherwise would have during re-entry. So when the time came, you could see them burning up right behind the ship, tiny glowing dots trailing in their own streaks of plasma. And that brings us to ship's re-entry. Some of you asked in our previous episode why there were tiles on the leeward side of the ship's body and flaps. During their coverage, SpaceX confirmed that they were testing new tile attachment methods to see how they would hold up during the intense forces of flight. These tiles were not intended for re-entry protection, nor were they a preview of a fully tiled ship. just one more round of valuable tile attachment testing. During flight, ship 39 put on an impressive demonstration of Starship's cross- range capabilities. Because of the off nominal trajectory caused by the early engine out and subsequent deletion of the Raptor relight test, the vehicle had to compensate with a much longer re-entry profile to reach its intended landing target. Not only that, it also had to steer farther south than planned since its original path would have carried it noticeably further north. If you watch the telemetry closely, you'll see the ship using its lift vector to not just arrest its descent, but actually generate aerodynamic lift to gain altitude. I think that's actually a first for ship as well. The attitude graphic on stream confirmed the ship yod south for essentially the entire main entry phase, actively flying itself towards the targeted landing zone.

[00:07:59]Despite that extended and more demanding entry, ship 39 displayed excellent thermal protection performance. There were no major tile losses visible during re-entry and no noticeable burnthroughs of any of the flaps. The ship also survived the aggressive aerodynamic test of the a flaps that happens in transition between entry interface and belly flop and then executed its dynamic banking maneuver, simulating ship's final approach to the launch site. This time around, that banking turn was visibly more aggressive than what we saw on flight 11. The ship's landing burn was also performed with just two engines instead of the plan three, most likely because that third engine wasn't in a good enough condition after the flight.

[00:08:35]But this isn't entirely new territory, though. We saw SN15 pull off a successful two engine flip and landing burn all the way back in 2021. That said, Ship 39 began to roll towards the end of the burn as it transitioned down to a single engine. If you watch the attitude indicator, you can see it execute a full 360° roll right at the finish. After the flight, SpaceX released footage from several new camera angles of the landing burn, and it looked so much better than anything that we have seen before on previous ships, despite only using two engines. Ship came home with a remarkably clean heat shield, no visible tile loss. The Leeward side stainless steel had been beautifully tempered by the heat of re-entry, giving it that signature shiny almost rainbow like finish with blues and purples and yellows. If that's how used ships are going to look in the future, like that's going to be awesome.

[00:09:23]The test tiles on the leeward side also stayed firmly in place. And of course, we got to see some extreme gimbal control authority of those Raptor engines working hard during the final landing burn. But it's not just SpaceX dropping some awesome footage, though.

[00:09:37]We've got several incredible prints of this flight now available at shop.saspaceflight.com, either available on metal or paper.

[00:09:44]There are some from Tyler Gray, plus a few of my own, including this dramatic view of Super Heavy's 33 Raptor engines just after a liftoff. That one still gives me chills every time I look at it.

[00:09:55]Like it it's it's real. Like it happened. So that was a much closer look at everything that unfolded during Starship flight 12. With all of that now said and done, there are some items that will still need to be addressed. The booster's directional flip and boost backburn startup chief amongst them. But these are the kinds of challenges that SpaceX has already shown that they can solve in previous vehicle versions. Now honestly, it's just a matter of time and dialing it all in. Now, you might be wondering, doesn't the FAA usually take a close look when certain things don't go according to plan? Well, yes, they do. On previous flights, similar anomalies led to official mishap investigations, requiring SpaceX to file reports and wait for solutions to be signed off before flying again. So, we reached out to the FAA to see where they stood this time. Their response was interestingly vague. Here's what they told us. The anomaly involved the Superheavy booster during its flyback over the Gulf of America. There are no reports of public injury or damage to public property. The FAA is assessing the operation. A mishap determination has not been made at this time. So, right now, it remains unclear whether this will ultimately be classified as a mishap under their current criteria, which is why no formal decision has been made yet. Now, moving beyond flight 12 itself, there were several other developments in the leadup to launch that are worth covering. For example, SpaceX had the chance to discuss the Artemis program directly with NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, who visited Starbase during the second launch attempt. He had also done a previous flyover of the site, which our cameras had managed to capture. SpaceX also announced the Starling team is actively investigating the potential of building its own dedicated Starling constellation around the moon. The concept involves a relay shell of satellites that would connect via lasers back to the main Starlink network in low Earth orbit, delivering a significantly higher bandwidth and reliable connectivity across the entire lunar surface. We've already seen a glimpse of how powerful laser communications can be with a demo flying aboard Artemis 2 and Orion. So, this could evolve into an incredible system. Imagine highdefinition live streams from the moon in near real time. I guess we're going to have to start planning our own moonbased live 24/7 stream. But that wasn't the only big announcement, though. Chun Wang, the commander of the From 2 mission and the first crude spacecraft to fly over Earth's poles, has secured a crude flyby mission to Mars aboard Starship. According to SpaceX, this will be the first crude interplanetary mission in Starship's history and is expected to last approximately 2 years. And because it's a flyby, the mission does not require landing on Mars or developing insitu resource utilization to refill the ship for its return to Earth. Instead, Mars' gravity will handle that trajectory.

