SpaceX Reveals Starship Flight 12 Launch Date! Can They Make It Happen?

May 12th’s 5:30 p.m. Starship flight 12. That’s it. That’s the launch date. It’s been a wild few days at Starbase. Ship 40 made its way to Masses. Pad 2 ran a massive deluge test. And during that test, a piece of pad hardware decided to do its own little flight test. And just when you thought Artemis moon landings were waiting on Starship, the actual delay might come from something nobody saw coming. The space suits. Strap in. We have a lot to talk about. My name is Felix. Welcome to What About It? Let’s dive right in. Starship updates. Let’s start with the headline. Starship Test Flight 12 is officially scheduled to launch as soon as 5:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday, May 12th. That’s exactly one week from today. Back updates run May 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th. The FAA posted the notice this week. One week, that’s all that is left. Get the hype train fueled.

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I sure can’t wait for this to launch. Here’s what this day tells me about something we’ve been wondering for weeks now. There won’t be another 33 engine static fire on booster 19. One week isn’t enough time for it. By the time you roll the booster back out to pad 2, set up for the test, run it, inspect, and roll it back, you’ve burned through most of that window. SpaceX appears to be satisfied with the data they got from the 1.88 88 seconds of the one and only 33 engine static fire we’ve seen so far. That’s enough to validate the booster side of things. The pad side issues that triggered the abort can be fixed with what they learned. Everything else gets tested on launch day because launch day itself is the test. So the path forward is clear. Booster 19 stays in Mega 1 for inspections and any minor work. Then it rolls back to pad 2 together with ship. Then we’ll see the first ever version three Starship stack in history. And then it is all about crossing fingers.

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Here’s another interesting detail in the FAA notice. Flight 12 is taking a different route from flight 11. Instead of flying between the Florida Keys and Cuba, the trajectory now goes between Mexico and Cuba, passing south of Jamaica and out over the Caribbean Sea. The reason isn’t officially stated. My read is that this gives the more open ocean during the early phase of flight with fewer populated areas under the trajectory less risk to people on the ground if something goes wrong. With version three hardware flying for the first time, that is a sensible adjustment. Remember the meteor showers over the Turks and Caos. More ocean means it will be safer if anything goes wrong. While Busa 19 sits in Mega Bay 1, the pad itself has been getting a constant workout. SpaceX ran another deluge test at pad 2 over the weekend. This time activating the top deck system in conjunction with the OM and flame diverter water systems. Once again, massive scale. The water output looks incredible from the right angle. Walls

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of white spray erupting from the launch mount and the trench below. But about 10 seconds into the test, something happened. You can see something flying into the air. The deluge system shut down almost immediately afterward. From the footage, the most likely culprit is a deluge shut off valve related to one of the gas generators driving the system. It looks like that valve decided to launch itself first, doing its own little suborbital test before booster 19 gets the chance. Aside from the flying valve, the test looked good. The deluge system performed as designed across both OLM and the top deck simultaneously. This and the diverter sensors are perfect examples of little things that need fixing when you introduce a brand new pad design. It’s a singled component failure caught during exactly the kind of test that’s designed to find issues like this. To be honest, I am expecting more of this once the full stack is on the pad. A small repair and pad 2 is

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testing again. I expect SpaceX to continue running tests for several more days. The flying valve made one thing very clear. This pad isn’t fully working the way it needs to yet. And it is worth taking a moment to appreciate how complex this system actually is. A modern Starship pad isn’t a single piece of infrastructure. It’s three major subsystems that all have to work in harmony. Starship 2 is comprised of the tower, the OM, and the tank and deluge farm to the side. All three systems have their own unique challenges and jobs. The tower does all the ground handling and provides all the connections for the upper stage. The OM provides connectivity for the booster, feeding it data and propellants and making sure that the rocket doesn’t destroy everything in its path during launch. The tank farm provides all the commodities, methane, oxygen, nitrogen, and water. Every single one of these subsystems has to do its job and they all have to do it together on a precise

