SpaceX Launches Starship On 22-Hour Reusable Rocket Test Flight

SpaceX launched its giant Starship rocket on a 22-hour test flight from the company's Starbase complex on the Texas Gulf Coast on Friday evening, aiming to prove it can send the fully reusable vehicle to orbit, deploy satellites, and then fly it back to its launch site.^[1]

Lifting off at 5:45 p.m. EST, the two-stage, stainless-steel vehicle cleared the pad and powered toward space on the thrust of its Super Heavy booster, which stands 236 feet tall and carries 33 methane-fueled Raptor engines and about 8 million pounds of propellant.^[1] Stage separation occurred roughly 2 minutes and 20 seconds after liftoff, after which the booster followed a preplanned trajectory to a splashdown offshore instead of attempting a return to the launch site. On top, the 171-foot Starship upper stage began a mission profile that calls for an 18-minute coast phase, a brief orbital insertion burn, deployment of 26 Starlink Version 3 internet satellites, and an ambitious attempt on Saturday afternoon to guide the ship back to Starbase for a capture and recovery rather than a simple controlled splashdown.

The flight plan includes several backup options that highlight how experimental the reusable system still is. Mission controllers have pre-cleared multiple splashdown corridors across the Pacific, including areas around Hawaii, off the coast of Chile, and near the U.S. West Coast, where Starship could be ditched if technical problems prevent a safe return to Texas.^[1]

Starship's latest test builds on a string of increasingly complex flights from Starbase as SpaceX works toward a fully reusable heavy-lift system that can carry cargo and crews to the moon and eventually Mars. Previous missions have demonstrated high-altitude hops, partial reentries, and long-distance splashdowns but stopped short of an end-to-end profile that combines orbital flight, payload deployment, and a return-to-launch-site recovery attempt in one continuous sequence. Regulators and NASA, which is counting on a lunar-optimized Starship to land astronauts on the moon in coming years, have watched each step closely as SpaceX refines engine reliability, guidance software, and the heat protection systems needed to survive repeated trips through Earth's atmosphere.

1. CBS News