[00:12:25]While this is not the first time this kind of free return flyby profile has been proposed, it is the first time someone has put real money behind the cause using a vehicle that's already in active development for exactly the kind of deep space mission that it was always destined for. Prior to that Mars mission though, Chun will first join Dennis and Akotito on the long planned first crew to Starship flyby of the moon, a mission that has been under contract for several years now. As for timelines, SpaceX didn't provide a target year during the announcement. However, Chun himself hinted in a post on X last year that this mission could realistically happen as early as 2034. So, we're looking at a few more years of waiting, though. But, as we all know, missions of this scale and importance don't happen overnight.

[00:13:07]Starship Flight 12 also left us with lots to talk about regarding the launch itself. We were all eager to see how well this new pad, tower, and flame trench held up under the power of this new and upgraded launch vehicle. The verdict? The new pad design proved itself extremely well. There was little to no visible structural damage across the entire pad surface. The biggest issue we could spot was just some paint chipping off the BQDs, which, let's be honest, is not really a huge concern.

[00:13:31]The perimeter around the pad took a bit more of a beating, though. One of the burn walls was knocked over by the sheer power from those 33 Raptor 3 engines, and the gateway to Mars sign didn't hold up too well either. Shocking, I know, given its proximity to pad 2. The acoustic energy from this launch was apparently more than this new sign could handle. Pretty much the entire to Mars portion had vanished along with multiple letters from gateway. So it was more like gateway to I don't even know at that point. And oh no indeed as Chun Wang himself posted a view from one of our live cameras showing the signs demise. Thankfully though most of our field equipment came through undamaged just pretty dirty but nothing we can't clean up though. Once again, the strong performance of this new pad was exactly what we needed to see. It's proving the infrastructure is ready for rapid reusability, and right now, the entire launch site looks to be in overall fantastic condition. Starship flight 12 may have thrown booster 19 and ship 39 into the drink. But of course, the show goes on, which means it's time to turn our attention to flight 13 and the vehicles assigned to it. Ship 40 has been pretty quiet inside of Mega Bay 2 for quite a while now. It's possible SpaceX may have been holding off on major work until both flight 12 vehicles were out of the picture and delivered their flight data since ship 40 is currently slated for flight 13. It completed its cryogenic testing campaign earlier this month. For those who might not be familiar, crowd testing is one of the very first qualification trials a Starship vehicle must go through. The tanks are loaded with liquid nitrogen and liquid oxygen to stress the tank structures and verify all systems under flight pressures and temperatures. Based on previous timelines with ship 39, we would have expected ship 40 to roll back out to Massie sometime in the next couple of weeks. However, with all of this new data from flight 12 now in hand, SpaceX will likely want to make some adjustments to it. So, we should take that timeline with a grain of salt.

