SpaceX’s Final Starship Launch of 2025: What to Expect
▼ Summary
– The upcoming Starship flight plan closely resembles the previous mission, with the booster splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico and the upper stage landing in the Indian Ocean.
– SpaceX will repeat key demonstrations from the last flight, including testing the satellite deployer and reigniting a Raptor engine in space to adjust for reentry.
– This flight aims to replicate the successes of the August 26 mission, which recovered from four prior failures and was SpaceX’s first fully successful Starship test.
– It will be the 11th overall Starship test flight and the last until early 2026, when an upgraded Starship Version 3 is introduced.
– Changes for this flight focus on reentry, with some heat shield tiles intentionally removed to stress-test vulnerable areas of the vehicle.
The upcoming Starship launch from SpaceX, set for no earlier than October 13, will closely mirror the successful August 26 mission in its core profile. The Super Heavy booster is slated to splash down in the Gulf of Mexico near the South Texas launch site, while the Starship upper stage will follow a suborbital trajectory, reentering the atmosphere above the Indian Ocean and making a water landing northwest of Australia. Once again, the flight will evaluate the rocket’s satellite deployment system and include a Raptor engine reignition in space to refine the vehicle’s reentry path, both critical steps toward eventual low-Earth orbit missions. All prior Starship flights have intentionally remained suborbital, and the August test marked a significant turnaround after four earlier failures.
This mission represents the 11th full-scale Starship test and the fifth of 2024. It will also serve as the final test flight before SpaceX introduces the larger, upgraded Starship Version 3, expected no sooner than early 2026. While the overall flight plan appears similar, several key modifications are planned, particularly during the ship’s atmospheric reentry. During this phase, the heat shield will endure extreme temperatures reaching approximately 2,600° Fahrenheit (1,430° Celsius). In a deliberate effort to evaluate structural resilience, SpaceX has removed select thermal protection tiles from the vehicle’s surface. These tiles, which number in the thousands, are being omitted in specific regions, including areas where tiles attach directly to the stainless steel airframe without an ablative backup layer, to intentionally expose and test the most vulnerable sections under real flight conditions.
(Source: Ars Technica)
