Flight 11 launches as Super Heavy achieves 'drop' in Gulf

Oct. 13—Starship S38 and Super Heavy booster B15 launched from Boca Chica/Starbase at 6:23 p.m. Monday for SpaceX's 11th Starship test flight.

The test called for stage-separation a few minutes after launch, with Super Heavy dropping into the Gulf of Mexico from low altitude following a brief "full hover," and for Starship, a controlled landing in the Indian Ocean near Australia roughly one hour after liftoff.

Prior to the flight, SpaceX said the primary test objective for Super Heavy would be to demonstrate a "unique landing burn engine configuration" for use in the next generation of the booster.

This was attempted Monday while B15 was on its trajectory to the Gulf. It was the second time the B15 had flown.

Its first mission was Flight 8 on March 6, one of three times SpaceX has retrieved a Super Heavy back at the launch site.

Monday was the one-year anniversary of the company's first booster catch, involving booster B12 on Oct. 13, 2024.

Monday's plan was to ignite 13 of Super Heavy's 33 engines at the start of the "landing burn," then shut down all but five engines during fine-tuning of the booster's path to the Gulf (formerly done with three engines), then shut down of all but three engines for the hover before the full cutoff and drop.

"The primary goal on the flight test is to measure the real-world vehicle dynamics as engines shut down while transitioning between the different phases," the company said.

With Starship S38, SpaceX had planned another release of mock satellites in space and the relight of one of the vehicle's six engines in addition to a soft landing in the Indian Ocean.

Flight 11 was aiming to repeat the success of Flight 10 on Aug. 26, during which the company met all of its mission objectives toward developing Starship and Super Heavy as fully reusable vehicles.

Per a contract with NASA, SpaceX is developing Starship/Super Heavy to return astronauts to the moon for the first time since 1972 and, eventually, crewed missions to Mars.

As of 6:30 p.m, Starship was on its way toward a planned controlled landing in the Indian Ocean.

RELATED READING:

Featured Local Savings