SpaceX completes another successful Starship test flight, marking 11th mission milestone
SpaceX achieved another major milestone on Monday as its massive Starship rocket completed its 11th test flight, circling halfway around the globe and successfully deploying mock satellites before splashing down in the Indian Ocean.
The world’s largest and most powerful rocket lifted off from SpaceX’s Starbase launch site in Boca Chica, Texas, lighting up the evening sky. As planned, the Super Heavy booster separated and made a controlled descent into the Gulf of Mexico, while the Starship spacecraft briefly entered space before re-entering the atmosphere and completing its flight over the Indian Ocean.
“Hey, welcome back to Earth, Starship,” SpaceX commentator Dan Huot announced as cheers erupted at mission control. “What a day.”
This was the 11th full-scale test of Starship, which SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk envisions as the vehicle that will one day carry humans to Mars. For NASA, however, Starship has a nearer-term mission — serving as the lunar lander that will ferry astronauts to and from the Moon’s surface under the Artemis program later this decade.
Breaking from routine, Musk said he watched the launch outdoors for the first time, calling it a “much more visceral” experience.
The previous test in August, hailed as a breakthrough following a series of explosive failures, achieved a similar trajectory. This latest flight included additional in-flight maneuvers and reentry tests designed to simulate future landings back at the Texas launch site.
Like before, Starship carried eight mock satellites modeled after SpaceX’s Starlink units. The entire mission lasted just over an hour.
NASA’s acting administrator Sean Duffy hailed the achievement on X (formerly Twitter), calling it “another major step toward landing Americans on the Moon’s south pole.”
SpaceX is also preparing its Cape Canaveral facilities in Florida to accommodate Starship launches, alongside the smaller Falcon rockets currently used for crew and cargo missions to the International Space Station.
Source: AP