OCCUPY MARS
STARSHIP
Stainless, methane, chopsticks. Fully reusable is the only path to an order-of-magnitude drop in cost. V3 flies from Pad 2.
Stack
124 m
Booster
33 Raptor
Ship
6 Raptor
LEO
100–150 t
TIMELINE
Progress
2023
Integrated flight begins
The vehicle leaves the pad as a stack. The problem set changes from tanks and engines to staging, heat, and the ocean.
2024
Booster catch
Chopsticks close on a returning Super Heavy. Landing legs are a concession. The tower is the landing gear.
2025
Iterate in public
Version changes in steel, not in press releases. Heat-shield tiles, engine-out margins, and the gulf as a test range.
2026
Starship V3 / Flight 14
Third flight of the V3 vehicle from Orbital Launch Pad 2. The cadence is the product. Mars is still the requirement.
Making life multiplanetary.
First principles
Physics first
Start with mass, energy, and the rocket equation. Heritage is a suggestion, not a constraint.
The best part is no part
Delete before you optimize. A deleted part cannot fail, cannot delay, cannot cost.
Fly it
Hardware in the gulf teaches faster than slides. The test is the design review.
Make it useful
Starlink pays for the factory. The factory pays for Mars. A rocket without a payload is a statue.
Signal
Arstechnica · 35 minutes ago · Starship
Starship flight 15 powers to orbit—setting up a possible catch on Saturday
One way or another, the company will get some more data on Saturday.
SpacePolicyOnline.com · 1 hour ago · Starship
Starship IFT-15 is in Orbit — Will it be “Caught” When It Returns to Earth?
SpaceX launched the 15th Starship Integrated Flight Test (IFT-15) early this evening from Starbase, Texas. Plans to bring the first stage Booster back to the launch tower for a “catch” […]
Spaceflight Now · 6 hours ago · Starship
Live Coverage: Starship Flight 15 attempts to recover full vehicle in double launch pad catch
Liftoff of the integrated Starship vehicle from Starbase in Texas is scheduled during a 75-minute launch window that opens at 4:45 p.m. CST (5:45 p.m. EST / 2245 UTC) on Friday, Nov. 13.
Arstechnica · 13 hours ago · Starship
Rocket Report: Starship set for historic test flight; a century of Electron
"You can simplify it as a big tank feeding engines."