TL;DR
SpaceX’s Starship V3 deployed mock satellites but lost the Super Heavy booster to an explosion. The $75B IPO is three weeks away.
SpaceX launched the 12th test flight of its Starship rocket on Friday evening from Starbase, Texas, marking the debut of the upgraded Version 3 vehicle. The flight successfully deployed 20 mock Starlink satellites and beamed live video from space, but the Super Heavy booster was destroyed after separation, failing to achieve a controlled descent. The test came three weeks before SpaceX is expected to raise approximately $75 billion in what would be the largest IPO in history.
The 90-minute launch window opened at 6:30 p.m. ET after a scrub the previous day caused by a hydraulic pin on the launch tower that failed to retract. Starship V3 lifted off from a new launch pad at Starbase, powered by 33 Raptor engines generating 18 million pounds of thrust. The vehicle stands 408 feet tall when fully stacked and is the largest rocket ever built or flown.
The flight proceeded nominally through ascent and stage separation, but anomalies emerged almost immediately after the Super Heavy booster detached. During an engine relight sequence intended to steer the booster toward a controlled landing, failures destroyed a significant portion of the booster’s aft section, resulting in a loss of control. The booster was not attempting a landing at the launch tower on this flight but was targeting a controlled descent into the Gulf of Mexico.
The upper stage, designated Ship 39, continued on a suborbital trajectory despite losing one of its six engines during powered flight. It deployed the 20 mock Starlink satellites one by one, plus two actual modified satellites equipped to scan the spacecraft’s heat shield and transmit data back during descent. After reaching a speed of Mach 7, Starship lit two of its engines before splashing down vertically in the Indian Ocean, where it tipped over and exploded upon contact with the water, an expected outcome for this test profile.
SpaceX has spent more than $15 billion on the Starship programme, according to the IPO prospectus filed on Wednesday. The company describes Starship as “designed to deliver 100 metric tons to Earth’s orbit in a fully reusable configuration while enabling rapid turnaround times akin to commercial aviation.” Full reusability requires both the upper stage and the booster to return intact. Friday’s flight achieved neither, though it demonstrated that the core mission profile, satellite deployment from a suborbital trajectory, works with the V3 hardware.
The IPO prospectus confirmed that Elon Musk holds approximately 42% of SpaceX’s equity but controls roughly 79% of votes through a dual-class share structure. The company was valued at $1.25 trillion in February when it merged with xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence startup. It is now targeting a $1.75 trillion valuation for the public listing, with a 21-bank underwriting syndicate and a global roadshow expected to begin in the week of 8 June, with a listing date reportedly targeted for 12 June.
NASA administrator Jared Isaacman flew to Starbase before the launch and appeared on the company’s livestream in a flight suit alongside SpaceX employees. Isaacman, who commanded two private SpaceX missions before leading NASA, has a close personal relationship with Musk. NASA is relying on a modified Starship to land astronauts on the moon under the Artemis programme in 2028. The booster failure on Friday does not directly affect the Artemis timeline, but it demonstrates that the V3 vehicle’s propulsion systems require further development before crewed flights can be considered.
In a surprise announcement during the pre-launch wait, SpaceX confirmed that private explorer and cryptocurrency billionaire Chun Wang, who commanded the Fram2 polar orbit mission, will lead the first Starship flyby of Mars, which will also swing past the moon. No timeline was given.
Friday’s test was SpaceX’s first Starship launch in seven months, following a string of explosions and setbacks in early 2025 that disrupted air travel due to falling debris. The company flew five Starship test flights in 2025 against a stated target of 25. The FAA has authorised SpaceX to increase its launch cadence at Starbase to up to 25 launches per year, and a separate February 2026 authorisation cleared up to 44 Starship launches per year at Pad LC-39A in Florida.
Starship is central to SpaceX’s Starlink business model. The company launched over 3,000 satellites on 122 Falcon 9 missions last year, but Starship is designed to carry and release significantly more satellites per trip, enabling the expansion needed to serve dense urban areas and support the growth trajectory that Starlink’s 10 million subscribers and projected $20 billion in 2026 revenue require. The IPO arrives alongside listings from OpenAI and Anthropic, creating a combined demand for more than $150 billion in institutional capital that could reshape public markets.
The booster failure will not stop the IPO. SpaceX’s prospectus explicitly warns investors that “Starship development involves substantial risks including launch failures” and that test flights may not achieve all objectives. Investors buying SpaceX shares are buying the Starlink revenue machine and the Starship vision, not a guarantee that every test flight will succeed. But the optics of a booster exploding three weeks before the largest IPO in history are not the ones SpaceX would have chosen. Flight 13 is already tentatively scheduled for June.
