SpaceX’s Starship took a step closer to Florida when it carried out the tenth test flight of the new launch system yesterday in Texas. The massive Super Heavy–Starship vehicle lifted off from the Starbase facility in South Texas at 7:30 PM ET into partly cloudy skies. That was a pleasant change for both SpaceX and launch spectators, as yesterday’s attempt was scrubbed in the last minute due to janky weather and the risk of rocket induced lightning.

A Good Flight

Despite a Raptor engine shutting down during ascent, the booster’s descent trajectory was controlled, and it splashed down as planned in the Gulf of Mexico with no issues, despite a test regimen designed to further define the envelope within which the vehicle can operate successfully.

The upper stage, Ship, achieved its designed suborbital attitude with few if any visible problems, where it deployed eight Starlink simulator satellites using a new dispenser mechanism, executed an in‑space Raptor engine relight, and descended under control to splash down in the Indian Ocean.

During descent, there was one issue: structural damage occurred to its aft heat shield and engine skirt during the vehicle’s descent, but to its credit, Starship remained on course until splashdown. Undoubtedly, SpaceX engineers are analyzing that event closely with an eye to future improvements on future iterations of Starship.

This mission diverged from a string of setbacks in 2025 for the Starship program. Flight 7 ended with the upper stage lost mid‑flight, as did Flight 8. Flight 9 failed to deploy its payload and lost control during reentry. In contrast, Flight 10 executed its key procedures with relatively minor damage, signaling forward progress in the program’s development and its eventual deployment here in Florida on the Atlantic Range.

Questions

While Flight 10 was successful, some issues arose during the flight, with one potentially being a serious issue that required a great deal of Starship’s resilience to overcome. Fortunately, Ship continued

Three items that were obvious to viewers of the flight jump out:

First, why did the skirt of Ship fail as it did in the video above?

This photo shows two questions in one: first, what is the rust color where the thermal protection tiles are? Second, why is Ship’s nosecose white?

SpaceX engineers are no doubt poring over the flight data received from Flight 10, look at every aspect of vehicle performance during its mission.

Hearings Underway

Meanwhile, here on the Space Coast, the FAA public meetings regarding the Environmental Impact Statement for Starship at LC-39A are continuing tomorrow.

• Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025; two meetings: 1-3 p.m. and 6-8 p.m. ET at the Radisson Conference Center, Grande Caribbean, 8701 Astronaut Boulevard, Cape Canaveral, FL 32920
  
• Virtually on Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025; 6-8 p.m. ET

Talk of Titusville urges all interested Space Coast residents to attend and make their voices heard — no matter how you feel about Starship launching from The Cape.