SpaceX plans to launch the next test of Starship on Thursday evening after a seven-month break spent rebuilding major parts of the rocket and its launch site.

The company last flew Starship in October 2025. Since then, engineers have redesigned the engines, reworked the spacecraft's heat shield, and built a new launchpad at Starbase, SpaceX's private launch complex in South Texas.

The upcoming mission, known as Flight 12, will debut what SpaceX calls the next generation of Starship and its Super Heavy booster. Together, the two stages stand about 400 feet tall and form the largest and most powerful rocket system ever built.

The test carries high stakes for both SpaceX and NASA. The U.S. space agency plans to use Starship to land astronauts on the moon as part of its Artemis program later this decade. At the same time, SpaceX founder Elon Musk wants the vehicle to eventually carry people and cargo to Mars. But before that can happen, the company must prove the rocket can launch reliably, survive the fiery plunge back through Earth's atmosphere, and eventually fly again without months of repairs between missions.

"The Starship production pipeline is full and will complete roughly 10 more ships and about half that number of boosters this year," Musk said in an X post on Monday. "If something goes wrong, it will not be a major setback, unless the launch stand is destroyed."

How to watch SpaceX's Starship launch

People can watch the launch live on SpaceX's website or on the company's X account. The webcast is expected to begin as early as 4:45 p.m. CT on Thursday, May 21, or about 45 minutes before liftoff. SpaceX says the launch window opens at 5:30 p.m. CT, though weather or technical issues could still delay the attempt. The date has already been pushed back a couple of times, and the company has created a social media thread to track the postponements. 

The long gap since the last flight reflects how much SpaceX has changed after earlier tests exposed weaknesses in the hardware. But the overhaul extended beyond the rocket itself. The launch site now includes a new launch mount, upgraded fuel systems, and redesigned "chopsticks," the mechanical arms meant to catch returning boosters.

One of Starship's biggest trouble spots is its heat shield, which uses thousands of protective tiles to protect the spacecraft during reentry from space. As Starship falls back through the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds, friction superheats the air around it. Earlier flights lost tiles or suffered damage underneath them.

This time, SpaceX plans to intentionally remove one tile so engineers can study how the surrounding tiles handle the stress. The company also painted some tiles white to help onboard cameras track changes during flight.

Flight 12 will also test upgrades to the rocket's Raptor engines. The newer versions generate more power while using fewer exposed parts — changes SpaceX hopes will improve reliability and reduce maintenance.

The mission includes several other experiments aimed at future deep-space flights. Starship will deploy 20 mock Starlink satellites during the more than one-hour test and attempt to restart one of its engines while in space, a maneuver future moon and Mars missions will likely require. If the ship completes the flight, it is expected to splash down in the Indian Ocean.

Meanwhile, the Super Heavy rocket booster will attempt a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico rather than returning to the launch tower for a midair catch. SpaceX says it chose the more cautious approach this time because the booster design changed significantly since earlier flights.

Even after nearly a dozen test missions, Starship remains very much a work in progress. SpaceX follows a development strategy that relies on frequent testing, accepting failures, and quickly redesigning hardware between flights.

Meanwhile, NASA is rewriting its moon plans around SpaceX and competitor Blue Origin's commercial hardware, bending the missions around their contractors' needs to get astronauts onto the surface faster. In public, they talk about cadence and "muscle memory." Behind the scenes, they're watching one thing above all: how quickly SpaceX can reshape its lunar lander to match the new schedule. 

"SpaceX has been considering alternatives of their current Starship design," said Lori Glaze, NASA's acting exploration chief, "while implementing a more streamlined approach to try and speed things up and pull things forward."