The Starship upper stage ascending to space after separating from the Super Heavy booster. Credit: SpaceX webcast
A SpaceX Starship-Super Heavy rocket lifted off from South Texas at 6:30 p.m. Central on Tuesday, marking the design’s 10th integrated flight test.
SpaceX has to review the flight data, but early indications point to the majority of the test objectives being accomplished, communications manager Dan Huot said at the conclusion of the livestream.
“On reentry, we probably gave it a little bit of extra time in the oven, but it made it all the way through,” Huot said. “All three engines started up; landing flips; splashed down in the Indian Ocean. We promised maximum excitement. Starship delivered.”
Splashdown confirmed! Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on an exciting tenth flight test of Starship! pic.twitter.com/5sbSPBRJBP
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 27, 2025
Flight 10 marked a departure from the last three Starship tests, which ended prematurely when the upper stages exploded in flight. And in June, the Ship 36 upper stage originally intended for Flight 10 exploded on the test stand while being fueled for a static fire test.
The two-stage rocket, the height of a 35-story building at 123 meters, rose from the pad in Boca Chica amid billows of exhaust with a flash of flame. It soared over the Gulf of Mexico, where the Super Heavy booster detached, flipped around and fell into the open waters. The upper stage continued on into space for a series of tech demonstrations. Those included:
- Emergency engine burns: As the Super Heavy booster fell back toward Earth, SpaceX intentionally disabled one of the three center engines to test the ability of a backup engine to complete the landing burn, then switched to only two center engines for the end of the burn. That was followed by a shutdown and drop into the Gulf of Mexico.
- Payload deployment: The upper stage deployed eight objects the size of the company’s v3 Starlink satellites. Those simulators are expected to burn up upon reentry.
- Rear flaps: Starship’s reentry profile was “designed to intentionally stress the structural limits of the rear flaps” at the point of maximum dynamic pressure, SpaceX said on its website. Though the live feed from cameras on the ship showed burning and deterioration on the end of at least one flap, they still functioned.
A little over an hour after liftoff, the upper stage plunged through the atmosphere toward the Indian Ocean. After executing a controlled hover, Starship sank into the waves, exploding as it did so. This was the first flight with a Block 2 Starship variant to make it to splashdown, and the first splashdown since Flight 6 last October.
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