SpaceX has begun detailing Starship Version 3, the next major configuration of the world’s largest rocket, with changes spanning the booster, the upper stage, and the propulsion system that together push the vehicle well beyond its already record-setting predecessors.

What changed in V3

The Super Heavy booster in V3 grows to approximately 282 feet (86 meters) tall — up from 232 feet (71 meters) in V2 — giving the integrated stack a total height of roughly 403 feet (123 meters). For reference, NASA’s Saturn V, which carried Apollo astronauts to the Moon, stood 363 feet (111 meters). Starship V3 is taller by about 40 feet.

The booster will carry 35 Raptor 3 engines in its base ring. SpaceX says each Raptor 3 produces around 280 metric tons-force of thrust at sea level, an increase over the Raptor 2’s approximately 230 metric tons-force. Combined booster thrust is therefore expected to exceed 9,500 metric tons-force at liftoff.

The Ship upper stage has been stretched as well, gaining additional propellant volume that SpaceX says will push payload-to-low-Earth-orbit capacity to more than 100 metric tons in a fully reusable configuration — and potentially over 150 metric tons in an expendable mode. The V2 Ship was rated at roughly 100 to 150 metric tons to LEO in expendable mode, meaning the reusable figure is the more meaningful engineering advance here.

Raptor 3 and the propulsion overhaul

Raptor 3 is a significant internal redesign. SpaceX removed external plumbing, heat shielding blankets, and ancillary hardware that were visible on Raptor 2, integrating much of that functionality into the engine’s structure. The result is a lighter, simpler engine with fewer potential failure points.

The engine operates on a full-flow staged combustion cycle, in which both propellants — liquid methane and liquid oxygen — are partially burned in separate preburners before entering the main combustion chamber. This thermodynamic arrangement extracts more energy from each propellant than conventional gas-generator designs and is one reason Raptor achieves chamber pressures exceeding 300 bar, among the highest of any operational rocket engine.

Higher chamber pressure directly translates to higher specific impulse — a measure of propellant efficiency — which is how SpaceX squeezes more performance from a given tank of propellant.

Reusability architecture

SpaceX’s plan for V3 retains the mechazilla catch system, in which the launch tower’s robotic arms attempt to catch the returning Super Heavy booster rather than landing it on legs. The company successfully demonstrated booster catch during late 2024 test flights. For V3, the Ship is also intended to be caught in the same way after orbital re-entry.

Full catch-and-reuse of both stages is central to SpaceX’s cost model. Expendable rockets discard hardware worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars per flight; recovering both stages intact and reflying them rapidly is the mechanism by which SpaceX claims it can reduce per-kilogram launch costs by an order of magnitude compared to conventional vehicles.

The vehicle’s development trajectory matters beyond commercial launch. NASA’s Artemis program has contracted a lunar-lander variant of Starship — designated HLS, or Human Landing System — to carry astronauts from lunar orbit to the Moon’s surface. Other deep-space architecture programs also depend on heavy-lift access becoming routine and affordable.

Remaining engineering challenges

V3 has not yet flown. The changes in tank volume, engine count, and structural design each introduce integration and certification work that takes time. Thermal protection on the Ship’s heat shield, which must survive re-entry heating exceeding 1,400 degrees Celsius, has required iterative tile redesigns across previous flights.

Orbital refueling — necessary for any crewed lunar or Mars mission — also remains undemonstrated. Starship must transfer cryogenic propellant in microgravity between two vehicles, a maneuver that involves managing fluid dynamics in weightlessness, a problem with no trivial solution. SpaceX’s own roadmap lists propellant transfer as one of the near-term milestones before a lunar crewed mission can proceed.

With V3 hardware reportedly in production at Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, the first V3 test flight could occur within 2025 — though SpaceX has a history of adjusting schedules as engineering realities emerge.