NEW DELHI: After a resounding success of its 10th test flight of Starship, SpaceX is targeting the 11th test flight for October 13, the Elon Musk-led company announced on Tuesday.
The Starship and Super Heavy booster is scheduled to launch from the company’s Starbase site in South Texas on October 13, with a launch window opening at 6:15 p.m. CT (October 14, 4:45 a.m. IST).
“Starship’s tenth flight test took a significant step forward in developing the world’s first fully reusable launch vehicle. Next up: Flight 11 of Starship is targeted to launch as early as Monday, October 13, ” SpaceX said in a post on social media platform X.
During the 11th flight, the booster 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 said, in a blog post.
The primary goal of the flight test is to measure the real-world vehicle dynamics as engines shut down while transitioning between the different phases.
The Starship upper stage will target multiple in-space objectives, including the deployment of eight Starlink simulators, similar in size to next-generation Starlink satellites.