SpaceX Initiates Starship’s Highly Ambitious Test Flight
SpaceX’s Starship Megarocket Prepares for Final Test Flight
SpaceX’s Starship megarocket has returned to the Boca Chica launch pad, ready for its final test flight of the year. Flight 11, scheduled to depart Monday night or shortly after, will also be the last test flight for Starship version 2 if all goes according to plan.
Transition Time for SpaceX
Last week SpaceX moved the Starship super heavy booster, already set up on the Starbase platform, the company’s launch site in Boca Chica, Texas. The upper stage of the rocket, called Starship or Ship for short, goes on top of the booster before flight.
Starship is the largest and most powerful rocket ever built. It stands 122 meters tall, but SpaceX is aiming for more, as version 3 of Starship will be, according to CEO Elon Musk. They expect to launch it for the first time in early 2026.
A Similar Yet Different Plan
In Flight 11, the test is supposed to have the Super Heavy booster fall into the Gulf of Mexico while the upper stage advances in a suborbital arc, reenters the atmosphere, and falls into the Indian Ocean, according to SpaceX. Several objectives will be tested during the flight, including the deployment of eight dummy Starlink satellites and the reignition of one of the Raptor engines. SpaceX once again removed several ceramic plates from the heat shield for testing the rocket’s thermal protection system.
But unlike what they did in Flight 10, this time they will have the spacecraft perform a dynamic maneuver in the final phase of reentry, to mimic the path it will follow in future flights, with a return to Starbase. They will also test an engine combustion configuration upon landing, planned to be used in the next generation of super heavies, as indicated by SpaceX.
