Full presentation:

Slides from the presentation

Starship mission timeline for next 4 Earth-Mars transfer windows every 26 months:

The next opportunity is in the end of 2026, with landing in 2027:

SpaceX Mars mission in 2026:

SpaceX Mars mission in 2028:

Primary candidate sites for SpaceX Mars base are located in Arcadia Planitia: forare located in

SpaceX’s latest vision for a City on Mars:

Why humanity should expand to Mars?

Future iterations of the Starship:

Starship Block 3 specifications:

In future Starship will have 9 Raptor engines (3 sea level and 6 vacuum):

Super Heavy Block 3 specifications:

Moon Base Alpha (Atemis Base Camp): SpaceX’s latest vision for(Atemis Base Camp):

Starship’s heatshield should work both on Earth and Mars:

SpaceX Spaceports on Mars:

Starship interior views during a transfer to Mars: views during a transfer to Mars:

Deployment of modified Starlink sattelites (Marslink) in orbit around Mars:

Elon Musk presenting SpaceX City on Mars:

Elon’s previous Starship presentations:

On May 29th at Starbase, Texas SpaceX CEO and lead designerprovided an update of SpaceX’s Starship Mars architecture. Here are slides from his presentation.

SpaceX made some progress on another test flight of the world’s most powerful rocket Tuesday, finally overcoming technical problems that plagued the program’s two previous launches.

But minutes into the mission, SpaceX’s Starship lost control as it cruised through space, then tumbled back into the atmosphere somewhere over the Indian Ocean nearly an hour after taking off from Starbase, Texas, the company’s privately owned spaceport near the US-Mexico border.

SpaceX’s next-generation rocket is designed to eventually ferry cargo and private and government crews between the Earth, the Moon, and Mars. The rocket is complex and gargantuan, wider and longer than a Boeing 747 jumbo jet, and after nearly two years of steady progress since its first test flight in 2023, this has been a year of setbacks for Starship.

During the rocket’s two previous test flights—each using an upgraded “Block 2” Starship design—problems in the ship’s propulsion system led to leaks during launch, eventually triggering an early shutdown of the rocket’s main engines. On both flights, the vehicle spun out of control and broke apart, spreading debris over an area near the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

The good news is that that didn’t happen on Tuesday. The ship’s main engines fired for their full duration, putting the vehicle on its expected trajectory toward a splashdown in the Indian Ocean. For a short time, it appeared the ship was on track for a successful flight.

“Starship made it to the scheduled ship engine cutoff, so big improvement over last flight! Also, no significant loss of heat shield tiles during ascent,” wrote Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, on X.

The bad news is that Tuesday’s test flight revealed more problems, preventing SpaceX from achieving the most important goals Musk outlined going into the launch.

“Leaks caused loss of main tank pressure during the coast and reentry phase,” Musk posted on X. “Lot of good data to review.”

After spectacular back-to-back upper stage failures in January and March, SpaceX launched another Super Heavy-Starship rocket Tuesday on the program’s ninth test flight, but ran into fresh problems that resulted in the loss of both stages before they could carry out controlled descents to splashdown.

The Super Heavy first stage, following a deliberately steeper, more stressful descent trajectory toward splashdown near the Texas Gulf Coast, suffered a catastrophic failure at the moment its engines reignited for what would have been a relatively gentle splashdown.

SpaceX’s mega rocket Starship launches on a test flight from Starbase, Texas, on May 27, 2025. Eric Gay / AP

SpaceX confirmed the stage had been lost, but given the extreme nature of the testing, the loss was not an out-of-the-blue surprise. The Starship upper stage, meanwhile, managed to make it into its planned suborbital trajectory after an apparently flawless performance from its six engines.

But a few minutes later, a door on the side of the rocket failed to open, preventing the planned release of simulated Starlink satellites in a test of the rocket’s Pez-like deployment system.

