SpaceX’s massive Starship finally launched at 18.30pm Texas-time on August 26th in a near-flawless test flight. The flight, dubbed #10, pulled off a successful mission after months of explosive mishaps. SpaceX made clear that the Super Heavy booster performed as intended, making a controlled splashdown in the Gulf minutes after liftoff from South Texas.

During the last Starship flight in May, the booster broke apart during the same splashdown attempt.

Some previous test flights have returned the booster precisely to the launch site in Texas and captured by the site’s ‘chopsticks’.

The rocket’s upper Starship spacecraft, which is designed to one day carry cargo or humans to Earth orbit and beyond but flew with only dummy payloads for this test mission, made a significant stride forward and made a soft water landing in the Indian Ocean.

“Moving into the critical re-entry phase, Starship was able to gather data on the performance of its heatshield and structure as it was intentionally stressed to push the envelope on vehicle capabilities,” SpaceX’s post-flight recap stated. “Using its four flaps for control, the spacecraft arrived at its splashdown point in the Indian Ocean, successfully executed a landing flip, and completed the flight test with a landing burn and soft splashdown.”

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Tags: spacex, starship