Starship Block 3

Block 3 was announced in April 2024 together with Block 2, but it is the larger step. The change that drives all the others is the engine: third-generation Raptors allow almost all inter-engine shielding to be deleted, saving over a tonne per engine on the booster and clearing out the ship's aft section.

The booster grows to 72.3 m, folds the vented staging section into the methane tank itself — so it is no longer jettisoned during descent — and drops from four grid fins to three. The new fins are larger, sit lower on the vehicle and double as the tower's catch points, doing away with dedicated catch hardware. The ship gets an improved tile design and, more importantly, docking ports and a redesigned quick disconnect for propellant transfer in orbit, the missing piece for any mission beyond Earth orbit.

The debut came on 22 May 2026 with the programme's twelfth flight, the first from Starbase's second pad. The booster held up through ascent despite losing an engine, but relit only twenty of the thirty-three planned for the boostback burn and hit the water hard. The ship reached engine cutoff, deployed twenty mass simulators and two modified working Starlink satellites, and flew a clean re-entry and landing flip.

The thirteenth flight, on 24 July 2026, followed the same script with a better upper half: the first deployment of real third-generation Starlink satellites, an in-space relight, and a ship that survived tipping over after splashdown intact — a first for the programme. The booster again failed its landing burn.

With Block 3 the programme stops chasing vehicle survival and starts chasing operations: full orbit, real payloads and ship-to-ship propellant transfer. Both the NASA-contracted crewed lunar landing and any journey to Mars hang on that last capability.