SpaceX plans to build on previous test for 11th Starship launch

BOCA CHICA BEACH, Texas — After coming off a previous Starship test, SpaceX plans to build on what was learned for the 11th launch scheduled for Monday evening.

The famous 397-foot-tall (121 meter) uncrewed Starship plans to take off from the company’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, on Monday evening, SpaceX stated.

The launch window will open at 7:15 p.m. ET, for the suborbital test flight.

Starship is the spacecraft and the Super Heavy is the rocket booster. When they are stacked together, they are mutually called Starship.

In addition to the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft, Starship is set to be used in the Artemis III mission that will send people back to the moon, stated NASA.

What to expect from the 11th test flight

SpaceX stated it wants to build on the previous test back in August, which went well except for a small explosion.

(Scroll down to learn more about the timeline of Starship’s test launches.)

For the 11th test flight, SpaceX stated it will change a few of the tests from flight 10.

The Super Heavy rocket booster being used for this test flight was used for flight 8 back in March, which saw it being caught by the 400-foot (122-meter) tall launch tower’s metal arms, which have been called chopsticks.

The launch-and-landing combo pad is affectionately known as Mechazilla.

However, for flight 11, it will get a wet landing after the hot-stage separation between it and the Starship spacecraft.

“The booster on this flight test previously flew on Flight 8 and will launch with 24 flight-proven Raptor engines. Its primary test objective will be demonstrating a unique landing burn engine configuration planned to be used on the next generation Super Heavy. It will attempt this while on a trajectory to an offshore landing point in the Gulf of America and will not return to the launch site for catch,” SpaceX described.

The total number of Raptor engines on the Super Heavy rocket booster is 33 and for this test flight, 24 have been used in previous test flights.

At the start of the landing burn, 13 Raptor engines will ignite and then it will go into a new configuration of five engines. This will help the team of engineers to “fine-tune” the booster’s path, according to SpaceX.

The booster will then use three center engines during the end of the landing burn, where it will fully hover above the ocean before being shut down and going into the Gulf of America, previously known as the Gulf of Mexico.

“The primary goal on the flight test is to measure the real-world vehicle dynamics as engines shut down while transitioning between the different phases,” explained SpaceX.

Once in space, Starship will again deploy eight Starlink satellite simulators, where they will be in the same suborbital trajectory as the craft before burning up in re-entry.

And just like in the previous test, this one will once again see the relight of a single Raptor engine in space.

This Starship will see a series of experiments that will eventually help others like it to return to the launch site for future flights.

“For reentry, tiles have been removed from Starship to intentionally stress-test vulnerable areas across the vehicle. Several of the missing tiles are in areas where tiles are bonded to the vehicle and do not have a backup ablative layer. To mimic the path a ship will take on future flights returning to Starbase, the final phase of Starship’s trajectory on Flight 11 includes a dynamic banking maneuver and will test subsonic guidance algorithms prior to a landing burn and splashdown in the Indian Ocean,” SpaceX described.

Starship’s Test Flights

Learn more about the ship’s test flight history through this digital timeline.