Starship Test Flight 10: Success!

If you’ve been watching the previous Starship test launches you know that the last few haven’t gone very well. Here’s how flight 7 ended back in January.

Just saw the most insane #spacedebris #meteorshower right now in Turks and Caicos ⁦@elonmusk⁩ what is it?? pic.twitter.com/a7f4MbEB8Q

— Dean Olson (@deankolson87) January 16, 2025

Flight #8 ended pretty much the same. Flight 9 was an improvement but also a mixed bag.

There were some initial successes but ultimately neither the ship nor the booster were able to land as hoped.

The big success today was the reuse of the booster from test flight #7. Of course Space X has been reusing boosters on its Falcon 9 rockets for years now, and two other companies have achieved this as well. But the size of Starship is much greater (around 400 ft.) and it lacks any landing gear. Instead it gets caught out of the air by Mechazilla, the launch tower with it’s giant arms.

So the liftoff today went well and the reusable booster didn’t lose any engines during the boost phase. Next there was a new maneuver at stage separation designed to flip the booster quickly in the right direction to return. That also worked and all six of the ship’s engines were working.

The plan for this flight was never to try for a catch of the booster. Instead, Space X wanted to try a new more aggressive reentry to see how that would affect the booster and then try to “land” it in the Gulf where it would splash into the water in a controlled way. The engines did relight to slow it down but then they lost contact.

As for the ship itself on test #9, it wasn’t able to deploy dummy satellites because its door wouldn’t open. Then the ship itself began to spin wildly and they lost control.

Even gearing up for text #10 became a problem. A static launch test resulted in a big explosion, destroying the ship Space X had planned to launch this time.

ANOMALY! Just before Ship 36 was set to Static Fire, it blew up at SpaceX Masseys!

Live on X and YT:https://t.co/GPjZIX1Zyd pic.twitter.com/CfZhDeSGae

— NSF – NASASpaceflight.com (@NASASpaceflight) June 19, 2025

So there was a bit of extra pressure on this launch to go well. It was originally scheduled for Sunday but had to be scrubbed twice, first for a leak in a pipe on the ground and then again yesterday because of thunder clouds.

But today the test flight was a success. The booster got the ship off the ground. It was impressive as always.

Liftoff of Starship! pic.twitter.com/d6d2hHgMa0

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 26, 2025

The booster successfully separated and returned for a controlled landing over the ocean. With the exception of one engine going out (out of 33), that part of the mission was a success.

Starship’s Raptor engines ignite during hot-staging separation. Super Heavy is boosting back towards its splashdown site pic.twitter.com/9fRi4kvbmX

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 26, 2025

Here’s the simulated landing. It just hovers there over the ocean for about 15 seconds and then the cut the engines and it drops into the ocean as planned.

Super Heavy has splashed down in the Gulf pic.twitter.com/LGozUAmLt8

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 26, 2025

The ship itself went into orbit and was able to launch dummy satellites in space this time for the first time.

Open the pod bay door, HAL

Starship deploying @Starlink simulator sats pic.twitter.com/3CSOyulzcJ

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 26, 2025

And finally the big result remained. Would the ship make it all the way to the Indian Ocean at a designated spot and do its own simulated landing over the ocean as planned. This time they made it. And because the final approach and landing happened in daylight it was pretty spectacular.

Splashdown confirmed! Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on an exciting tenth flight test of Starship! pic.twitter.com/5sbSPBRJBP

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 27, 2025

Congratulations to Space X and Elon Musk for another achievement. Here’s video of the entire launch. You can scroll through to the launch itself or listen to an interview with Elon Musk about what comes next.