SpaceX launches remaining Version 2 Starship-Super Heavy rocket – Spaceflight Now

SpaceX closed a chapter in its Starship saga on Monday. It launched what gave the impression to be a virtually flawless suborbital mission with its Version 2 Starship-Super Heavy rocket, the ultimate flight for this iteration of the launch car.

The greater than 400-foot-tall rocket thundered away from Pad A at Starbase at 6:23 p.m. CDT (7:23 p.m. EDT / 2323 UTC) to start the roughly one-hour-long flight. The solely notable hiccup throughout ascent was that one of many deliberate 13 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster, tail quantity B15, didn’t reignite throughout the boostback burn.

That engine did come again into play throughout the touchdown burn, which was a brand new configuration for SpaceX. It went from 13 to 5 to 3 engines earlier than full cutoff and splashdown within the Gulf.

This was the second and remaining launch for B15. It first flew on Starship Flight 8 in March.

While the Starship higher stage, tail quantity S38, was making its means in direction of the Indian Ocean, it was capable of jettison eight giant steel rectangles meant to simulate the scale and mass of future Starship Version 3 satellites. It additionally reignited one of many sea-level Raptor engines to simulate a de-orbit burn, which might be wanted on future orbital missions.

The rocket made it by the purpose of peak heating in addition to the best level of atmospheric stress with the car principally in tact. One of SpaceX’s predominant objectives was to be taught extra in regards to the efficiency of its warmth protect throughout the reentry course of.

Splashdown confirmed! Congratulations to all the SpaceX workforce on an thrilling eleventh flight take a look at of Starship! pic.twitter.com/llcIvNZFfg

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 14, 2025

“Great work by the @SpaceX team,” founder Elon Musk wrote on his social media website, X, following the conclusion of the mission.

This was the ultimate Starship launch of the yr and the final mission that may fly from Pad A in its present configuration. SpaceX now turns its consideration to finishing and testing Version 3 of Starship-Super Heavy, which is able to start launch from Pad B.

It’s this iteration of the rocket that SpaceX intends to make use of for launching payloads to orbit and ultimately flying missions to the Moon and Mars. To get to these missions past low Earth orbit although, SpaceX might want to grasp the power to each switch and retailer propellant in orbit.

NASA is relying on SpaceX to hammer out the logistics for this ship-to-ship propellant switch system for missions related to the Artemis program. SpaceX was awarded billions of {dollars} to carry out touchdown operations for astronauts on the Artemis 3 and Artemis 4 missions.

Before that although, SpaceX must conduct an on-orbit propellant switch demonstration, one thing that at one level was supposed to occur in 2025. It’s unclear what number of launches might be required to fill a tanker model of Starship that may then offload its propellant to a Human Landing System variant of the rocket for Moon-bound missions.

SpaceX is on contract to carry out an uncrewed touchdown demonstration with a liftoff from the lunar floor previous to carrying crew onboard although the timing of that is unclear. The Artemis 3 mission is at the moment scheduled for mid-2027, simply over a yr after Artemis 2, which is not going to characteristic a Moon touchdown.