Starship Flight 12 Ready for Launch! What Really Happened During The Test!

Starship Flight 12 is almost ready to fly. Both stages passed their static fires, both are back in the production phase for final checks. And while all eyes are on pad 2, something strange is happening at McGregor. Are we looking at Luna Starships? Blue Origin solidifies its position, proving not only SpaceX can do a full reuse, and they are cutting corners to beat SpaceX to the moon ferociously. My name is Felix. Welcome to What About It? Let’s dive right in. Starship updates. Back at Starbase, still getting closer to Starship Flight 12. We are now officially in the pre-flight checks phase. Here’s a quick follow-up from last episode on the static fires because you guys kept mentioning it in the comments. And you’re right, one observation from the booster 19 firing deserves a closer look. Ship 29 did its full 60-second static fire at Masses. Booster 19 did its sixish second static fire at pad 2 with all 33 Raptor 3 engines. That part we covered. But watching the booster footage more carefully, something stood out. The engine shutdown is staged. Instead of cutting thrust on all 33 engines simultaneously, the shutdown sequence appears to proceed in deliberate steps. Engines ramping down in a controlled pattern rather than all at once. The most likely reason is structural. Cutting thrust on 33 engines at the exact same instant would send a massive pressure spike through the entire vehicle plumbing, the thrust structure, the fuselage, everything. A staged shutdown spreads that load out over time, reducing stress on the booster. You can observe the same during flight just before separation. Is a small detail, but it tells you SpaceX is thinking about every single interaction between engines and structure. Nothing left to chance.

On April 17th, SpaceX performed another booster lift at PAT 2, and oh boy, was it worth it. The Chopsticks lifted booster 19 off the launch mount, held it in the air, and gave the world a clear look at all 33 Raptor 3 engines from below right after the static fire. And they look clean. No visible damage, no displaced components, no signs of engine bay distress. Heck, it looked like it hadn’t even done a static fire. Exactly what you want to see after a 30 engine static fire. This isn’t just great for us. SpaceX’s engineers look at this footage the same way we do. For them, this is a great first visual inspection after the action. Booster 19 was sat back on its transport stand and then rolled back to the production site. It is now sitting in Mega Bay 1 undergoing pre-flight checks. Ship 39 is in Mega Bay 2. Booster 1 is in Mega Bay 1. Both vehicles are in the final pre-flight inspection phase.

So then what are we watching for next? Well, there are two main signals. First, tanker trucks at the tank far. When SpaceX starts topping off propellant reserves at PAT 2, that tells you a launch attempt is being prepared. Second, any post from Elon Musk or SpaceX on X with specific timing information. Those posts do not lie about the state of vehicles, though they do sometimes get the timeline wrong. Prototyping road closures are another excellent way to predict the Starbase’s future. Right now, all is clear at Bokh Chica Beach, which on its own is a great sight. Testing was successful. Speaking of which, Musk posted on X this week with a short but specific update. He said, quote, “Starship V3 booster and ship will be ready for their first test flight in a few weeks.” A few weeks. That does align with what we estimated in the last episode. My read stays the same. Early May is the realistic window. And if I had to pick a specific day, let’s go with May 4th. Star Wars day, May the 4th, be with SpaceX.

Richard flew over Kennedy’s Space Center again this week, and the progress at Robert’s Road is genuinely impressive. The Gigab Bay at Robert’s Road, which is SpaceX’s Starship hub at KSC, is growing fast. About half of the structure is now covered with cladding. That is not just cosmetic. It’s also likely protection against hurricane season, which is only a couple of months away in Florida. SpaceX is racing to get the exterior sealed before the weather arrives. Something else caught my eye. What exactly it will be is not clear yet, but based on the position and the trenching work across the road leading toward the gigabay, it looks like this new building is going to bridge the two sides of the road into a single connected facility. Also spotted at Robert’s Road, new foundations for additional tower segments. One Mechazilla towers worth of segments is already staged at Slick 37, waiting for vertical stacking. But SpaceX plans to build at least two towers at Slick 37, and that second tower needs its own set of segments. The new foundations at Robert’s Road are where those segments will be fabricated. And sitting right there at Robert’s Road, ready to go, is a brand new set of Mechazilla chopsticks. Waiting for the first tower at Slick 37 to be stacked so they can be installed at the top.

