SpaceX is preparing for the 11th test flight of its Starship mega-rocket on Monday evening, aiming to conclude a challenging year with a successful suborbital journey from South Texas to the Indian Ocean. The launch marks the end of the current version of the vehicle before upgrades next year. Key objectives include testing a new booster landing sequence and stressing the heat shield for reentry.
The liftoff of the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage is scheduled for 6:15 pm CDT (7:15 pm EDT; 23:15 UTC) from Starbase in South Texas, with a 75-minute window. SpaceX teams will load over 10.5 million pounds of super-cold methane and liquid oxygen into the 403-foot-tall rocket about an hour before launch. The booster's 33 Raptor engines will generate 16.7 million pounds of thrust—60 percent more than the Soviet N1—to propel the vehicle skyward. This is the second reuse of a Super Heavy booster, previously flown in March.
The flight trajectory will arc over the Gulf of Mexico, with staging occurring after about two-and-a-half minutes. Just before separation, six engines on the Starship upper stage will ignite. On descent, the booster will test a new "13-5-3" landing burn sequence: starting with 13 engines, reducing to five, then three center engines. "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," SpaceX stated. Unlike recent attempts, the booster will splash down in the Gulf rather than being caught by the launch tower.
In space, Starship will deploy eight Starlink satellite simulators, which will burn up over the Indian Ocean. The upper stage will restart a Raptor engine for trajectory adjustments and perform a dynamic banking maneuver with subsonic guidance algorithms before reentry. A major focus is the heat shield: engineers have removed tiles from vulnerable areas without backup ablative layers to stress-test the design amid temperatures up to 2,600° Fahrenheit. This follows lessons from August's Flight 10, the first successful reentry and splashdown.
The mission, lasting about 66 minutes, ends this year's tests for Starship Version 2, which has a roughly 40 percent success rate. Version 3 debuts in early 2026 with upgraded engines, larger tanks, and orbit refueling capabilities. SpaceX is building a second pad at Starbase with a flame trench and expanding in Florida to support higher flight rates. NASA relies on these for its $4 billion-plus Artemis lunar lander contract, requiring rapid reusability and refueling demos for Moon missions.