Starship Soars Back with Flight 10

SpaceX’s Starship-Super Heavy launch vehicle completed its tenth flight test on Tuesday, August 26, 2025, marking this milestone with a resoundingly successful mission. Ship 37 and Booster 16 finally took to the skies from SpaceX’s Starbase launch site at 6:30 PM Central Time, overcoming two back-to-back scrubbed attempts. After ten all-up flights and more than two years, Starship has at last achieved all of the major objectives SpaceX sought to achieve in the early integrated flight test campaign, clearing the way for more advanced demonstrations in the coming months.

Flight 10 breaks a streak of bad luck with the Block 2 or “V2” Starship design, which suffered three failures in a row on flights 7, 8, and 9. A fourth V2, Ship 36, exploded during preflight testing in June, incapacitating the Massey’s test facility and further delaying the program. These issues were traced to leaks and component failures throughout the ship’s propellant and pressurization system, informing fixes for future designs. In addition to these mitigations, Ship 37 bore structural points meant for future catch attempts, and a variety of heat shield experiments, with some tiles featuring alternate materials, and others intentionally removed to probe areas of high heating.

Launching at the top of the window, the rocket completed a nominal first stage ascent through stage separation. Similarly to the previous flight, Booster 16 did not return to the launch site for a catch attempt, instead targeting an offshore landing point to perform testing. The booster intentionally disabled one engine and recovered by igniting another, demonstrating robust fault tolerance. These tests concluded with a simulated catch and shutdown in mid-air; Booster 16 then fell into the ocean and was destroyed as planned.

Ship 37 completed its ascent to the planned suborbital trajectory, maintaining attitude control throughout its coast. After opening its payload door, the ship ejected 8 mass simulators into space, a first for any Starship. Although these nonfunctional articles reentered the atmosphere minutes later, they are a critical step towards Starship’s ability to deploy Starlink satellites and other spacecraft. The ship also altered its trajectory by relighting one raptor engine for a brief in-space burn.

Finally, the spacecraft conducted a controlled re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere for the first time since Flight 6. Despite an explosion in the engine bay that damaged one flap, and a series of aggressive maneuvers meant to push the heat shield to its limits, Ship 37 survived atmospheric heating and performed Starship’s signature landing maneuver in the Indian Ocean. From a remote camera at sea, severe damage and discoloration was visible on the heat shield side, signalling that much work remains before Starship can be truly reusable.

At Isla Blanca Park, a public beach on Texas’ South Padre Island, large crowds present for Sunday’s attempt dwindled as the launch was delayed into the work week. Although public interest waned during this unusually protracted Starship campaign, the eventual launch delivered a surge of excitement to those present. For fans, employees, and members of the media, relief at liftoff evolved into genuine elation as the flight continued to clear hurdles and achieve milestones. As the evening faded, there was a pervasive sense that the Starship program was “back,” scoring its first clear victory in almost a year.

So what now? After four V2 Starships met catastrophic failures, only one article of that design remains. Now that Ship 37 has broken the losing streak, SpaceX will likely fly ship 38 and Booster 15-2 on an identical flight plan as soon as possible. Flight 10 bypassed many of the usual preflight tests to no obvious ill effect, so the next stack could be ready in weeks. SpaceX is already touting Starship V3 as a complete redesign, which will be much more capable and enable milestones like long-duration orbital flights and in-space refueling. SpaceX aims to build and test the first V3 ships this year, though they may not fly until 2026—which would close 2025 with just five Starship flights.

Meanwhile, Starship is still bound to its commitments to NASA and the Artemis program. While NASA has spent a grueling 2025 torn between the conflicting wills of Congress, President Trump, and even its own leadership, one critical point has emerged as common ground: Artemis III is still planned to land humans on the Moon. Acting Administrator Sean Duffy has been adamant about this point, citing a guarantee from SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell that the company will deliver its HLS on schedule.

Yet it’s taken ten flights since April of 2023 to complete some of Starship’s most basic functions, and just over two years remain until Artemis III’s current public target of September 2027. CEO Elon Musk has expressed doubt as to whether ship-to-ship refueling will be tested at any scale before the start of that year, the system is fighting to meet its initial goals for payload mass to orbit, and foundational technologies like the heat shield are still far from mature. So while Flight 10 comes as a much-needed victory, SpaceX can waste no time pressing ahead with its next round of test objectives if it aims to have any chance of reaching the Moon.

Edited by Nik Alexander. Many thanks to the Starbase crew!