Starship V3 Takes Shape at Starbase

SpaceX is closing out 2025 with impressive speed on its next-generation Starship system. Super Heavy Booster 19—the first Block 3 vehicle—was fully stacked by December 24, just 25 days after its first barrel segments arrived in late November. That’s nearly twice as fast as the stacking timeline for Booster 17, highlighting SpaceX’s accelerating production cadence.

Booster 19 will fly with Ship 39, the debut Starship upper stage of the upgraded Block 3 design. Ship 39 has already been fully stacked since November and recently underwent a swap of its composite overwrapped pressure vessels (COPVs), likely in response to lessons learned from earlier failures, including the loss of Ship 36 in June and Booster 18’s anomaly during a ground test last month.

Both vehicles are now preparing for cryogenic proof testing at Massey’s Outpost, a critical step before static fire campaigns can begin. Sources suggest Flight 12—the first orbital test of the Block 3 configuration—could lift off as early as March 2026. This mission will debut several major upgrades: the new Raptor 3 engines, enhanced reusability features, and the first use of the revised Pad 2 architecture, which will eventually be replicated at other launch sites like LC-39A and SLC-37.

Starbase Gears Up for High-Tempo Flight Campaigns

While vehicle production sprints forward, Starbase itself is evolving to support more frequent and complex launches. Recent work has focused on upgrading the Massey test site, where a new truss structure has been installed at the ship static fire area—likely to improve access during engine testing for the Block 3 vehicles.

Pad 2, which will host Flight 12, is being outfitted with infrastructure compatible with the new Block 3 design. Although detailed public updates on tower or Mechazilla modifications are scarce this week, the overall trajectory is clear: SpaceX is building a launch and test ecosystem capable of supporting rapid iteration and high flight rates.

Elon Musk underscored the openness of the facility on December 22, tweeting, “Starbase is awesome and anyone can visit, since it’s on a public highway!”—a nod to the site’s unique accessibility amid its growing role as the heart of next-gen rocket development.

Falcon 9 Ends the Year with a Delay—but Not for Long

SpaceX’s final Falcon 9 launch of 2025 was slated for December 27, carrying Italy’s COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation FM3 Earth observation satellite from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. However, the mission was scrubbed twice—first on December 27 due to high winds, then again on December 28 to troubleshoot a ground systems issue. A third attempt was called off on December 29 to allow more time for ground system checkouts.

Despite the delays, both the Falcon 9 vehicle and its payload remain “healthy,” according to SpaceX. This mission would have marked the 166th Falcon 9 flight of the year—a staggering number that underscores SpaceX’s dominance in global launch cadence. A new launch date has not yet been announced, but given the narrow window before 2026 begins, it’s likely to slip into early January.

Starlink Surges Past 9 Million—Crew-12 Assignments Confirmed

In perhaps the most striking metric of the week, Starlink announced it has surpassed 9 million active customers—a jump from 8 million just weeks earlier. That’s an average of over 20,000 new users per day, a pace that even Elon Musk called out with a series of enthusiastic tweets, including “Great work by the @Starlink team. Rebuilding the whole Internet in space is not easy” and “Starlink is a total gamechanger.”

On the human spaceflight front, NASA confirmed the crew for the upcoming SpaceX Crew-12 mission to the International Space Station. Slated for no earlier than February 15, 2026, the mission will carry NASA astronauts Jessica Meir (commander) and Jack Hathaway (pilot), along with ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot and JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi. The crew will conduct a long-duration science expedition aboard the ISS, continuing the steady cadence of commercial crew rotations that have become routine thanks to Crew Dragon’s reliability.

Citations

• “Live coverage: SpaceX to launch Italian Earth observation satellite on final Falcon 9 flight of 2025” – https://spaceflightnow.com/2025/12/27/live-coverage-spacex-to-launch-italian-earth-observation-satellite-on-final-falcon-9-flight-of-2025/
• “NASA Shares SpaceX Crew-12 Assignments for Space Station Mission” – https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/commercialcrew/2025/12/22/nasa-shares-spacex-crew-12-assignments-for-space-station-mission/
• “Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million” – https://www.teslarati.com/starlink-passes-9-million-active-customers-just-weeks-after-hitting-8-million/