SpaceX has successfully launched the 10th test flight of its Starship spacecraft, a success for a company that has been met with varying results – of the 10 test flights of the Starship so far, five have been marked as successes and five as failures.
The launch took place on Tuesday 26th August. Originally earmarked for Monday, thick cloud cover was cited as unfavourable weather conditions and it was pushed forward to Tuesday. Measuring 123 metres tall, the rocket lifted off from the company’s Starbase in Texas at 6:30pm local time. It re-entered Earth and hit the Indian Ocean an hour after the launch.
The first launch of the Starship happened in April 2023, where it was deemed a success but it had an early termination due to failure for the rocket to complete the separation stage, which the engineers at the time referred to as a “rapid unscheduled diassembly”. Since then, it has undergone nine more test flights as Starship is viewed as crucial for launching satellite constellations like Starlink, transporting spacecraft modules, and for large-scale lunar and Martian missions.
It is planned to be the successor to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets and become its main vehicle for crewed and uncrewed missions to the Earth’s orbit, the Moon, Mars, and possibly even further out.
Importantly, the rocket has been engineered to be reusable. It is made up of the Super Heavy booster and Starship spacecraft, which detach from one another during the launch. Although SpaceX has previously demonstrated its capabilities in catching the Super Heavy Booster following detachment for this test flight it would not catch the booster and plans to use it for in-flight experiments – a feat that took place in October 2024.
Traditionally rockets are designed to be single use and the payload and boosters usually burn up in the atmosphere or fall into the ocean. However, companies including Starlink and Blue Origin Ocean have developed and demonstrated reusable launch systems that address the constraints of spacecraft: cost, frequency, and sustainability. Reusable rockets also allow for a faster turnaround between missions.
This follows news of SpaceX’s expansion of its Starship operations in Florida, as it is in the process of building a new integration facility, Gigabay, next to its HangarX location at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Gigabay will be a 380 feet tall facility supporting Starship and Super Heavy vehicles up to 81m tall. It is slated to be operational at the end of 2026.
