SpaceX has launched Starship 10 times since April 2023 from its Starbase headquarters in South Texas.<\/p>\n
For more than two years, SpaceX has been conducting tests of its massive Starship spacecraft<\/a> from its Texas headquarters.<\/p>\n And for more than two years, the vehicle\/rocket combo \u2013 standing more than 400 feet tall<\/a> when fully stacked \u2013 has generated several national headlines.<\/p>\n That attention is not just due to its status as the world’s largest rocket, but also the outsized role Starship is due to play in future human spaceflight<\/a> missions to the moon<\/a> and Mars<\/a>. SpaceX also encountered some hiccups with Starship earlier in 2025 when the vehicle kept unexpectedly exploding during three consecutive test flights<\/a> from Starbase, SpaceX’s company town<\/a> near the U.S.-Mexico border.<\/p>\n But after the Starship’s upper stage also burst into flames on a test stand in June<\/a>, SpaceX, founded by billionaire Elon Musk<\/a>, appears to have gotten the spacecraft’s development back on track. The vehicle’s most recent launch in August<\/a>, its fourth of the year, was also its most successful test by far in 2025.<\/p>\n As SpaceX looks to build off that momentum with another Starship flight test<\/a> coming up as early as Monday, Oct. 13<\/a>, here’s a recap of all previous 10 launches<\/a>.<\/p>\n Aug. 26, 2025: SpaceX conducts most succesful Starship test of the year<\/p>\n SpaceX’s previous Starship launch Aug. 26<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 coming on the heels of three consecutive flights in which the vehicle exploded prematurely \u2013 was also its most successful test of the vehicle in 2025.<\/p>\n In that test, the upper stage, the vehicle known as Starship, separated from the rocket booster about three minutes into the flight to continue on its own on a suborbital trajectory. The vehicle then hit two major milestones\u00a0by deploying eight mock Starlink satellites and\u00a0reigniting one of its Raptor engines<\/a>\u00a0in space for the second time ever, a necessary maneuver to bring a vehicle back to the ground<\/p>\n Re-entering Earth’s atmosphere\u00a0about an hour into the mission over the Indian Ocean<\/a>, Starship then fired its engines to make\u00a0a controlled vertical landing on the ocean’s surface west of Australia before exploding in a fireball.<\/p>\n As for Super Heavy, the rocket booster made a water landing as planned off the Texas coast after completing several in-flight experiments.<\/p>\n May 27, 2025: Starship travels furthest distance of the year before exploding<\/p>\n After lifting off May 27, the upper stage vehicle, simply known as Starship, streaked through suborbital space<\/a> \u2013 far surpassing the previous 2025 flights in January and March. But the Starship vehicle still met an untimely end when it\u00a0spun out of control about halfway through its flight<\/a>\u00a0without achieving some of its most important objectives.<\/p>\n The mission got off to a positive start, with the successful first-ever launch of a rocket booster \u2013 known as Super Heavy \u2013 that had flown during a previous flight in January. Reusing a booster was an important milestone for SpaceX to demonstrate that the rocket can be flown multiple times.<\/p>\n The Starship spacecraft managed to separate from the booster and fire its six Raptor engines to propel itself on a trajectory taking it into space as it soared around the world.<\/p>\n But contact with Starship was lost approximately 46 minutes into the flight\u00a0as it spun out of control and once again came apart. The debris fell into the Indian Ocean, far from inhabited areas, SpaceX said.<\/p>\n The company was also unable to deploy test Starlink satellites.<\/p>\n As for the Super Heavy booster, SpaceX lost contact with the lower-stage during its descent about six minutes after launch.<\/p>\n In three different test missions since October 2024, SpaceX has successfully flown and caught the booster back at the launch site using a pair of mechanical arms nicknamed “chopsticks.” This time, SpaceX had no plans to recover the booster as it instead sought to push its performance beyond what has so far been attempted.