Elon Musk’s SpaceX postponed the launch of its Mega Rocket Starship Flight 12 after a series of technical issues on Thursday, May 21. If the faults are fixed, then the new scheduled date and time for the launch has been set at May 22, 6:15 PM EST (4:45 AM IST, Saturday, May 23).
The mega rocket was initially delayed by 30 minutes due to upper-level winds, but the final countdown was paused at the T-40 seconds mark before the mission was ultimately called off.
Starship Launch: What Makes the Flight Unique?
Flight 12 marks the highly anticipated debut of Starship Version 3 (V3), which stands as the largest and most powerful iteration of the rocket system built by SpaceX. Standing 407 feet tall when fully stacked, the V3 vehicle features heavily upgraded Raptor engines and is engineered to eventually handle mid-flight propellant refuelling for future NASA Artemis lunar missions. For this specific suborbital test flight, the vehicle is loaded with its heaviest payload to date, carrying 22 dummy Starlink internet satellites.
Timeline of the Launch So Far
The flight test was originally tracking toward a May 19 liftoff. SpaceX bumped the launch date twice by 24 hours to accommodate final ground system inspections, vehicle stacking, and preflight checks.
May 21 Scrub: On launch day, the launch window was initially pushed from 6:30 p.m. EDT (May 22, 4:00 AM IST) to 7:30 p.m. EDT (May 22, 5:00 AM IST) due to high winds. Ground teams resolved the weather hold but were forced to scrub the entire launch following a critical hold inside the final minute of the countdown.
Previous Starship Launches
SpaceX has conducted 11 integrated Starship flight tests to date, with the most recent mission launching on October 13, 2025.
·      Flight 1 (20 April 2023): The maiden integrated flight ended in a dramatic explosion four minutes after liftoff due to engine failures and a lack of stage separation, triggering the flight termination system.
·      Flight 2 (18 November 2023): Achieved successful hot-staging separation. However, the Super Heavy booster exploded shortly after, and the Starship upper stage was lost before reaching orbit.
·      Flight 3 (14 March 2024): Starship reached space for the first time. It completed several flight milestones, including opening its payload door, before breaking up during atmospheric reentry.
·      Flight 4 (6 June 2024): Marked the first double-splashdown success. Both the booster and the ship survived their descents to achieve controlled splashdowns in the Gulf of Mexico and the Indian Ocean, respectively.
·      Flight 5 (13 October 2024): A historic milestone where the Super Heavy booster returned to the launch site and was successfully caught by the launch tower’s “chopstick” arms. The ship achieved a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
·      Flight 6 (19 November 2024): Continued validation of the catch system and tested thermal protection modifications, with the ship successfully surviving reentry.
·      Flight 7 (January 2025): Launched the first next-generation Block 2 vehicle components. The booster was caught successfully, but the ship exploded before mission completion.
·      Flight 8 (March 2025): The upper stage exploded less than 10 minutes into the flight.
·      Flight 9 (27 May 2025): Tested the first reused Super Heavy booster, which performed aggressively before breaking apart near splashdown. The ship reached its target velocity but suffered an in-space propellant leak.
·      Flight 10 (26 August 2025): A complete success. The booster returned for a controlled Gulf splashdown, while the ship relit a Raptor engine in space, deployed dummy Starlink payloads, and splashed down safely.
·      Flight 11 (13 October 2025): Repeated the comprehensive successes of Flight 10, demonstrating stable vehicle performance and payload handling capabilities.
Flight 12 aims at deploying 20 Starlink mass simulators and two specially modified V3 satellites to validate operational handling, release mechanisms, and door operations.
