Watch SpaceX’s Super Heavy Starship booster hover in mid-air before plunging into the sea (video)

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Spectacular images from Starship’s latest test launch show the final seconds of the spacecraft’s thruster before it descends into the rich, blue waters of the Gulf.

SpaceX started 11th test flight It launched its giant Starship rocket on October 12 and achieved all its targets. The vehicle currently in development consists of the “Ship” upper stage and the Super Heavy booster, both of which are reusable. Together they stand at an altitude of about 400 feet (122 meters), but SpaceX plans to launch a taller, upgraded third version (V3) iteration of the vehicle moving forward.

Starship V2, which launched Monday (October 13) from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in South Texas, has plagued the company with test flights over the past year, but Flight Test 11 and its predecessor used the rocket on their last flights. To drive this point home, SpaceX published video from the booster’s exciting final moments before diving into its new home at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

Flight Test 11 achieved all mission objectives, and SpaceX appeared to have ameliorated the problems seen in Flight Test 10, which suffered visible structural damage to the ship as the upper stage returned. Earth’s atmosphere.

The ship’s landing and soft landing in the Indian Ocean caused a stir picture perfect There was a curtain call to complete V2’s final flight about an hour after liftoff, but its Super Heavy booster sang its swan song only about 6.5 minutes into the mission. This was the second flight of that Super Heavy booster and only the second booster to be re-flown as part of SpaceX’s efforts to make Starship fully reusable.

Starship is the rocket that SpaceX envisions to establish a permanent human presence in space. Anthem – According to the estimates of company CEO Elon Musk, more than a thousand launches will be carried out, and one of them will depend on the ability of the vehicle to land and launch repeatedly.

NASA also selected Starship as the lunar lander for the agency’s upcoming spacecraft. Artemis 3 The mission aims to take astronaut boats to the moon for the first time since the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 70s. NASA hopes to launch this mission in 2027, putting pressure on SpaceX’s timeline to make Starship operationally ready.

In addition to the light jumps of Ship and Super Heavy, Flight 11’s success included the deployment of Starlink mass simulator satellites, the reburning of the Ship’s Raptor engines while in space, and a new engine burn launch sequence for the Super Heavy during booster deceleration and landing burn.

Both Super Heavy and Ship were designed to return to the Starbase to provide rapid turnarounds for reflight, but neither stage did so for this mission. SpaceX captured the Super Heavy three times using giant mechanical arms called “Mechazilla” chopstick arms attached to the rocket’s launch tower. The upper stage of the ship is also designed to be captured by the arms of the launch tower, but Musk has stated that SpaceX’s first attempt to do so will occur in early 2026.