Elon Musk announces that the first launch of V3 version of "Starship" will be delayed another 4 to 6 weeks, currently scheduled for May.

Cailian Press News, April 4 (Editor: Shi Zhengcheng) On Friday, Beijing time, the world’s richest person, Elon Musk, announced on social media that Version 3 “Starship” vehicles and the booster still need to wait another 4 to 6 weeks.

(Source: X)
Based on this schedule, the much-anticipated test flight is expected to be postponed to early-to-mid May at the latest, leaving only about a month between it and the rumored SpaceX listing.

As background, Musk on January 26 this year posted, saying that “Starship” would launch within 6 weeks—by March 9. Later, on March 7, Musk posted again that the first launch of the V3 “Starship” was expected to be about 4 weeks later. As the 4-week deadline approached, the latest date shifted to May.

SpaceX’s last “Starship” launch was in October last year, which was the final flight of the second-generation model. At the time, the company said it would move on to the V3 version for performance and reusability upgrades. What also excited the market was that SpaceX vice president Kiko Dontchev publicly said at the end of last year that the V3 version would be a “mass-produced rocket.”

Meanwhile, after the V3 “super heavy” booster encountered setbacks in tests at the end of last year, it also completed static ignition tests in mid-March at the newly built Starbase pad 2. However, SpaceX said at the time that that test only ran static ignition for 10 engines and was terminated early due to a ground issue, and the next step would be to prepare for static ignition testing of 33 engines.

(Source: SpaceX)
Compared with the V2 version, the third-generation “Starship” is about 5 feet taller, with a larger fuel capacity. Its payload for low Earth orbit reaches 100 tons—nearly 3 times the 35 tons of V2. The spacecraft is equipped with an upgraded Raptor V3 engine and includes a docking adapter to enable fuel transfer in space. This is precisely the key milestone SpaceX is trying to break through this year.

As this delay comes about, NASA’s crewed lunar-orbit Artemis 2 mission is underway. NASA still plans to use SpaceX’s services to send astronauts to the Moon around 2028, but ongoing delays in development progress make this timeline precarious.

In a watchdog report disclosed by NASA last month, it said that a crewed lunar landing might require more than ten “Starship” launches. Multiple rockets will deliver propellant to Earth orbit, then transfer the fuel to a storage relay spacecraft. The relay will then refuel the “Starship” variant lunar lander for the journey to the Moon.

Each spacecraft needs about 1200 tons of liquid methane and liquid oxygen as propellant. These propellants must be kept at extremely low temperatures below −150°C. Such a scale of “space refueling” has never been achieved in human history.

According to NASA’s latest published Artemis mission architecture, “Artemis 3” will take place in mid-2027, testing docking between the Orion spacecraft and the lander being developed by SpaceX/Blue Origin.

If everything goes smoothly, the “Artemis 4” and “Artemis 5” missions in 2028 will attempt to send astronauts to the Moon.