The first test flight of the super-heavy Starship rocket in 2026 will take place in six weeks, at the beginning of March. This was announced by SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk in a post on social media platform X.
The upcoming mission will be the first flight of the updated version of Starship, designated V3. Numerous changes have been made to its design to improve reliability and increase payload capacity.
Previously, SpaceX had hoped to launch Starship V3 earlier. The flight was supposed to take place at the beginning of January 2026. These plans were thwarted by an accident in November last year involving the Super Heavy booster built for this mission. It was damaged during a pressure test and was subsequently scrapped.
The first flight of Starship V3 is expected to follow the pattern of previous tests, with the spacecraft splashing down in the Indian Ocean. If successful, SpaceX plans to launch the spacecraft into orbit during its next flight, after which it will attempt to land it.
According to SpaceX representatives, V3 will be the first truly serial version of Starship. SpaceX engineers plan to use it to test key elements such as orbital refueling, landing, and reuse. These are vital to the company’s plans to launch the next generation of Starlink satellites, as well as the Artemis program.
“The main breakthrough that SpaceX hopes to achieve this year is full reusability,” Musk said in an interview on stage at the World Economic Forum on January 22. “No one has yet achieved full reusability of rockets, which is very important for the cost of access to space.”
According to him, achieving full reusability could reduce the cost of access to space to less than $220 per kilogram. “This makes launching large satellites into space very cheap,” Musk said, including satellites that SpaceX has proposed for orbital data centers.
In 2026, SpaceX also plans to launch Starship from the east coast of the United States for the first time. The launch complex built at Cape Canaveral will be used for this purpose. The company hopes to carry out the first launch from its territory in the summer or autumn.
