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SpaceX’s Starship megarocket took to the skies for the tenth time ever in the present day (Aug. 26), on a daring check flight that marked an enormous bounceback from current failures.
Starship, the most important and strongest rocket ever constructed, lifted off from SpaceX’s Starbase web site in South Texas in the present day at 7:30 p.m. EDT (2330 GMT; 6:30 p.m. native Texas time). That was two days later than initially deliberate; a difficulty with floor methods at Starbase pressured a scrub on Sunday (Aug. 24), and dangerous climate induced one other one on Monday (Aug. 25).
But it was definitely worth the wait: Starship did every thing SpaceX asked it to today, getting the giant vehicle back on track after a string of issues.
“That was absolutely incredible,” SpaceX Build Reliability Engineer Amanda Lee said during live launch commentary. “A huge congrats to all the teams here.”
“Great work by the SpaceX team!!!” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on X after the flight.
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A rocky street just lately
Today’s flight was the tenth total for Starship, which is designed to be absolutely and quickly reusable, and its fourth of 2025 thus far. The 12 months’s three earlier liftoffs did not go totally to plan.
The firm misplaced the Ship car, Starship’s 171-foot-tall (52 meters) higher stage, lower than 10 minutes after liftoff on each Flight 7 and Flight 8, which launched in January and March, respectively. The Ship on Flight 9 in May made it considerably farther, but still fell short of its planned Indian Ocean splashdown: The spacecraft broke apart as it reentered Earth’s atmosphere about 45 minutes after liftoff.
SpaceX suffered another Ship setback in June, when the vehicle it was prepping for Flight 10 exploded on a Starbase test stand. The upper stage was completely destroyed, forcing SpaceX to switch to another Ship.
Starship’s giant first-stage booster, named Super Heavy, has performed better as of late. For example, the booster successfully returned to Starbase for a dramatic catch by the launch tower’s “chopstick” arms on both Flight 7 and Flight 8.
SpaceX notched a major Super Heavy milestone on Flight 9 as well, reflying the booster for the first time. (The same vehicle launched on Flight 7). But there was also a hiccup on the May mission.
SpaceX conducted a number of experiments with Super Heavy on Flight 9, including bringing it back to Earth at a different angle, and so aimed for a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico rather than a somewhat risky return to Starbase. But Super Heavy didn’t hit the water intact, exploding above the waves during the final stages of its descent.
Making adjustments
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SpaceX studied the above issues in detail, then diagnosed them and cameup with fixes. For example, the company traced Ship’s Flight 9 problems to a failure of the vehicle’s main fuel tank pressurization system diffuser. Engineers redesigned the diffuser “to better direct pressurized gas into the main fuel tank and substantially decrease the strain on the diffuser structure,” SpaceX wrote in a report concerning the Flight 9 anomaly.
Super Heavy’s breakup on Flight 9 was seemingly brought on by unexpectedly excessive forces on the booster’s gas switch tube, which itself was the results of the upper “angle of attack” throughout descent, the corporate added. Future flights will cut back that angle to attenuate the possibility that the identical downside will recur.
And the wrongdoer of the June test-stand explosion was undetected injury to a composite overwrapped strain vessel (COPV) in Ship’s payload bay part, based on SpaceX. (COPVs in that space comprise nitrogen gasoline that is utilized by Ship’s environmental management system.)
“To address the issue, COPVs on upcoming flights will operate at a reduced pressure with additional inspections and proof tests added prior to loading reactive propellants onto a vehicle,” the corporate wrote within the Flight 9 report, which additionally addressed the June explosion. “SpaceX has also updated its COPV acceptance criteria and developed a new non-destructive evaluation method to detect internal COPV damage.”
An ambitious Flight 10
We promised maximum excitement. Starship delivered.”
— Dan Huot, SpaceX
The goals of Flight 10 were similar to those of Flight 9. Once again, SpaceX aimed to perform several experiments with Super Heavy, including a fuel-conserving controlled flip during descent and a landing burn that featured “unique engine configurations,” according to company mission preview.
That all appeared to go based on plan in the present day, as did Super Heavy’s last transfer: It made a managed splashdown within the Gulf of Mexico about seven minutes after launch, simply as SpaceX drew it up.
Ship got here by in the present day as nicely — and it had significantly extra work to do. The higher stage separated from Super Heavy on time and achieved its desired suborbital trajectory. The, throughout a five-minute stretch that started about 20 minutes after launch, Ship deployed eight dummy variations of SpaceX’s Starlink web satellites, a vital functionality it tried however did not show on all three of this 12 months’s earlier Starship flights.
“Just a reminder, we’re on a suborbital trajectory,” SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot said during live commentary. “These satellites on that very same suborbital trajectory, they are going to deplete totally.”
And there will be many satellite deployments from Ship in the future, if all goes to plan: SpaceX is counting on Starship to finish building out its Starlink megaconstellation, which is already the biggest satellite network ever assembled. The giant rocket should carry at least 60 Starlinks at a time, Huot said.
Then, about 38 minutes into the flight, Ship briefly ignited one of its engines. This was another big milestone for SpaceX; such in-space re-lights will be needed on operational Starship flights, to help power the vehicles to their distant destinations and to guide them down to Earth for safe touchdowns and reuse.
“Looks like we confirmed the relight of a type of heart raptor engines second time we have performed that,” Lee said during live commentary. “Super thrilling. Huge congrats to the workforce on this milestone.”
“That was a cool mild present,” Huot added.
About 45 minutes after liftoff, Ship started its reentry to Earth’s ambiance, a violent ordeal that SpaceX made much more harrowing to push the car to its limits.
“A significant number of tiles have been removed from Starship to stress-test vulnerable areas across the vehicle during reentry,” the corporate wrote within the Flight 10 mission preview. “Multiple metallic tile options, including one with active cooling, will test alternative materials for protecting Starship during reentry.”
Reentry took a toll on Ship. About two minutes in, a piece of Ship’s skirt — the basal half close to its engine bay — broke aside, sending particles floating into the ultimate frontier.
“That’s not what we want to see,” Huot mentioned.”We’ve got some visible damage on the aft skirt. We’re continue to re enter, though.
The Ship vehicle persevered, surviving in good enough shape to perform its planned landing burn and splashing down in the Indian Ocean as planned. 66.5 minutes after launch. And it was a bullseye landing: Ship came down within view of a buoy-mounted camera that SpaceX set up in the planned splashdown zone.
All in all, it was a successful day for SpaceX and the Starship team — one that the company celebrated and will doubtless plan to build on going forward.
“We most likely gave it a little bit bit of additional time within the oven, however made it throughout reentry … we promised most pleasure. Starship delivered,” Huot said as he ticked off each of the Flight 10 milestones Starship nailed during the flight. “Time to undergo the info. Really loopy cool to hit all these goals in the present day.”
Editor’s word: This story was up to date at 9:28 p.m. EDT to incorporate extra feedback from SpaceX’s workforce on the Starship Flight 10 check flight.
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