SpaceX punts Starship launch as investigation opens into Starbase worker's death

Source: Hacker News

Launch timeline

SpaceX is now targeting the evening of May 21 to launch the latest and largest version of its Starship megarocket for the first time.

• The test flight was originally planned for last Friday—the same day emergency services responded to the death of a SpaceX worker at Starbase.
• The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has opened an investigation into the incident; the Wall Street Journal reported the person was a contractor who died in a fall.
• Social‑media posts showed emergency vehicles outside the Gigabay building, a facility SpaceX uses to produce and maintain Starship.

It is not clear whether the delay in the upcoming launch is related to this incident; SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

SpaceX had initially punted the launch date to May 19 before announcing a further delay over the weekend. The company now targets May 21, with a launch window opening no earlier than 6:30 P.M. EDT. The launch will be livestreamed on SpaceX’s website and YouTube.

Starship’s role in NASA’s lunar program

• Starship is one of two vehicles NASA plans to use to ferry astronauts from lunar orbit to the Moon’s surface as soon as 2028.
• NASA also aims to test Starship’s ability to rendezvous and dock with its crew capsule, Orion, in Earth orbit in 2027.
• A federal watchdog report published in 2025 warned that Starship is seriously behind schedule—SpaceX has yet to demonstrate that it can safely and successfully return astronauts from the Moon.

Details of the Starship V3 test flight

• This test flight, SpaceX’s 12th overall, marks the first for Starship V3, the latest and largest version of the vehicle, standing about 407 ft (124 m) tall when fully stacked.
• It is designed to loft more than 100 metric tons of cargo to orbit and to be fully reusable, though SpaceX has not yet shown that the vehicle is ready for orbital flight.
• The upcoming test will be suborbital and is intended to verify that the new hardware works as expected.
• Most previous Starship tests have ended in an explosion or with the rocket’s disintegration, although the two most recent tests were successful.

Potential impact on SpaceX’s IPO

The outcome of the scheduled demonstration could also set the tone for SpaceX’s highly anticipated initial public offering (IPO), which, with a likely valuation of $1.75 trillion, would make it the biggest IPO ever. SpaceX touts Starship as a workhorse vehicle that can:

• Boost its commercial launch business
• Expand its Starlink satellite megaconstellation
• Support a planned space‑based data‑center network