Aug. 26 (UPI) — SpaceX officials succeeded in their third attempt this week to launch the 10th Starship test mission after scrubbing two prior launches due to weather and a technical problem.
The launch was made at 6:30 p.m. CDT from Starbase, Texas, which is located near the Gulf of Mexico shore and about 20 miles east of Brownsville.
The booster separated from the rocket about three minutes after launch, performed a controlled flip after stage separation and then initiated a boostback burn, all while using three engine configurations.
The test mission undertook multiple landing burn tests, tested the booster’s payload deployment and conducted several re-entry experiments aimed at returning the rocket’s upper stage to the launch site to be caught.
SpaceX collected the super-heavy booster’s performance data as it flew along a trajectory that ended at an offshore landing point in the gulf instead of returning to the launch site for a catch.
The SpaceX Starship rocket is the world’s largest and launches at 6:30 p.m. CDT from Launch Complex 1 at Starbase, Texas, on Tuesday to conduct a series of mission tests. Photo by Joe Marino/UPI
SpaceX officials also disabled one of the booster’s three engines to test its backup engine during a landing burn.
They then used only two center engines to do an end-of-landing burn, a full hover while above the gulf’s surface and then a shutdown.
A SpaceX Starship rocket launches at 6:30 PM CDT on its tenth flight test from Launch Complex 1 at Starbase, Texas on Tuesday August 26, 2025. SpaceX plans to conduct a series of tests during the mission which it has yet to perform during earlier flights. Photo by Joe Marino/UPI
The booster splashed down about seven minutes after the launch.
The rocket’s second stage cut off its engines nine minutes into the flight, followed by a nominal orbit insertion into space.
SpaceX continues preparing its Starship super-heavy booster for launch on its 10th flight test from Launch Complex 1 at Starbase, Texas, on Tuesday, with a one-hour window opening at 6:30 PM CDT. Photo by Joe Marino/UPI
The Starship’s upper stage deployed eight Starlink satellite simulators at a rate of about one per minute and starting 19 minutes into the flight.
The simulator satellites burned up upon re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.
After deploying the satellite simulators, SpaceX relit a single Raptor engine while in orbit before re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere.
The test affirms the engine’s ability to be used during orbital missions to break out of orbit and return to Earth, according to SpaceX.
The engine successfully relit about 38 minutes into the test launch, and the Starship began re-entry two minutes later.
The re-entry tested the Starship’s newly designed heat shields before it splashed down in the Indian Ocean after slowing from about five times the speed of sound during re-entry as part of a stress test to assess its limitations.
Some heat shields intentionally were removed from parts of the Starship, including from one of its engines, to see how the spacecraft would react.
A part of the spacecraft’s skirt was damaged during re-entry, but it continued toward splashdown after slowing to below the speed of sound with two Raptor engines slowing its pace.
It flipped and splashed down about an hour and seven minutes after launch, which triggered what appeared to be an explosion upon contacting the Indian Ocean’s waters.
The SpaceX Starship is the world’s largest rocket and is intended to support eventual Mars missions.
SpaceX had scrubbed planned launches due to a technical issue on Sunday and poor weather on Monday that raised the potential for a lightning strike on the super-heavy booster rocket.
Its ninth test flight in June ended in failure and total destruction on the launch pad when the super-booster rocket exploded during a preflight procedure.
In another incident, SpaceX in March lost contact with the Starship shortly after the launch of its eighth test flight, and the rocket exploded shortly after launch on its seventh test launch earlier this year.