SpaceX fuels up Starship V3 megarocket for 1st time ahead of crucial test flight (photos)

SpaceX has fueled up the new variant of its Starship megarocket for the first time ever, preparing for a crucial test flight that could launch as soon as this week. The company assembled a Starship Version 3 (V3) vehicle for the first time over the weekend , stacking a Ship upper stage atop a Super Heavy first-stage booster at its Starbase site in South Texas. That set a new record for the world's tallest rocket at about 408 feet (124.4 meters), besting Starship V2 by 4 feet (1.2 m). Then, on Monday (May 11), SpaceX announced it had conducted a successful launch rehearsal with the vehicle, a milestone that centered on the loading of huge amounts of liquid oxygen and liquid methane propellant. Aerial view of the launch rehearsal. (Image credit: SpaceX) "Launch rehearsal complete. During a flight-like countdown, more than 5,000 metric tonnes (11+ million pounds) of propellant were loaded on the fully stacked Starship and Super Heavy V3 vehicles for the first time," SpaceX wrote Monday in a post on X that featured four photos of the rehearsal. SpaceX is developing Starship to help humanity settle the moon and Mars , finish deploying its Starlink broadband megaconstellation and perform a wide variety of other spaceflight tasks. The giant vehicle debuted in April 2023 , on a test flight that ended in a dramatic explosion just a few minutes after liftoff. Starship has flown 10 more suborbital test missions since then, most recently in October 2025 . …