<\/p>\n But rather than making a controlled splashdown as planned, the booster came apart in the air \u2013\u00a0what SpaceX refers to as “a rapid unscheduled disassembly<\/a>” \u2013\u00a0and plummeted into the Gulf of Mexico, which the U.S. government has renamed as the Gulf of America.<\/p>\n March 6, 2025: Starship explodes for second consecutive time<\/p>\n On March 6, flight operators lost contact with the 165-foot upper portion of the vehicle, which\u00a0exploded less than 10 minutes into the flight<\/a>, creating debris\u00a0visible from Florida to the Caribbean<\/a>.<\/p>\n The explosion occurred despite SpaceX assuring that what mission teams learned from the seventh flight\u00a0prompted them to make several modifications<\/a>\u00a0to the vehicle.<\/p>\n In a report released May 22 to the Federal Aviation Administration<\/a>, SpaceX said mission operators noticed a “flash” close to the bottom section of Starship about five-and-a-half minutes into the vehicle’s ascent burn, followed by what SpaceX called “an energetic event” that led to the loss of one of its Raptor engines.<\/p>\n Within about two minutes, the remaining five of the vehicle’s six Raptor engines also subsequently shut down, causing the vehicle to veer out of control. This led to the communication breakdown and the vehicle to trigger its own self destruction, SpaceX concluded.<\/p>\n SpaceX identified “the most probable root cause” of the mishap as a hardware failure in one of the upper stage’s Raptor engines “that resulted in inadvertent propellant mixing and ignition.”<\/p>\n Despite the failure of the Starship vehicle, the spacecraft’s 232-foot “Super Heavy” rocket booster managed to once again navigate back to the launch pad for the third time ever. The maneuver involves SpaceX\u00a0catching the booster with giant mechanical arms<\/a>\u00a0known as chopsticks.<\/p>\n Having the capability of catching the Starship booster is crucial for SpaceX, giving the company a completely reusable booster that is able to launch again.<\/p>\n Jan. 16, 2025: First Starship launch of the year comes to fiery end<\/p>\n The\u00a0first Starship demonstration<\/a>\u00a0of the year also ended in a fiery explosion after the Starship vehicle was lost during its suborbital flight.<\/p>\n Mission controllers lost contact with the spacecraft within 8 1\/2 minutes of its flight before determining that it was destroyed in what the company called a \u201crapid unscheduled disassembly<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0Video on social media<\/a>\u00a0showed the explosion and its aftermath as remains of the spacecraft were seen breaking up in what looked like a stunning meteor shower.<\/p>\n SpaceX, which conducted an investigation with the FAA,\u00a0determined<\/a>\u00a0that the mishap was due\u00a0to a series of propellant leaks and fires in the aft section of the vehicle that caused \u201call but one of Starship\u2019s engines to execute controlled shut down sequences.” This led to the communication breakdown and the vehicle to trigger its own self destruction.<\/p>\n On his social media site X, Musk made light of the fiery end.<\/p>\n “Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed!”\u00a0Musk posted<\/a>, along with a user video of the Starship debris raining down near the Atlantic Ocean. He\u00a0added in another post<\/a>\u00a0that “improved versions” of the spaceship and booster are “already waiting for launch.”<\/p>\n The launch did end with one major accomplishment \u2013 the\u00a0second-ever successful return of the rocket booster<\/a>\u00a0to the launch pad.<\/p>\n Nov. 19, 2024: Trump in attendance; booster catch called off<\/p>\n The final Starship flight test of 2024 took place in front of a newly re-elected President Donald Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Starship began its projected trajectory at 5 p.m. ET over the Gulf of Mexico<\/a>, since renamed by the U.S. government as the Gulf of America, following a similar suborbital path\u00a0as previous flights. The rocket booster splashed down off the coast of Texas seven minutes after launch.