With that test deferred to a future flight, SpaceX engineers hoped to reignite a single Raptor engine to test its start-up capability in space. But an apparent propellant leak put the spacecraft into a slow spin that ruled out the restart and a controlled reentry and splashdown.

The Starship has to enter at the right angle and in a precise orientation to survive reentry heating and aerodynamic “loads.” Entering in a spin doomed the Starship to a catastrophic breakup.

“Starship made it to the scheduled ship engine cutoff, so big improvement over last flight!” SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk wrote on X. “Also, no significant loss of heat shield tiles during ascent. Leaks caused loss of main tank pressure during the coast and re-entry phase. Lot of good data to review.”

He added that the Super Heavy launch cadence for the next three flights will be faster, at approximately one per month or less, assuming, of course, engineers reviewing telemetry can quickly pin down what went wrong and implement fixes to correct the problems.

SpaceX’s next-generation Starship spacecraft atop its Super Heavy booster is launched on its ninth test at the company’s launch pad in Starbase, Texas, U.S., May 27, 2025. Joe Skipper / REUTERS

The huge rocket’s launching, known as Integrated Flight Test 9, got underway with a ground-shaking liftoff at 7:37 p.m. EDT from SpaceX’s sprawling Boca Chica, Texas, manufacturing and flight facility — Starbase — on the Texas coast.

The mission featured the first use of a previously flown Super Heavy first stage, which flew itself back to capture by giant mechanical arms on the launch tower during the program’s seventh test flight in January.

For the program’s latest launch, the Super Heavy, powered by 33 methane-fueled Raptor engines generating up to 16 million pounds of thrust, followed the same ascent flight plan as previous missions, propelling the Starship upper stage out of the thick lower atmosphere on an easterly trajectory toward the Straits of Florida.

Equipped with six Raptors of its own, the 160-foot-long Starship separated from its booster about two and a half minutes after liftoff, heading for a suborbital trajectory carrying it toward a planned vertical splashdown in the southern Indian Ocean.

The Super Heavy, meanwhile, used a different method for flipping around for the trip back to the launch site in a bid to save propellants. It was also programmed to fly a much steeper descent than usual to learn more about the thermal and aerodynamic stresses it can safely endure.

“The booster will attempt to fly at a higher angle of attack during its descent,” SpaceX said on its website. “By increasing the amount of atmospheric drag on the vehicle, a higher angle of attack can result in a lower descent speed which in turn requires less propellant for the initial landing burn.”

“Getting real-world data on how the booster is able to control its flight at this higher angle of attack will contribute to improved performance on future vehicles, including the next generation of Super Heavy,” SpaceX said.

As a result of the high-stress tests, SpaceX targeted a splashdown in the Gulf instead of attempting a launch pad capture where critical infrastructure could be damaged in a landing mishap.

As it turned out, that was a good decision.

Launch attempt follows two Starship breakups

Tuesday’s launch came on the heels of back-to-back Starship upper stage breakups during the two previous test flights that generated spectacular showers of flaming debris along the flight paths.

Since then, SpaceX engineers have carried out extensive testing and implemented multiple upgrades and improvements to minimize the chances for similar failures. The Federal Aviation Administration, which oversaw both failure investigations, gave SpaceX permission to proceed with IFT-9 last week after wrapping up the IFT-8 review.

“The FAA conducted a comprehensive safety review of the SpaceX Starship Flight 8 mishap and determined that the company has satisfactorily addressed the causes of the mishap, and therefore, the Starship vehicle can return to flight,” the agency said in a statement. “The FAA will verify SpaceX implements all corrective actions.”

In both of the previous failures, commercial airline traffic in and around the Straits of Florida was held up pending confirmation falling debris was no longer a threat. For the ninth flight, the length of the Aircraft Hazard Area was expanded from about 1,000 statute miles to around 1,840 miles and SpaceX was required to launch the rocket during non-peak air travel periods.

