Space-X’s Starship and Super Heavy booster Awaiting launch
SpaceX launched its anticipated third Starship test flight on March 14, reaching orbital velocity for the first time and taking a significant step closer to proving the readiness of its mega-rocket as a lunar shuttle. Starship has been selected to fly humans to the Moon for NASA’s Artemis 3 mission—the first time astronauts will visit the lunar surface since the early 1970s.
Starshipʻs third test flight used data from the previous two tests to improve performance, achieving a longer flight duration and ultimately reaching space for the first time. Unfortunately, neither Starship nor its Super Heavy booster survived long enough to land in the Indian Ocean as planned—but SpaceX lauded the test flight as a major success.
With Artemis 3 scheduled for 2026, SpaceX has less than two years to meet NASA’s stringent vehicle qualifications—an ambitious but achievable timeframe for SpaceX which has a track record of rapidly developing new technologies.