Another Successful Starship Test Flight as SpaceX Readies a New Version

Another Successful Starship Test Flight as SpaceX Readies a New Version

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 13, 2025 10:24 pm ET | Last Updated: October 14, 2025 3:31 pm ET

SpaceX achieved a second successful Starship test flight in a row this evening. Integrated Flight Test-11 or IFT-11 lifted off from Starbase, Texas and splashed down in the Indian Ocean about an hour later, welcome news after three failures earlier this year. This was the last flight of this version of Starship, however, so the next launch will introduce new uncertainties as the United States strives to get American astronauts back on the Moon before China gets there — a goal for which Starship is essential.

IFT-11 lifted off from Starbase at 7:23:41 pm Eastern Daylight Time. The first-stage Super Heavy booster made a soft landing in the Gulf as planned while the second-stage, Starship, continued along a suborbital trajectory to splash down an hour and six minutes later three-quarters of the way around the world.

UPDATE, October 14:  SpaceX just posted these two videos of Starship’s splashdown taken by their onsite team in the Indian Ocean.

 

As they did on the successful IFT-10 flight in August, SpaceX deployed eight Starlink V3 simulators along the way. They are ejected through a payload bay door that many compare to a PEZ dispenser as seen in this SpaceX video from tonight’s webcast.

The door is the elongated oval slit in this screengrab from the webcast after it was closed and Starship was beginning reentry, with clouds obscuring most of the Indian Ocean.

The Starlink simulators followed the same suborbital trajectory as Starship and did not go into orbit, burning up in the atmosphere instead. SpaceX is eager to get Starship ready to be able to launch the new, more capable Starlinks into orbit and build out their broadband satellite Internet system. They already have more than 7,000 Starlinks orbiting Earth today, which they used today and in previous flight tests to send back video throughout the entire Starship flight. The new V3 Starlinks, however, will have much greater capacity.

SpaceX again did not attempt to return the Super Heavy booster to the launch site for a “catch,” instead using it for engine tests with a planned splashdown in the ocean. This was the booster’s second flight.

Today’s flight undoubtedly was a relief for SpaceX, which suffered three Starship failures earlier this year on IFT-7,  IFT-8 and IFT-9.  IFT-10 turned the tide for this version of Starship, but the next flight will bring back a level of uncertainty. It will be the first of Starship Version 3 and launch from a new pad at Starbase.  The date for the launch has not been announced.

SpaceX not only needs Starship to launch the next generation Starlinks, but is under contract to NASA to use Starship as a Human Landing System (HLS) for the Artemis program to return U.S. astronauts to the lunar surface. The first of the landing missions, Artemis III, is scheduled for mid-2027. Many are skeptical SpaceX can get Starship ready in less than two years to safely take astronauts down to the surface of the Moon from lunar orbit and then back up into orbit.

Starship has not even reached Earth orbit — all the test flights are suborbital — and once there must be refueled before it can travel to destinations like the Moon or Mars. Those fuel depots don’t exist and transferring cryogenic propellant in microgravity has not been demonstrated.  The NASA contract requires an uncrewed test flight to the lunar surface before Artemis III. SpaceX must demonstrate Starship can lift off the lunar surface, but not that it can get back into lunar orbit. The company hasn’t said when it plans to conduct that test flight.

Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy is determined to get American astronauts back on the Moon before China puts taikonauts there, which it plans to do by 2030.  He welcomed today’s success.

Starship is also SpaceX’s ticket to Mars and fulfilling Elon Musk’s passion of making humanity a multi-planet species. Musk talks about sending uncrewed Starships on test flights to Mars at the end of 2026, the next time Earth and Mars will be correctly aligned, opportunities that arise every 26 months. He is renowned for overly optimistic timelines, but SpaceX already is preparing for cargo missions to the Red Planet and signed their first customer in August — the Italian Space Agency. SpaceX webcast commentators tonight said the “research, development and technology” missions to Mars will begin in 2030, adding that comparable missions to the Moon will start in 2028.

Last Updated: Oct 14, 2025 3:31 pm ET

User Comments



SpacePolicyOnline.com has the right (but not the obligation) to monitor the comments and to remove any materials it deems inappropriate.  We do not post comments that include links to other websites since we have no control over that content nor can we verify the security of such links.

SPACEPOLICYONLINE.COM

About | Contact | Privacy