SpaceX stacks Super Heavy booster ahead of Starship megarocket's 12th test flight

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Just before the holidays, SpaceX took a big step toward the next test flight of its Starship megarocket.

On Christmas Eve (Dec. 24), the company posted a photo on X of the shiny Super Heavy booster that will conduct Starship Flight 12 standing in a high bay at its Starbase facility in South Texas. "Stacking complete," the photo's caption reads.

SpaceX has not yet announced a target date for that upcoming launch but has said that it's expected in the first quarter of this year.

That represents a bit of a delay, because the Super Heavy booster that was originally slated for Flight 12 buckled during testing in late November and SpaceX had to get another vehicle ready.

Starship is the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, standing more than 400 feet (122 meters) tall when fully stacked. It consists of two fully reusable elements — Super Heavy and a 171-foot-tall (52 m) upper stage known as Starship, or simply Ship.

Starship flew five times last year. The giant rocket suffered problems on the first three of those suborbital test launches, but the last two, which launched in August and October, went entirely according to plan.

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Flight 12 will try to extend that run of success while also breaking in the new "Version 3" of Starship. Among other modifications, this variant is a bit taller than its predecessors and will also be the first to employ SpaceX's new Raptor 3 engine.

Starship Version 3 is the first iteration of the vehicle capable of flying to Mars, SpaceX has said. And that could happen sooner than you think: Company founder and CEO Elon Musk has said he'd like to launch a few uncrewed Starships to the Red Planet during the next opportunity, which comes in the last few months of this year. (The two planets align for efficient interplanetary travel just once every 26 months.)

Starship must tick some big boxes before making that giant leap, however. For example, the vehicle still needs to reach Earth orbit and master in-space refueling.