When is the following Starship launch? SpaceX proclaims date for flight 11

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Elon Musk’s business spaceflight firm is gearing for its fifth flight check of 2025 for a spacecraft that would someday ferry astronauts to the moon and Mars.

We’re probably lower than two weeks away from witnessing SpaceX’s large Starship rocket soar as soon as once more midway all over the world.

The business spaceflight firm, based in 2002 by billionaire Elon Musk, has introduced that it’s gearing for its fifth flight check of 2025 for a spacecraft that would someday ferry astronauts to the floor of the moon – and even Mars.

The launch, scheduled for mid-October from the corporate’s Texas launch web site, would come lower than two months after SpaceX performed its most profitable Starship check of the yr. Prior to the August launch, the automobile’s 10th overall test flight since April 2023, SpaceX had struggled with three consecutive premature explosions of Starship’s higher stage whereas falling properly in need of its previous successes.

Looking forward, Musk has typically indicated his want to ramp up the frequency of checks for the world’s largest rocket after receiving key federal approval to take action.

Here’s the whole lot to learn about SpaceX’s upcoming launch of the Starship spacecraft, a mission often known as flight 11.

When is Starship flight 11 launch date? Here’s what SpaceX is planning

SpaceX is concentrating on Oct. 13 for Starship’s subsequent check flight from its sprawling Starbase – the complicated that doubles as a Texas city and the company’s headquarters in South Texas.

The launch window is because of open at 7:15 p.m. ET, with a webcast starting half-hour previous to that, SpaceX announced Monday, Sept. 29.

This time round, SpaceX plans to make use of the flight check to assemble knowledge to tell the design of the following iteration of its lower-stage rocket booster, often known as Super Heavy, whereas stress-testing the upper-stage automobile’s heatshield. The firm additionally detailed plans for the higher stage, merely often known as Starship, to aim mid-flight maneuvers that will likely be obligatory for it to someday be able to returning and touchdown again on the launch web site.

The higher stage is meant to land as soon as once more within the Indian Ocean.

For the second time ever, SpaceX additionally plans to make use of a Super Heavy booster that has flown on a earlier Starship flight check. Additionally, 24 of its 33 engines within the SpaceX Raptor household will likely be “flight proven,” SpaceX stated.

For the third time in a row, the booster is not going to return to the launch web site, as a substitute touchdown within the Gulf of Mexico, renamed by the U.S. authorities because the Gulf of America, as SpaceX makes an attempt to push its efficiency past what has thus far been tried.

Was the final Starship launch profitable?

SpaceX’s previous Starship launch Aug. 26 – approaching the heels of three consecutive flights during which the automobile exploded prematurely – was additionally its most profitable check of the automobile in 2025.

In that check, the higher stage, the automobile often known as Starship, separated from the rocket booster about three minutes into the flight to proceed by itself on a suborbital trajectory. After that, the automobile hit two main milestones by deploying eight mock Starlink satellites and reigniting one of its Raptor engines in area for the second time ever – a obligatory maneuver to convey a automobile again to the bottom.

Re-entering Earth’s ambiance about an hour into the mission over the Indian Ocean, Starship then fired its engines to make a managed vertical touchdown on the ocean’s floor west of Australia earlier than exploding in a fireball.

As for Super Heavy, the rocket booster made a water touchdown as deliberate off Texas coast after finishing a number of in-flight experiments.

What is Starship? Rocket sure for moon, Mars

SpaceX is growing Starship to be a totally reusable transportation system, which means the rocket and automobile can return to the bottom for extra missions.

In the years forward, Starship is set to serve a pivotal position in future U.S. spaceflight.

Starship is the centerpiece of Musk’s imaginative and prescient of sending the primary people to Mars, with plans for the primary uncrewed Starship to move to the Red Planet as early as 2026.

A configuration of the automobile can also be vital in NASA’s plans to return astronauts to the moon’s floor. The U.S. area company has designs on utilizing Starship to ferry Artemis III astronauts from an Orion capsule in orbit to the lunar floor as early as 2027.

How huge is Starship?

The Starship, standing 403 feet tall when fully stacked, is considered the world’s largest and strongest launch automobile ever developed. When absolutely built-in, the launch system is composed of each a 232-foot Super Heavy rocket and the 171-foot higher stage Starship, the spacecraft the place crew and cargo would journey.

Super Heavy alone is powered by 33 of SpaceX’s Raptor engines that give the preliminary burst of thrust at liftoff. The higher stage Starship part is powered by six Raptor engines that may in the end journey in orbit.

Where is SpaceX positioned in Texas? What to learn about Starbase

Starbase is SpaceX’s company town built about 23 miles from Brownsville in South Texas. The web site is positioned in Cameron County close to the U.S.-Mexico border.

As the headquarters for the commercial spaceflight company, Starbase is residence to SpaceX’s rocket program and is the place the autos are each constructed and sometimes launched.

Starbase made information in May 2025 when Texas voters in Cameron County authorized a measure to formally recognize the company’s headquarters as its own town, full with a mayor and metropolis council. The city designation has been speculated to provide larger municipal management of the world to Musk, who has regularly clashed with government regulators over the pink tape SpaceX has needed to navigate earlier than launches.

Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com