SpaceX Founder confirms ongoing Starship V3 design improvements

SpaceX Founder and CEO, Elon Musk said teams are working on the Starship V3 design improvements, we’ll are likely to see this ship moving on the launch pad as soon as the V2 reaches to stability.

“We are honing in on the V3 Starship design” wrote Musk on social media site X.

Starship is a two stage rocket designed to take heavy payload into orbit and to other planets. Its Super Heavy booster equips with 33 Raptor engines that generate a total of 7,590 tf of thrust at liftoff. It provides an immense power to send the rocket to the space.

The ship, on the other hand, carries the payload with six Raptors including 3 vacuum engines that carry the mission after stage-separation.

Both stages are reusable, which means the booster performs a boostback burn after hot-staging and returns to the launch site for a tower catch. The ship will also follow the same return path for in-orbit missions, but it could go to other planets as well.

Since 2023, SpaceX is testing the integrated flight from Starbase launch facility in Texas. Once stacked, the Starship expands 123 meters tall and 9 meters wide, with a payload capacity of 100–150 tons.

Compared to the booster, the ship must achieve resistance against more landing parameters and environmental pressure challenges.

Recently, SpaceX employed the Starship v2 for testing, and it has improved avionics and propulsion system that contribute to more performance. However, the ship has occurred with rapid unscheduled disassembly during Flight Test 7 and 8. These tests are designed to put light on the design flaws, and the V2 will get new fixes before Flight 9.

The reusability factor also depends on the ship’s thermal protection because the ship will be returning to the ground after facing scorching heat. In that case, new heat shield tiles materials are being tested to endure the atmospheric pressure not only on Earth but on Mars as well.

Starship V3 likely to get major improvements in these segments, and it will be employed in action as soon as SpaceX gets the V2 through orbit. The V3 is likely to use the Raptor 3 engines. This new Raptor is size and mass efficient, while providing even higher thrust than V2.

Source – SpaceX