Starship Flight 11 to orbit mission took off from SpaceX’s Starbase in Texas. The Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage successfully completed a series of test objectives, including a descent and landing burn to support the company’s goal of achieving fully re-entry orbital flights.

Starship in space: Mission Overview

Super Heavy booster with Raptor engines powered up for a boostback burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. Starship continued into orbit and performed its own heat shield and aero control surface testing during reentry. The upper stage then ignited its landing burn, touching down upright in the Indian Ocean. Starship remained intact after the landing performance. This is the first time a Starship has landed intact after orbital flight.

“We achieved many new objectives with this mission and saw significant improvements in stability, Raptor engine performance, and thermal protection system (TPS) performance during high energy re-entry conditions,” SpaceX wrote in a post-landing update.

Data collected from this mission will support future development flights of Starship with a lunar and Mars configuration.

Starship advancing into orbit will enable its use for scientific research and experimentation, delivery of payloads, and deep-space exploration missions to support NASA’s Artemis program and commercial rocket launch. Starship reusable rocket is also anticipated to play a crucial part in unborn operations to the Moon and beyond.

Starship is snappily evolving with each test flight, pushing towards the thing of completely applicable breakouts and making space trip more provident and ambitious, marking a new age of mortal disquisition of the final frontier.