SpaceX Starship V3 ready for liftoff today: What to know

SpaceX is gearing up for its 12th spaceflight, and a lot depends on its success. It’s the official debut of Starship V3, which the company has been actively testing since November 2025.

The launch is scheduled to take place on Thursday at 3:30 PM PT and last for 90 minutes. Wall Street investors view it as a make or break scenario for the future SpaceX’s upcoming IPOannounced this week.

Elon Musk SpaceX He launches the missile From its Starbase test site in South Texas. It will ascend to a low orbit, stabilize for a while and then descend, and the entire test is expected to take about an hour. The booster will fall into the Gulf of Mexico, and the upper stage into the Indian Ocean. SpaceX eventually intends to land the spacecraft for reuse, but for this test, it will all end up in the water.

This test flight will also include a satellite launch. According to SpaceX, Starship V3 carries two modified aircraft Starlink satellites Which will analyze the spacecraft’s heat shields to ensure they are working properly. Many of the spacecraft’s tiles are painted white to simulate missing tiles and will serve as targets for satellite images. One panel is also removed to measure aerodynamic differences between adjacent tiles during spaceflight.

Launch coverage begins at 3:30 PM PT and continues throughout the flight. Official streams are running SpaceX website and On X. You can too Watch it on YouTube Via third party channels.

Not a normal test launch

SpaceX’s test launches are fairly common. The company has conducted thousands of engine fires and hundreds of large-scale flight tests. It also launched more than 160 missions to orbit in 2025, setting a company record for most production flights in a single year.

The Starship V3 test flight has extra weight behind it because big things are happening in the rocket’s future. It is the missile that is expected to be carried Artemis IV crew to the surface of the Moon and return to Earth in 2028, which is also the rocket that SpaceX plans to use for deployment Starlink V3 satellites To orbit in the second half of 2026.

The biggest underlying story is SpaceX It plans to go public, which could be the largest initial public offering in stock market history. In a filing dating back to April, SpaceX says it wants to raise $75 billion, surpassing Saudi Aramco’s previous record of $29.4 billion in 2019. SpaceX plans to use the money raised to fund artificial intelligence, space exploration and satellite projects.

If Starship V3’s launch fails on Thursday, it could rattle shareholders. If all goes without a hitch, including an IPO next month, that could make SpaceX one of the most valuable companies ever, with a potential valuation of about $1.75 trillion.