Slick 37 itself looks very empty right now. Besides the tower segment staged for the first Mechazilla tower, there is not much else vertical on the pad. What you can see is some kind of stubby square concrete building on the north side. According to the one render SpaceX has released of what Slick 37 will eventually look like, this structure could be part of one of the Mechazilla foundations, but from this distance, it is hard to say for certain. What this empty landscape really shows you is the scale of what is coming. Two Mechazilla towers will eventually stand here along with all the supporting ground infrastructure. Right now, it is mostly potential. In a few years, it will be one of the busiest launch sites in the world.

Over at pad 39A, construction on the Starship pad is continuing, and it is a labyrinth. Work is clearly ongoing on the orbital launch mount itself, but zoomed out, the entire site is one enormous construction zone. Every square meter of available space seems to be getting used. It looks like SpaceX intends to pack as much capability as possible into this historic location which has already served Apollo shuttle and now the beginning of the Starship era. This is the pad that will eventually launch Starships alongside Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy operations that still use the site. It needs to be versatile and the construction we are seeing reflects exactly this.

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Now, here is something that genuinely has me puzzled right now. What exactly is SpaceX doing at its engine test stands? At McGregor, SpaceX’s engine testing site, there is a large white tent-like structure that has appeared recently. And when I say large, I mean large, roughly the size of a Starship upper stage, tall and long. And a few nights ago, it was venting, clearly visible white vapor coming out of the structure, the kind of cloud you see when cryogenic liquids are flowing and boiling off. So, what is it? McGregor is historically an engine test site. Raptor development and qualification happen here. If this tent is a new test setup, it is for something that needs to be tall and capable of handling cryogenic propellants, and they clearly want to hide it from the public. That profile starts pointing in some interesting directions. My best guess, and I want to be clear that this is pure speculation, is that this could be a thruster testing setup for HLS Starship, the human landing system variant SpaceX is building for NASA’s Artemis program. HLS needs landing thrusters positioned on the upper part of the ship to avoid kicking up lunar dust during landing. Those thrusters need to be tested somewhere. A tall enclosed structure at an existing SpaceX propulsion test facility operating at cryogenic conditions that fits the profile. Another thing worth remembering is that McGregor has a history of testing more than just engines. A few years back, SpaceX ran entire prototype tests there. Grasshopper and Falcon 9 R tests for the Falcon 9 development program. So, this could be related to landing hardware development for HLS or for something else entirely. The cryogenic venting does point toward propulsion, though, so my money is still on thruster testing. SpaceX currently doesn’t hold an FAA license for prototype launches from McGregor that all moved to Starbase, Texas.

So, where does this leave us for flight 12? Both stages are in pre-flight checks at the production site. Those should take roughly a week, maybe two. Musk says a few weeks. I said early May in the last episode, and I am sticking with that. May 4th, Star Wars day. It would be poetic and it would be on target. Whether SpaceX actually hits that specific day or lands somewhere within a few days of it, the window is close.

Starship flight 12 is closed and SpaceX needs this flight to go as well as possible. Goals must be met. Same as at Blue Origin. They have a motto, gradatim ferociter. Step by step ferociously. It’s been their guiding principle for more than two decades. And honestly, for most of that time, the step by step part has been a lot more visible than the ferocious one. This is changing though. In the early hours of Sunday, something genuinely historic took place. New Glenn lifted off and the booster at the bottom had some work experience to show. The same 57 m tall booster that flew to space in November 2025 and landed on its drone ship just flew again successfully. NG3 was the third flight of New Glenn and the second for the booster named Never Tell Me the Odds. To put that in perspective, SpaceX first reflew a Falcon 9 in March 2017, almost a year after the first landing. Blue Origin pulled it off in about 157 days, less than half that time. Ferociously, now we’re talking. As a headline, that is genuinely impressive. But you should put an asterisk next to it, and I’ll get to why in a second.

