SpaceX launched its Starship rocket from its Starbase facilities in Texas on Monday, marking the eleventh test flight of the giant rocket. The mission saw the Starship upper stage separate from its Super Heavy booster, which returned for a soft water landing in the Gulf of Mexico approximately 10 minutes after liftoff. The Starship stage continued its journey to space, briefly re-lighting its engines and testing new heat shield tiles before splashing down in the Indian Ocean, west of Australia.
This latest test flight follows a successful mission in August, which ended a series of testing failures earlier in the year. Monday’s flight mirrored the previous one, deploying a batch of mock Starlink satellites and conducting various tests crucial for future long-duration space missions.
Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy praised the mission on X , stating that it was “another major step toward landing Americans on the Moon’s south pole.” SpaceX’s Starship rocket is a key component of NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return hu mans to the lunar surface by 2027, marking the first crewed moon landing since 1972.
In upcoming tests, SpaceX plans to launch a more advanced Starship prototype equipped with upgrades essential for extended missions in space. These upgrades include docking adapters and hardware changes necessary for orbital refueling, a complex process involving two Starships docking in orbit to transfer hundreds of tons of super-cooled propellant. (Read More)