<\/p>\n The Starship vehicle itself flew for\u00a0more than an hour<\/a>\u00a0before splashing down at 6:05 p.m. ET in the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n As for the booster, SpaceX officials had hoped to\u00a0replicate what they did<\/a> for the first time in the previous test, steering it back autonomously to the landing pad before catching it with two giant mechanical arms. But during the flight, officials opted to skip the complex maneuver for safety reasons.<\/p>\n In an update on its website<\/a>, SpaceX attributed the decision to data from “automated health checks” of hardware on both the launch and catch tower.<\/p>\n The company also reignited its Raptor engines in space to attempt an orbital burn \u2013 a crucial maneuver to one day bring a vehicle back to the ground. The launch also included plans to fly the ship at a “higher angle of attack” to test what it can handle on future landings.<\/p>\n Oct. 13, 2024: SpaceX catches rocket booster in mechanical arms nicknamed \u2018chopsticks\u2019<\/p>\n For its fifth test flight<\/a>, the empty Starship blasted off from the southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border. As in previous tests, the vehicle flew on a trajectory over the Gulf.<\/p>\n In a first, the first-stage Super Heavy booster flew back<\/a> to the launch pad. SpaceX had built a launch tower with massive mechanized metal arms, nicknamed “chopsticks,” that then managed to catch the descending booster<\/a> in a daring maneuver.<\/p>\n Prior to the booster dropping and landing, it had pushed the Starship upward into the atmosphere, sending it soaring more than 130 miles high.<\/p>\n An hour after liftoff, Starship made a controlled landing in the Indian Ocean<\/a>. Ahead of the demo, SpaceX engineers reworked the rocket’s heat shield<\/a>, replacing the entire thermal protection system with newer tiles and a backup ablative layer.<\/p>\n June 6, 2024: Starship completes first-ever successful landing burn<\/p>\n The craft experienced a successful separation from the booster<\/a>, which saw 32 of 33 engines igniting properly during launch, about seven minutes into the flight.<\/p>\n The booster successfully came back down to Earth and splashed down in the Gulf as planned and all six of Starship’s engines powered it into successful orbital insertion.<\/p>\n Heat shields protecting the outside of the craft took a beating, with at least one throwing debris into one of the live-streaming external cameras, but it managed to make a successful re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere<\/a>.<\/p>\n Roughly one hour and six minutes into the flight, Starship completed its first-ever landing burn and splashed down into the Indian Ocean to raucous applause.<\/p>\n March 14, 2024: Starship reaches space before being lost in atmosphere<\/p>\n In the third test,\u00a0the Starship succeeded in separating<\/a> from the booster\u00a0and proceeding to orbit within minutes of launching, where it conducted a series of in-flight tests while coasting through space.<\/p>\n Video of its flight beamed back to Earth using SpaceX’s Starlink Satellite network was able to capture the beginning of the spacecraft’s re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. However, the signal was lost about an hour into the mission before\u00a0SpaceX\u00a0concluded that the craft likely broke apart.<\/p>\n Despite Starship’s failure to make its planned splashdown in the Indian Ocean, SpaceX said the rocket still achieved several key milestones<\/a>, including the successful firing of its 33 Raptor engines in the booster and the opening of a payload door.<\/p>\n Nov. 18, 2023: Starship makes it further in second test, but still explodes<\/p>\n During the second launch test of the Starship,\u00a0the rocket survived for longer<\/a>\u00a0and achieved some milestones, but it still eventually exploded.<\/p>\n The booster was able to successfully separate from the rocket, which reached space before the ground crew lost communication with it after nine minutes. Three minutes later, SpaceX lost both the booster and the spacecraft in\u00a0two explosions<\/a>.<\/p>\n Rather than seeing it as a setback, SpaceX expressed optimism about the stage separation while saying the rest would just be valuable data to help them remedy whatever went wrong.<\/p>\n April 20, 2023: Starship explodes minutes after inaugural launch<\/p>\n