NG3 marked the first time a new Glenn launch used a pre-flown booster. And that booster also nailed the landing. Now is officially not only SpaceX anymore, and there is no back door left either. That’s it. Not just Falcon 9. Wait, asterisk. Remember, on April 16th, Blue Origin conducted an integrated hotfire. That’s exactly what it sounds like. The fully stacked rocket, complete with the payload on top, sits on the pad and briefly fires all seven engines without actually going anywhere. This test ran for about 20 seconds. No anomalies, a clean test, and CEO Dave Limp posted a green check mark on X. Now, here’s the annoying asterisk part about this booster reuse. And this is where you still see a difference between Blue Origin and SpaceX. When SpaceX refurbished its first booster for reflight in 2017, it reused the Merlin engines, too. Today, individual Merlin engines have flown more than 20 times. One Falcon 9 booster has even launched and landed 34 times. SpaceX reuses engines like you reuse coffee cups, my friends. Blue origin. They took all seven BE4s off the return booster and installed brand new ones. Dave Limp explained that they elected to swap all seven engines and test a few upgrades, including a new thermal protection system on one of the engine nozzles. The original engines from NG2 are still planned to be reused on future missions. What led to this decision? BE4 is one of the most powerful rocket engines ever built. It’s nearly three times the thrust of a Merlin. It is also young. It only started flying in January 2024 on a ULA Vulcan rocket. Blue Origin doesn’t have years of data on how these engines hold up after a launch and landing. So, Blue is being cautious. It’ll fly the airframe first, study the returned engines on the ground, and only put them back in flight once they are confident. Step by step, it is again. It is slower than SpaceX’s approach, but it is consistent with how Blue Origin does everything step by step and then sometimes ferociously.

On top of the new Glenn rocket is a satellite called Bluebird 7. And this thing is a monster. This communication satellite weighs around 6,100 kg and unfolds a phased array antenna about 223 m across. That is almost the size of a tennis court. It’s the largest commercial communications array ever flown in low Earth orbit. But Bluebird 7 unfortunately fell victim to an underperforming second stage. This led to a release into a lower than planned orbit. Even though the satellite did separate and power on, it will not be able to operate in this orbit. It is too low to use its own thrusters to reach its intended height. And so the result is a continuous decay until it deorbits naturally. AST, the company that built this satellite already said that the damage is going to be covered by the insurance company. Its identical twin bluebird 6 went up on an Indian rocket in December 2025. This one rode on New Glenn solo this time. Future missions on New Glenn are expected to deliver up to eight next generation bluebirds per flight. This is possible because the 7 m fairing enables twice the payload volume of 5 m-class commercial launch systems.

But in the background, there are two other Blue Origin projects that came into sharper focus last week, and both of them matter a lot. The company’s first moonlander is getting ready to fly. It’s called Blue Moon Mark 1, and the first flight model is nicknamed Endurance. It’s just over 8 m tall, 3 m wide, and weighs about 21 tons fully fueled. It uses a single BE7 engine burning liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. And Mark 1 can deliver 3,000 kg of cargo anywhere on the moon, landing within 100 m of its target. 3,000 kg. Let that number sit for a second. That’s the same as three tons. India’s Chandrayaan three lander. The entire thing fuel included from the moment it separated from the transfer stage was only around 1,750 kilogram. Japan’s Slim was about 200 kg on the lunar surface. Intuitive Machines Nova C has a payload capacity of roughly 100 kg. Firefly’s blue Ghost which landed last year had a payload capacity of around 150 kg. China’s Chang’e landers are the only thing in the same weight class as Mark 1, and even those can’t carry anywhere near 3,000 kilograms of useful payload. Blue Moon Mark 1 is out to become the largest capacity robotic moonlander in history. The first one is almost ready, and if all goes to plan, it’s to embark on its journey later this year. Endurance completed thermal vacuum testing at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in early April just a few days ago. The lander is now headed back to Florida for final integration. This was one of the most punishing tests any spacecraft goes through. Endurance set inside a 27 m tall vacuum chamber and cycled through lunar surface-like conditions from around -50° C to plus 30°. They recreated the exact heat balance of solar input that thermal models predict for Endurance’s specific South Pole mission profile. The lander’s next milestone is final integration at Blue Origins facilities here in Florida.