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schedule while a fully fueled rocket sits on top. The delage tests we keep watching are SpaceX validating that those three systems can work as one. When the flying valve happened, the safety systems caught it. Good. But it also tells you SpaceX has more work to do on the Delute side specifically before stacking. So, don’t be surprised if we see a few more tests over the next several days. They have time and they are using it. On May 2nd, ship Porty rolled out of Meabay 2 and made its way to Massiey’s test site for its cryo testing campaign. Jordan and Amy were both on site to capture the move, and the footage they brought back is incredible. Each ship right now has a distinguished pattern of tiles on the leeward side of the hull, almost like a fingerprint. SpaceX keeps testing attachment methods for thermal protection system tiles once more. The ship 40 roll out is a major step for flight 13. Seeing ship 39 being ready for flight 12 while ship 40 rolls out

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for flight 13 gives some much needed confidence that the second half of 2026 will see more flights. NASA’s Artemis will greatly benefit from it. The path from here is straightforward. Cryoproof testing first with the new flap structural tests happening in parallel on the upgraded test stand. Then engine installation back at the production site. Then a full 60-second static fire at Massy’s just like ship 39 did. And then ship 40 will be ready for flight 13. If flight 12 launches on May 12th, the gap between flight 12 and flight 13 might be much shorter than people are assuming. Ship 40 is essentially walking the same path ship 39 just walked. and the ground crews are now experienced at running that sequence. While ship 40 heads the masses, ship 41 continues to grow.

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As can be seen on avid spaces cameras, the first full aft tank section designated A24 was moved into Mega Bay 2 and stacked below the common section that was already there. Ship 41 is the vehicle slated for flight 14 and it is coming together fast. Over at pad 1, the new orbital launch mount has officially started taking shape. The ground support equipment bunker frame was lifted vertically near the flame trench, marking the beginning of OM assembly at the site itself. We’ve been tracking the parts arriving for weeks, and now the actual construction phase is starting. We were up in the air again with SPI helicopters, formerly known as Red Line, and brought back plenty of new aerial footage of the site. Huge seal beams are being assembled on the ground in what looks like a staging area for vertical lifts to come. The Augers aren’t standing still either. They are drilling

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more and more piles into the ground to stabilize the site for the heavy construction that is about to land on top of it.

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It’s almost as if SpaceX heard me say a few episodes back that Padwan won’t see a launch this year and decided to disprove me on camera. Yeah, I’d be happy to be wrong about that. If they keep this pace, the late 2026 window for a PAT 1 OM lift might still happen. A couple of episodes back, we estimated about 6 months from assembly start to OM lift. Watching the GSE bunker frame go up means that clock is now running. Two operational pads at Starbase by the end of this year is

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still far-fetched, but SpaceX does make every day count. So, what should we actually expect to see when this rocket flies on May 12th? If SpaceX follows the same general profile they’ve used on recent flights, here is the rough timeline. Fueling started at Tminus 53 minutes on flight 11, we can expect less on flight 12. Remember the fast filling before the booster static fire tests? It looks like SpaceX might be able to shave 10 minutes or so off that pre-ignition timeline through the new Pad 2 design. Then comes ignition and liftoff. About 2 and a half minutes after liftoff, the booster’s outer ring of engines cuts off, leaving the inner engines to continue boosting. Then comes hot staging. This time without a separate hot staging ring, all integrated into the new version 3 booster forward section. The ship lights its own engines while still connected to the booster, and the two stages separate. After separation, the booster begins its boost back burn, flipping around and firing

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its engines to send itself back towards Starbase. This time, guided only by three instead of four grid fins, and with an even more pronounced gliding angle. If everything goes according to plan, booster 19 returns to the Gulf roughly 7 minutes after liftoff. Soft water landing. Splish splash. I don’t expect SpaceX to try to catch booster 19, but never say never. If everything works out, they might try. The ship will continue on its suborbital trajectory toward the Indian Ocean. There is not going to be a catch this time, but if flight 12 checks out, we might see that on flight 13. In space, they’ll likely test the usual PEZ dispenser operation, including payload door opening and dummy Starling satellite deployment, hopefully with a camera view from one of the satellites. We’ll also most definitely see an inspace engine relight. This is a necessary demonstration for a possible flight 13 ship catch. If ship 39 survives re-entry, it executes its

