SpaceX Successfully Launches Giant Starship Rocket’s 11th Test Flight
The company will soon begin testing the third version of its rocket
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/accounts/headshot/Sara_-_Headshot_thumbnail.png)
:focal(2048x1161:2049x1162)/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/44/ef/44ef31d1-906f-4d4b-8207-587ec641fa6a/g3l98b0wiaihh3i.jpeg)
SpaceX completed another test flight of its massive Starship rocket on October 13.
Starship—billed as the world’s biggest and most powerful rocket—launched at 7:23 p.m. Eastern Time from SpaceX’s base in southern Texas and landed in the Indian Ocean. The entire flight lasted around an hour.
Fun fact: Rocket rewind
Rockets are older than you might think—the first working models used in battle were deployed by Chinese forces attempting to repel Mongol invaders during the 13th century. Those first rockets were fueled by gunpowder and designed to launch fire arrows.This was the 11th test flight for the gigantic rocket, and the last one for this second iteration of Starship and its Super Heavy booster, which landed off Texas’ coast seven minutes after liftoff.
“Every major objective of the flight test was achieved, providing valuable data as we prepare the next generation of Starship and Super Heavy,” reads a statement on the company’s website.
Starship needed the win: The rocket has been plagued by a series of failures this year. Before its successful tenth test flight in August, it suffered three consecutive explosions. One big success of this flight was that there was no damage to the rocket’s new heat shield tiles, reports Joey Roulette for Reuters—a success that will allow the company to reuse the same parts in future launches.
The successful test brings Starship closer to making NASA’s Artemis mission—which aims to take humans back to the moon by 2027—a reality. The test flight was “another major step toward landing Americans on the Moon’s south pole,” wrote acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy on X.
The next version of Starship will be even bigger than the already-huge second version of the megarocket, SpaceX projects. The Starship spacecraft was designed to be fully reusable, and USA Today’s Eric Lagatta reports Version 3 should stand 408 feet tall when complete. Though its design will be similar to the current version, the spacecraft is expected to get a complete internal overhaul.
Version 3 of Starship is expected to carry out its first test launch either later this year or in early 2026. It will have an improved payload compartment and larger propellant tanks that should increase its lifting capacity, reports Stephen Clark at Ars Technica.
SpaceX also needs to successfully complete its orbital refueling experiments, a crucial step in making sure Starship can make trips to deep space and to the moon.
“The process is a complex one,” Lagatta writes, “requiring two Starships equipped with docking adapters to meet up in orbit to transfer hundreds of tons of super-cooled propellant, according to SpaceX.”
CNN’s Jackie Wattles reports that no one knows how many fuel tankers will be needed to pull off a future launch destined for the moon. While a SpaceX employee tells the outlet that number is “ten-ish,” an anonymous former NASA employee says that number is actually closer to 40.
On this flight, Starship also deployed eight mock satellites that mimic Starlink satellites. The test was designed to simulate future satellite launches from the craft.
Will Starship 3 have a better track record than its earlier counterparts? The craft’s supporters appear optimistic on social media. “The progress SpaceX demonstrated with today’s Starship test is critical for our Artemis missions,” Duffy wrote on X yesterday. “Every flight strengthens our progress on Artemis III.”
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/accounts/headshot/Sara_-_Headshot_thumbnail.png)