And here’s where this connects to a much bigger story, Artemis 3. The plan for NASA to land the first astronauts on the moon since 1972 includes using SpaceX’s Starship HLS. But before HLS can become a reality, Starship V3 has to prove itself. And after that, the real hustle starts. Before Starship can land astronauts anywhere, SpaceX has to demonstrate orbital refueling. That is a first in space flight, and HLS relies on this success. It needs to refuel before going to the moon. Meanwhile, Blue Moon Mark 1 is a comparatively simple single launch architecture. It’s the tried and tested old school approach. You put it on top of a new Glenn, it flies to the moon, it lands. No orbital refueling, no tanker fleet, no back-to-back launches on a tight schedule. This more conservative approach could become a huge advantage for Blue Origin. If HLS is not ready on time, Blue Moon could be selected as the lander to bring astronauts back to the moon’s surface earlier than planned. Originally, the first two human landings were planned with HLS as the lander. Now, to be perfectly clear, Mark 1, as it’s right now, is a cargo lander, not a crewed one. For humans, you’d need the larger M2, which is still in development. Now, here comes the big one. During the NG3 launch stream, we were able to catch a first glimpse of Blue Origins Mark 2 mockup in the factory. It has even been suggested that a medium-sized Mark 1.5 version could be added to the lineup. The reason, it would be as large as Mark 1, but capable of sending crew, ferociously bypassing the need for orbital fueling for a crewed mission. If Blue Moon Mark 1 successfully lands three tons on the moon before SpaceX has even demonstrated all the technology needed for HLS, a huge shift could follow. Political and technical conversation about who actually puts boots on the moon next might change dramatically. There is a possible scenario where Blue Origin hardware is on the lunar surface, soft landed and operational before Starship has completed a single Luna rehearsal. And for an Artemis program that has been slipping year after year, that is not a small thing. This is the vehicle to keep your eyes on, not the rocket or the reactor we’re about to get to, the lander. Because the lander is what actually puts Blue Origin in the moon race.

The company’s commitment to this goal is very real. It materializes as more dedicated hardware is presented. It is cutting corners to adhere to political goals. Presidential terms are short. Chop chop. Let’s have a look at Air Pioneer which Blue Origin showed off earlier this month. It is a reactor, a compact chemical refinery. It takes Luna regolith, heats it to about 1,600° Celsius until it is molten and electrically conductive. Then it runs a current through it and breaks the oxygen atoms loose from the minerals. The resulting product is pure breathable oxygen. What’s left behind is iron, aluminum, and very pure silicon. An intriguing combination that you could eventually turn into solar cells through Blue Origin’s parent program, Blue Alchemist. And why does this matter? Because Luna regolith is roughly 40 to 45% oxygen by mass. Did you know that oxygen is the single most abundant element in moondust? If you can extract it, you have an almost infinite supply of the single most important consumable for human survival, which also happens to be the oxidizer for rocket fuel. Local oxygen production could cut lunar landing costs by up to 60% because you no longer have to haul return trip propellant from Earth. But there are some caveats here, too. The system has been tested on a simulant, not real regolith. Blue Origin hasn’t published production numbers. A terrestrial demo in a simulated Luna vacuum is planned for this year. But the concept is sound. And this is the kind of machine that turns Luna visits into Luna stays.

So here’s where we are. SpaceX flew 165 rockets last year. Blue Origin has now flown three. The cadence gap is real and it is enormous. But Blue Origin just became the second company ever to reuse an orbital booster, has a moon lander nearly ready to fly, and has a growing order book worth over 10 billion. Step by step, ferociously. Looks like the second half of that motto is finally showing up. In the end, though, Starship and Mark 2 will be needed. Three tons of payload per flight will not be enough for a permanent Luna base.