SpaceX is set to launch its record-breaking, ultra-powerful Starship 3 mega-rocket in a high-stakes test vital to NASA’s 2028 Moon landing mission
Elon Musk is about to unleash the biggest mega-rocket in human history next week in a mind-blowing space gamble that could change cosmic travel forever. SpaceX is gearing up to launch a massively overhauled Starship craft.
If the high-stakes test succeeds, the behemoth will shatter records as both the tallest and most powerful launch vehicle ever built. The world will be watching, but no one will be biting their nails quite as much as NASA, which is desperately relying on the vehicle to blast astronauts back to the Moon by 2028.
The colossal rocket is split into two main sections, with the upper stage known simply as Starship and the lower stage as Super Heavy.
Musk’s engineers have been working around the clock to completely redesign both halves since the last major test flight back in October.
The upcoming twelfth test flight, pencilled in to blast off as early as May 19, will debut the brand-new “Version 3” models of both crafts.
To make the stakes even higher, the rocket will be powered by upgraded Raptor 3 engines, which have only seen limited action so far, and will lift off from a completely redesigned launchpad at SpaceX’s Starbase in Texas.
The Super Heavy booster has had its steering grid fins chopped from four down to three, but their size has been beefed up by a whopping 50 percent to help guide it back to Earth.
Meanwhile, the Starship upper stage boasts a larger fuel tank, in-orbit refuelling gear and tougher heat shield tiles to survive the fiery wrath of atmospheric re-entry.
Standing at a dizzying 124 metres tall, it edges out the previous version by a metre. It absolutely dwarfs NASA’s current 98-metre Space Launch System (SLS) and even makes the legendary 111-metre Saturn V rocket from the Apollo Moon landings look small.
When it comes to raw power, Starship 3 will pump out an astonishing 75,000 kilonewtons of thrust. That is nearly double the power of NASA’s SLS, officially making it the most dominant rocket to ever leave the planet.
Experts have been left stunned by the sheer scale of the machine. Alistair John from the University of Sheffield has calculated that at peak output, the engines generate more power than the entire electrical grid of Germany.
While billionaire Musk ultimately wants his mega-rocket to colonise Mars and deploy satellites, NASA has put its faith in the vehicle for its historic Artemis programme. SpaceX is one of two companies chosen to build a lunar lander, alongside Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.
Following the success of the uncrewed Artemis I in 2022, a dramatic flight earlier this year carried four astronauts around the dark side of the Moon, pushing humanity further into deep space than ever before.
A newly uncovered NASA document has revealed the wild plan for the Artemis III and IV missions. Astronauts will blast off from Earth inside an Orion spacecraft before docking with “one or both commercial lunar landers provided by SpaceX and Blue Origin” in orbit.
The high-flying orbital ballet is required to load up on fuel and crew before making the final, perilous descent to the lunar surface, with NASA aiming to pull off the ultimate touchdown as early as 2028.
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