Plans for the moon and Mars

The Super Heavy-Starship rocket is critical to NASA’s plans to land astronauts on the moon in the next few years and to Musk’s plans to eventually send humans to Mars.

NASA plans to use a variant of the Starship upper stage as a lunar lander in the agency’s Artemis program. NASA wants to use its own rocket and crew capsule to ferry astronauts to lunar orbit where the SpaceX lander will be waiting to carry them down to the surface.

An artist’s impression of a Starship variant on the surface of the moon. NASA/SpaceX

The Trump administration wants to cancel NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule, leaving the future of the Artemis program, as it’s currently envisioned, in doubt. For his part, Musk has argued the United States should pass up moon missions, which he called a “distraction,” and instead head directly to Mars.

In any case, the Super Heavy-Starship rocket is expected to play a major role in future deep space exploration, regardless of the target. But multiple successful test flights will be needed to demonstrate the safety and reliability needed for astronauts and passengers heading to the moon, Mars or beyond.

In an interview for “CBS Sunday Morning,” taped shortly before Tuesday’s launch, Musk told correspondent David Pogue, “If we’re lucky, we’ve probably got about a 50% chance of sending … ships from Earth to Mars at the end of next year. So November, December next year, in about 18 months.”

Asked if that timeline was realistic, Musk replied, “Well, I try to give the 50th percentile. … So you should expect half the time I’m wrong.” [See more of the exclusive interview with Musk on “CBS Sunday Morning,” Sunday, June 1.]

SpaceX made changes after two catastrophic explosions

The last two Starships, launched Jan. 16 and March 6, both ended with unrelated catastrophic explosions as they neared their planned sub-orbital trajectories.

During the January flight, a propellant leak in an unpressurized “attic” above the Raptor engines led to sustained fires that eventually triggered shutdown of all but one of the spacecraft’s engines. Telemetry was lost eight minutes and 20 seconds after launch and moments later, the vehicle broke apart.

“The most probable root cause for the loss of ship was identified as a harmonic response several times stronger in flight than had been seen during testing, which led to increased stress on hardware in the propulsion system,” SpaceX said on its website. “The subsequent propellant leaks exceeded the venting capability of the ship’s attic area and resulted in sustained fires.”

After extensive ground tests, SpaceX made changes to propellant feedlines, and thrust levels and installed additional vents and a new nitrogen purge system in the attic to reduce the potential for fire.

Those fixes appeared to work as expected during the Starship’s eighth test flight in March, but the upper stage again suffered a catastrophic failure. This time around, the Starship suffered a “hardware failure in one of the upper stage Raptor engines that resulted in inadvertent propellant mixing and ignition,” SpaceX said on its website.

To fix the problem, upper stage Raptors now feature a new nitrogen purge system, improvements to the propellant drain system and tighter joints in key areas. SpaceX is also developing an improved Raptor engine that will eliminate several failure modes.

SpaceX is gearing up for a critical flight test for its Starship program. Launch teams are preparing to send the world’s largest rocket on its ninth test flight for the fully integrated vehicle on Tuesday eventing.

The company is betting on the testing and improvements made since the first flight of its Block 2 Starship upper stage will allow that part of the rocket to fly as intended. It’s a feat that eluded SpaceX in its previous two launches for the program.

SpaceX is aiming for the mission, dubbed Starship Flight 9, to launch from Pad A at Starbase, Texas, during a window that opens on Tuesday, May 27, at 6:30 p.m. CDT (7:30 p.m. EDT, 2330 UTC).

Spaceflight Now will have joint live coverage with LabPadre beginning about two hours prior to liftoff.

A highlight of the mission will be the reuse of a Super Heavy booster for the first time. The stage, tail number B14, will fly with 29 of its 33 original Raptor engines.

Turning around a booster for repeat flights is a hallmark of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 business model. Following the first orbital launch of a Falcon 9 rocket in June 2010 it took until March 2017 before the company reused a booster, which first flew a year prior.