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landing flip and burn over the Indian Ocean, simulating a tower catch, but landing softly in the water instead. Total mission duration roughly 65 to 70 minutes. Now, that’s the plan. Whether all of it actually happens on flight 12 is a different question. Brand new ship, brand new booster, brand new engines, brand new pad. Edward Jacob’s lead starship engineer called this essentially IF-1 again for a reason. There are a lot of new parts firing together for the first time and any one of them could behave in a way nobody expects. But that is exactly the point. This is a test flight. Whatever happens, SpaceX learns from it and flight 13 follows quickly after. So here we are one week out from flight 12. The new flight trajectory is cleared with the FAA. A new launch date is locked in. Tuesday, May 12th, 5:30 p.m. Central. In one week, we’ll be sitting here together. Version three, Starship flies for the

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first time. Now, we’ll get to see if it works. The countdown is on.

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There is something almost nobody thinks about when talking about going back to the moon. The hardest part might not even be the rocket or the lander. It

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might be the suit. A person-shaped spacecraft that has to keep a crew member alive in one of the most hostile environments we’ve ever stepped into. And unfortunately, that suit is a critical piece of hardware that could delay the next human moon landing. While rockets are launching and landers are being built, the suit is still catching up. As with most things, there are different variants of space suits. There are the in-flight pressure suits we all know very well. You can see them on every crew launch to the ISS and also on the recent Aremis 2 flight to the moon. They’re built to protect the crew from sudden pressure drops inside a spacecraft, the lightest version of space suit not built for outside the ride. Then there are EVA suits used on the ISS. big, bulky, not very mobile at all as they are meant to be used in microgravity. These are not meant for walking around. And then there are the lunar suits and they are something else entirely. A moon suit is not just for

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protecting astronauts from the perils of space. It’s up against a vastly worse situation. Besides constant and very radical temperature changes at the Luna South Pole, there is another very tricky component to deal with. Another one bites the dust. Luna dust isn’t like earth dust. Wind and rain haven’t smoothed it out over millennia. It is like a million little razor blades. Every grain is sharp, jagged like microscopic shards of glass. And it sticks to everything, electrostatically charged. All it wants is to get into your equipment. During Apollo, it shredded seals and got inside the cabin. Astronauts said it smelled like burned gunpowder. Now imagine dealing with that. Not for a few hours like during Apollo, but for hundreds of hours of surface missions. After all, we want to stay. The next requirement seems something surprisingly simple. You have to be able to bend down. On the moon, astronauts will collect samples. They’ll want to use tools and drive rovers as

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well. They need to crouch and kneel almost like we do here on Earth. Apollo suits were so stiff that astronauts sometimes fell over and had real problems getting back up again. So there is a lot of room for improvement. We can’t just copy the old suits. That wouldn’t be enough. All that’s what makes the moon suits one of the hardest pieces of engineering in the entire OTM program. Right now there is exactly one company on Earth building a space suit for NASA. Axiom Space. It’s called the XMU. To be fair, it is impressive, especially compared to the classic suits. It’s modular and designed to fit a much wider range of body types than Apollo equipment ever could. The outer layer was even co-developed with Prada. On paper, this is the most advanced space suit ever. But there is a problem. A report from the NASA Office of Inspector General issued on April 20th, 2026, warns of possible delays and hints that the suit could be years behind schedule. Listen to this. In a worst

