Elon Musk Revealed Breakthrough Goals for Starship V4 & Raptor 4 Stunned the whole Rocket industry…

[music] Starship V4 and Raptor 4 are on the way. But has SpaceX even officially debuted V3 and Raptor 3 yet? The answer is yes. And that fact alone underscores just how fast SpaceX is moving. If V3 and Raptor 3 were built around simplicity and raw power, the company is already pushing well beyond that. Continuing to test its own limits while redefining what Starship can become. This is no longer a distant concept or long-term road map, Musk has now confirmed several key details about these next generation designs. So, what exactly did Musk reveal? How powerful will the new engine and vehicle configurations be? and when might they first appear? Let's find out on today's episode of Great SpaceX. We are still moving steadily toward flight 12, the first flight of Starship V3. Testing activities in preparation for this mission are now in full swing. Starship V3 and Raptor 3 carry extremely high expectations. A defining characteristic of both is a strong emphasis on simplification applied to the rocket and the engines alike. While overall power continues to increase, each Raptor 3 engine is designed to produce approximately 280 metric tons of thrust. When 33 of these engines are combined on the Superheavy booster, the result is a launch vehicle capable of generating more than 9,000 metric tonses of liftoff thrust. Meanwhile, the second stage is expected to produce more than 1,700 metric tonses of thrust. This simplified design approach reduces risk, improves reliability, and directly addresses several of the challenges encountered during V2 operations in 2025. While we are still waiting to see how these versions perform in flight, Musk has already revealed the next major milestone SpaceX is targeting for Starship. In a post on X, Musk stated, "Raptor V4 engines will need to deliver 300 metric tons of force for the 33 engines to generate a collective 10, 000 tons of force." Notably, this was his second public comment about Raptor 4 in less than a month. That post was made on the 2nd of February. Earlier on the 23rd of January, Musk also said stretch goal for Starship V4 is 300 tons of thrust per engine with 33 engines. So 10,000 tons of total thrust. That is three times the power of the Saturn 5 moon rocket. These statements strongly reinforce the likelihood of Raptor 4 becoming the next major engine iteration.