{"id":304027,"date":"2025-10-15T00:52:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T00:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/304027\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T00:52:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T00:52:09","slug":"spacex-launches-the-11th-test-flight-of-mega-starship-rocket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/304027\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX launches the 11th test flight of mega Starship rocket"},"content":{"rendered":"

SpaceX launched another of its mammoth Starship rockets<\/a> on a test flight Monday, successfully making it halfway around the world while releasing mock satellites like last time.<\/p>\n

Starship \u2014 the biggest and most powerful rocket<\/a> ever built \u2014 thundered into the evening sky from the southern tip of Texas. The booster peeled away and made a controlled entry into the Gulf of Mexico as planned, with the spacecraft skimming space before descending into the Indian Ocean. Nothing was recovered.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, welcome back to Earth, Starship,\u201d SpaceX’s Dan Huot announced as employees cheered. \u201cWhat a day.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the 11th test flight for a full-scale Starship, which SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk intends to use to send people to Mars. NASA\u2019s need is more immediate. The space agency cannot land astronauts on the moon by decade’s end without the 403-foot (123-meter) Starship, the reusable vehicle meant to get them from lunar orbit down to the surface and back up.<\/p>\n

Instead of remaining inside Launch Control as usual, Musk said that for the first time he was going outside to watch \u2014 \u201cmuch more visceral.\u201d<\/p>\n

The previous test flight in August \u2014 a success after a string of explosive failures<\/a> \u2014 followed a similar path with similar goals. More maneuvering was built in this time, especially for the spacecraft. SpaceX conducted a series of tests during the spacecraft’s entry over the Indian Ocean as practice for future landings back at the launch site.<\/p>\n

Like before, Starship carried up eight mock satellites mimicking SpaceX\u2019s Starlinks. The entire flight lasted just over an hour, originating from Starbase near the Mexican border.<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s acting administrator Sean Duffy praised Starship\u2019s progress. \u201cAnother major step toward landing Americans on the moon\u2019s south pole,\u201d he said via X.<\/p>\n

SpaceX is modifying its Cape Canaveral launch sites to accommodate Starships, in addition to the much smaller Falcon rockets used to transport astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station for NASA. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SpaceX launched another of its mammoth Starship rockets on a test flight Monday, successfully making it halfway around…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":304028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[154305,166,163,347,64,159,167,164,158,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-304027","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-154305","9":"tag-aerospace-and-defense-industry","10":"tag-aerospace-technology","11":"tag-article","12":"tag-business","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-space-exploration","15":"tag-spacecraft","16":"tag-technology","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115375449353190237","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}