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case scenario, it might not be ready until 2031. But NASA says the target still is 2028. The crude moon landing missions depend on the suit being ready in time. At the moment, there is no alternative. But what if someone else solves this first? An unexpected player currently not contracted by NASA for space suit development. How about SpaceX? They are known for rockets, but they also already have not just one, but two suits. In 2024, SpaceX took a big step. It built a commercial EVA suit on its own. No NASA contract involved. When introduced, SpaceX said something interesting. A future with moon bases and Mars cities will require millions of space suits. And it’s true. On any permanently inhabited base on the moon or Mars, a space suit is almost standard everyday clothing. Officially, SpaceX isn’t designing a Luna suit, but looking at what they’ve already done, it would be surprising if they weren’t at least thinking about it. In fact, reacting to

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an early delay warning about NASA’s Luna suits in 2021, Musk answered saying that SpaceX could do this alone. It makes perfect sense for SpaceX to make its own Luna or Mars suits. The company has huge ambitions on its own. It is not about being a NASA supplier. It’s about taking the conquest of space into its own hands. Commercial efforts will need more cost-effective and faster solutions. Anyway, and there is one more idea we need to talk about. A concept that’s been around for a while. Ever heard of a suit port? Instead of going through an airlock, the suit stays attached to the outside of a rover or habitat. You climb into it from the inside, seal it, and step directly onto the surface. It is an elegant solution. There is no air lock and no dust is getting inside. NASA tested this before. It works. But now imagine taking it one step further. Imagine the entire backpack. The life support system isn’t permanently attached. You leave it docked to the

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rover. Inside, you move around in a comfortable environment. When you’re ready to go outside, you attach a fresh backpack, seal up, and go. When you come back, you dock again, detach, and connect to the onboard system. Better yet, imagine a rover with a wall of these backpacks, fully charged, ready to go. You just grab one, almost like swapping a battery. Suddenly, a space suit becomes modular, reusable, swappable, and scalable. Exactly the kind of thinking companies like SpaceX apply everywhere else. This matters greatly because the next phase of moon exploration is about staying. The next generation rover for the Aremis program will be pressurized. It is already being built in cooperation with Jax. This class of rover is planned to be deployed as early as 2031 and they are massive 15tonon heavy machines. They offer unmatched capabilities like a 3-tonon cargo capacity and 150 hours of operation in lunar shadow conditions. Astronauts will live in habitats and

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travel in pressurized rovers far away from the base for days. This is where true human lunar exploration actually starts. The first moon missions were about proving we could survive there. The next ones are about learning how to live there. And while everyone’s been watching Artemis 2 loop the moon and SpaceX stack starships, Europe has been quietly building something new. A reusable orbital space plane the size of a minivan with a payload capacity of 800 kg called Space Rider. Don’t we just love to see another space plane entering the stage? It parks itself in low Earth orbit at around 400 kilometers and spends roughly two months as a robotic flying laboratory. During this period, the uncrrewed space plane is conducting experiments in microgravity, deploying small satellites, and testing new technologies for issa and paying customers. Then it comes back home. If all goes to plan, it survives re-entry at 7.5 kilometers/s behind a ceramic

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heat shield. Next, it flips around and unfurls a steerable paraphoil that is 27 m long and 10 m wide. That makes it about 10 times the size of a paraglider’s wing. It guides three tons of spacecraft to a runway landing on skis autonomously with a targeted accuracy of 150 m. This is a new approach. No operational spacecraft has ever been designed to land that way. The space rider sports a 1200 L cargo bay that can be configured to meet specific mission requirements. It can deliver 600 watts of electric power. Possible missions include satellite inspections, inorbit validation and demonstrations and Earth observation. Space Rider’s maiden flight is now expected in early 2028 and last November, Portugal and issa confirmed the landing site Santa Maria Island in the Azors. The new spacecraft is not just a technology demonstrator either. ISA plans to use it commercially too right from the first

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mission. 18 customers have already signed up to fly payloads on flight 1, which tells you the demand is real. Before any of that can take place though, there is a vital test happening in the next few months. over a Sardinian range called Stora. A Chino helicopter will hoist the full-scale space rider module up to 3 kilometers and drop it. The paraphoil has to open. It has to safely bring the craft back home. There is no backup. It is a make orb breakak situation for the project. If it works, Europe takes a serious step towards something it has never had before. Routine reusable roundtrip access to orbit.

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