Comparatively, SpaceX’s first launch of its fully-integrated Starship-Super Heavy rocket was April 2023 and B14 flew for the first time on the Starship Flight 7 mission in January 2025.

Roadmap for the future

SpaceX is under pressure to have a fully successful launch since it has yet to fly a successful mission with the Block 2 Starship second stage.

NASA is keenly watching the program since the Block 3 version of Starship will be needed to safely ferry its astronauts to the surface of the Moon on the Artemis 3 mission. That lunar touchdown was delayed from late 2026 to no earlier mid-2027 in part because of the lack of readiness of the Starship rocket.

SpaceX previously said it planned to perform a ship-to-ship propellant transfer demonstration in low Earth orbit in the early to mid part of 2025. Neither SpaceX nor NASA have provided a recent update on when this testing is now anticipated.

It will be needed sooner rather than later though, since SpaceX needs to conduct an uncrewed landing and ascent demonstration from the Moon ahead of the Artemis 3 mission. Each propellant servicing needs at least 10 launches to fill a tanker version of Starhip in orbit, although SpaceX has not said exactly how many number of flights would be required.

While these Artemis program needs are top of mind for the current NASA leadership, SpaceX and its founder, Elon Musk, continue to aim squarely at Mars. Musk has recently suggested that an uncrewed mission to the Red Planet would ideally launch in late 2026, however, that would also require SpaceX to perfect on-orbit refueling to bring that within the realm of possibility.

Ahead of the Starship Flight 9 launch, Musk intends to hold a company talk called “The Road to Making Life Multiplanetary,” which will be live-streamed on SpaceX’s X account, Musk’s social media platform. The talk is scheduled to begin at 12 p.m. CDT (1 p.m. EDT, 1700 UTC) on May 27.

Musk said his talk would explain “the Mars game plan”. It was not clear if it will also address the progress towards the goals laid out in SpaceX’s contracts with NASA.

The address also comes as the U.S. Senate is on the cusp of voting on Jared Isaacman’s nomination to be NASA’s next administrator. A vote could come as soon as next week, once the Senate is back in session.

In Texas everything is ready for the ninth launch of Starship. A mission that promises to be memorable: if everything worked the next objectives will be Moon and Mars.

Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, is ready for the ninth trial flight. The launch window from the platform to Starbase, in Texas, will open at 1:30 on Wednesday 28 May (Italian time).

Flight with Booster. Spacex focuses everything on this test, to demonstrate the reliability of the rocket, after two failed attempts. But there is another element that makes this mission historical: for the first time a super heavy booster will be reused. This is the B14 Booster, already the protagonist of the flight Starship Flight 7 last January. He will fly with 29 of his 33 original raptor engines, marking an important step forward in the reuse strategy of the launchers who made Falcon 9 famous. In the case of Falcon 9, the first orbital launch dates back to 2010, but it took almost seven years before Spacex could reuse a booster (in 2017).

Goals. With Starship, progress has been faster: from the first integrated flight in April 2023, we have already reached the reuse of a main component in just over a year and a half. However It has not been said what the precise purposes of this flight arealthough most likely he will try to put the facsimiles of the earthenware of Satellites similar to StarlinkThe Booster will return to the launching pad And the shuttle will try a landing in the sea in a vertical way in the Pacific Ocean.

There is the moon around the corner. There is great pressure on Spacex to finally be able to complete a successful flight with the second stage of Block 2. The reason? NASA follows every step carefully: The Artemis 3 mission, which will bring astronauts to the moon, depends on the next version of this vehiclethe block 3. Due to delays in development, lLunar landing is already slipped from the end of 2026 to at least half 2027. Spacex had promised a demonstration of propellant transfer between two Starship vehicles in Earth orbit between the beginning and mid -2025, but neither the company nor the NASA have provided recent updates. This test will be fundamental before the Artemis 3 mission, because each lunar landing will require a complete refueling in orbit, which could involve up to 10 launches for a single mission.