Starship
A fully reusable super heavy-lift system built to carry humanity to the Moon and Mars.
Two-stage, fully reusable super heavy-lift launch system · first flight April 20, 2023 (first integrated flight test) · May 22, 2026 (first Block 3 / V3 flight)
Starship is SpaceX's next-generation launch system, and the largest, most powerful rocket ever built: a 9-meter-diameter stack now standing 124.4 meters tall in its current Block 3 ("V3") configuration, made almost entirely of welded stainless steel. It consists of two parts — the Super Heavy booster and the Starship upper stage, itself usually just called 'Ship' — both designed to be fully and rapidly reusable.
Where Falcon 9 recovers only its first stage, Starship is designed so that nothing is thrown away. SpaceX first caught a returning Super Heavy booster with the arms of its launch tower — nicknamed 'Mechazilla' — in October 2024, and has repeated the feat on later flights; catching the upper stage the same way is still ahead of the program as of mid-2026, with Ship currently returning to a landing at sea.
Every part of the system is being developed through an aggressive, iterative flight-test campaign — building, flying, and rebuilding hardware at a pace closer to aircraft development than traditional rocketry. Twelve integrated flights had flown by mid-2026, the most recent introducing the upgraded Block 3 vehicle and its Raptor 3 engines; Flight 13 is in its launch campaign this month after a scrubbed first attempt. Starship is the vehicle NASA selected to land astronauts on the Moon under the Artemis program, and it's the vehicle SpaceX has designed from the ground up with an eye toward Mars.
Full technical breakdown
Dimensions
- Total stack height
- 124.4 m (408 ft)Block 3 / "V3"
- Diameter
- 9 m (30 ft)
- Super Heavy booster height
- ~71 m
- Starship (upper stage) height
- ~53 m
Performance
- Payload to LEO (reusable)
- 100 tdesign target
- Payload to LEO (expendable)
- 220 tdesign target
- Liftoff thrust
- ~89,500 kN (~20.1M lbf)more than 2× Saturn V
- Liftoff mass (full stack)
- ~5,300 tapproximate, fully fueled
Reusability
- Super Heavy recovery
- Caught by launch-tower arms ('Mechazilla')
- Starship upper stage
- Belly-flop reentry, flip, tower catch or landing
- Turnaround goal
- Rapid reuse with minimal refurbishment
- Structure
- 300-series stainless steel
Propulsion & fuel
- Propellant
- Liquid methane / liquid oxygen ('methalox')
- Engine cycle
- Full-flow staged combustionRaptor
- Header tanks
- Dedicated landing-propellant reserves
Engines
Raptor 3 (booster)
×33~2,700 kN (250 tf) sea level per engine
CH4 / LOX, full-flow staged combustion
Power the Super Heavy booster; gimbaled outer and center rings provide steering through ascent and boostback. Raptor 3 simplifies plumbing and sheds mass versus earlier Raptor versions, raising thrust-to-weight.
Raptor 3 (ship, sea level)
×3CH4 / LOX
Fitted to the Starship upper stage for ascent, landing burns, and low-altitude maneuvering.
Raptor 3 Vacuum
×3~2,750 kN (275 tf) vacuum per engine
CH4 / LOX
Extended-nozzle variant on the upper stage, optimized for efficient burns once in the vacuum of space.
Defining features
Full & rapid reusability
Both the booster and upper stage are designed to be recovered and reflown — the first orbital-class system engineered from day one for neither half to be discarded.
Tower-catch recovery
Rather than landing legs, Super Heavy is caught mid-air by mechanical arms on its own launch tower, saving the mass and complexity of a leg structure on the largest booster ever flown. SpaceX first pulled this off in October 2024; catching the Starship upper stage the same way is the next milestone still ahead of the program.
Stainless-steel airframe
Starship trades exotic composites for 300-series stainless steel — cheaper, easier to work with at scale, and more resistant to the heat of reentry than aluminum-lithium alternatives.
Built for the Moon and Mars
A crewed lunar lander variant of Starship is NASA's chosen Human Landing System for Artemis, while the vehicle's deep-space design goal remains a reusable transport to Mars.
Starship timeline
- 2019
Starhopper
A stubby single-engine test article makes the first untethered hops on Raptor power.
- 2021
SN15 high-altitude flight
A Starship prototype flies to ~10 km, performs a belly-flop reentry, and lands successfully for the first time.
- 2023
First integrated flight test (IFT-1)
Super Heavy and Starship fly together for the first time as a fully stacked vehicle.
- 2023
IFT-2 reaches stage separation
The second integrated test achieves hot-staging separation between booster and ship.
- 2024
First tower catch of Super Heavy
During Flight 5, a Super Heavy booster returns to the launch site and is caught by the tower's arms for the first time.
- 2024
Europa Clipper rides Falcon Heavy, not Starship
A reminder of where the program stood: NASA's flagship planetary mission still flew on the proven Falcon Heavy while Starship's test campaign continued.
- 2026
Block 3 ("V3") debuts
Flight 12 introduces the taller, upgraded Starship V3 and Raptor 3 engines — surviving an engine-out during ascent to reach its planned trajectory.
- 2026
Flight 13 launch campaign
A July 16 launch attempt is scrubbed after Raptor 3 ignition issues; SpaceX swaps engines and targets July 20 for the next attempt, this time carrying the first V3 Starlink satellites to orbit.