SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket was lifted on its 10th Test flight on Tuesday evening, hitting two long-standing milestones, ending a series of missteps.
The 403-foot vehicle was lifted from SpaceX’s launch facility Starbase and recently established the city. The rocket rose to 33 methane fueled engines before separating about three minutes after lift-off.
Upon descent, the Super Heavy Booster tested the new maneuver. Deliberately shuts down the engine used to land and migrate to the backup engine. This test helps engineers understand how boosters work in case of failure. The test appears to be going as planned, with the 232-foot-tall booster successfully performing a targeted splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.
Meanwhile, the upper stage, also known as the spacecraft, has reached space. So for the first time on a spaceship flight, they opened Pes-style payload doors and released eight Starlink mass membrane satellites. This is an ability SpaceX had planned but could not demonstrate in its previous mission. The company also kept one of its Raptor engines in space in space before leading the vehicle towards the Indian Ocean, where it splattered, turned over and quickly exploded.
Along the way, the exterior of the ship was exposed to incredible heat into the atmosphere, providing an excellent test environment for the upgraded thermal protection system. SpaceX also used this test to test a series of experiments, including removing the tile from the ship’s section and seeing how its “skin” works with re-entering, to see new metallic tiles and active cooling tiles.
Most importantly, however, is the upper row that completed the entire test and splattered in the Indian Ocean without losing communication with SpaceX engineers. During the final flight, the ship reached space at the coastal stage, then lost attitude control, preventing the payload door from opening. The engineers seem to have overcome these problems.
It was a big victory for SpaceX, losing the top stage of the spacecraft repeatedly due to a series of technical failures in flight. The persistent question raises questions about whether NASA’s rockets are ready to land humans on the moon by mid-2027, or whether the company can deploy its next-generation Starlink satellites.
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This test shows significant advancements in the Starship program. The company hopes to ultimately use it to send humans and cargo to Mars. SpaceX still needs to complete a series of tough technical milestones before it can get there, but tonight is one step closer.