[00:15:20]What is probably the single biggest delaying factor for flight 13 though, apart from Raptor 3 itself, is booster 20, which still has yet to complete its crowd test campaign. During flight 12, booster 19 didn't quite perform as cleanly as SpaceX would have hoped. So, it's looking like SpaceX will need to implement some additional updates on the booster side before the next flight. And unfortunately, given how booster 19 ended up, it's becoming increasingly unlikely that booster 20 will attempt to catch at pad 2. SpaceX still hasn't successfully demonstrated a full landing burn with the new Raptor 3 engines yet or in this booster configuration. So, that particular milestone will probably have to wait for booster 21 or even farther down the line. Inside Star Factory, ship 42's nose cone, likely destined for flight 15, is looking almost complete and nearly ready to roll out to Mega Bay 2 for stacking. It probably won't make the move until after ship 41 has already finished stacking, though. Based on previous patterns, SpaceX usually maintains around a 2-month gap between major rollouts from Staractory, at least for now. During SpaceX's live stream on Flight 12's first launch attempt, we got some great internal views of Staractory, and two key components stood out. Ship 41's aft section, the final major barrel section needed to bring the vehicle to full height. And interestingly, ship 42's a section already under construction, even though ship 42 hasn't even begun stacking yet. Ship 41 already received its transfer tubes and raceways in Mega Bay 2. The next major step is for the app section to roll out, which should happen any day now if they want to stay on the current timeline, unless of course flight 12 data requires some lastminute changes. Time for our McGregor minute. Raptor 3 demonstrated its raw power during flight 12, but it also revealed the engine isn't quite as reliable as we had hoped just yet.

[00:16:55]Although, we should once again emphasize the word yet there being these were the first ever Raptor 3s to fly. In the days prior to launch, SpaceX had only conducted five test firings of Raptor 3 at the McGregor test site. A bit lighter than usual, these were likely part of the qualification process for the engines destined for later flights. Of course, flight 12 itself delivered an enormous amount of real world data with multiple engine outs and rods in the booster, plus the Arvac shutdown of the ship that we covered earlier. This means the McGregor may temporarily shift focus toward resolving these issues with Raptor 3 before continuing with qualification of additional engines.

[00:17:29]Problems like we saw are pretty much expected when introducing a brand new and sufficiently more powerful engine compared to Raptor 2. And it's not the first time we've seen teething issues, especially with the vacuum variant.

[00:17:40]Hopefully SpaceX can turn this around quickly and deliver much greater reliability on flight 13 because we are all eager to see boosters finally being caught again and ships making it all the way to orbit as soon as possible.

[00:17:50]Finally, let's head across the Gulf from Starbase and all the way to Florida Space Coast. Marmarmac 31 recently departed Port Canaveral and is journeying down to the Port of Brownsville, just a short drive from Starbase. For anyone who might not be familiar, Marmarmac 31 is one of SpaceX's lawn serving transport barges.

[00:18:06]It's been used in the past to move large fuel tanks and other hardware. More recently, SpaceX announced that it would be dedicated to transporting Starship vehicles between Starbase and the Cape.

[00:18:15]And they've now installed a large roof to protect payloads from the elements during the voyage. We're curious to see what happens once the barge arrives at Starbase, and especially which vehicle will be the first chosen to make that journey to Florida. But now with that in the water, let's talk about what's actually happening at the Cape. Over at launch complex 39A, more tanks have been delivered and moved into position, steadily expanding the growing Starship tank farm. It shouldn't take much longer before the whole setup is pretty much complete. The delu side of the tank farmer appears fully operational or nearly. The pad has successfully completed another pair of delu tests, though we still haven't seen that top deck firing yet. New NASA flyover imagery also shows solid progress at Space Launch Complex 37. Work continues on the concrete base of the site's first launch tower, while the foundation work has already begun on the second launch tower. In addition, one of the tower roofs is currently being assembled on site. We're not yet sure whether it's destined for one of the complex 37 towers or even that for 39A. An FAA OEAA filing or obstruction evaluation and airport airspace analysis mentions the use of an LR11000 crane to install a tower roof at launch complex 39A. We've also spotted excavation work underway for the flame trench at the first pad at 37. It looks very similar, if not identical, to the one here in Starbase, which has now successfully proven itself against the version 3 vehicle. The Cape's ASU site at 37 is also making steady progress. This facility will be critical producing the large quantities of liquid oxygen and liquid nitrogen along with similar amounts of other support gases that will be essential for launching Starships from Florida. Well folks, we are finally at the point of being able to discuss flight 12 in the past tense now. And as strange as that may be, the show goes on and we must shift our focus towards what's next, flight 13. Data is invaluable, so we are eager to see what has been learned and is applied with upcoming objectives and campaigns. Remember, only the paranoids survive. When do you expect flight 13 to happen at its earliest? When will booster 20 come outside and begin testing? And what objectives do you think SpaceX will target on the next mission? Let us know in the comments section down below. I'm Max Evans from NSF. Thank you so much for watching and I'll catch you on the next