SpaceX launched its 11th Starship rocket Monday afternoon on what could be its final mission of 2025. The launch was another overall success for the Starship program, with it actually being rather boring—a good thing for launches.
Starship lifted off at 6:23 PM CT, just a handful of minutes past the opening of its window. The ascent went flawlessly, and while we didn’t see a catch of the booster, SpaceX conducted several tests stressing Booster 15 in various scenarios during descent. Booster 15 completed a simulated catch, as planned, out in the Gulf of Mexico.
Booster 15 then completed its mission by cutting its engines and crashing into the water, causing it to explode. This was done to mitigate the issue of a fully intact Starship booster floating into Mexico’s waters.
For Ship 38, its ascent and mission also went off without a hitch, completing both its planned engine cutoff, dummy Starlink satellite deployments, and a Raptor engine relight in space. These were all tests conducted on previous missions; in fact, it’s been the mission of almost every Starship flight in 2025, but it’s always good to receive more flight data on such important tasks.
You know, because conducting a planned and controlled deorbit of a spacecraft is important, especially when it’s designed to survive reentry.
Ship 38’s second set of tests came during reentry, where it simulated banking maneuvers that would eventually be used during a catch at Starbase. Second, Ship 38 continued to test its heat shield with some missing tiles in spots where there was no backup ablative material below it.
While some tiles and other heat shielding materials were seen to be falling off or peeling, it was not as bad as during previous flights. More importantly, Ship 38 survived reentry and conducted a successful splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
Space Explored’s Take
Any successful flight of a rocket in development is a good thing. And yes, Starship is still in development. Flight 11 is said to be the final Block 2 flight hardware, and the company will now move to Block 3 hardware in the near future. Starship Block 2 was always an interim block; it had reduced payload capacity and wouldn’t be capable of in-orbit refueling. However, it was planned to be the block upgrade that increased reliability, got Starship into orbit, and deployed the vehicle’s first operational Starlink satellites.
That did not happen.
2025 was full of Starship development pains but also firsts, like the first Super Heavy booster catch and reflight. The development set backs were to be expected as SpaceX continued to push Starship harder and harder on its missions. However, it put a big question mark on SpaceX’s ability to field an HLS Starship variant in time for Artemis 3’s lunar landing.
Will Starship fly again in 2025?
Unlikely.
SpaceX is working towards two big upgrades for the Starship system. First is Block 3; this will increase the payload capacity back up to promised levels and bring the new Raptor 3 engines to flight. The hope is improved reliability, but only in-flight performance will truly show if that will be true.
Second is Launch Pad 2. A complete ground-up redesign of Starship’s launch pad, this will feature a flame trench, more substantial tank farm infrastructure, and various other improvements to make launching Starship easier and faster.
SpaceX hopes to get Starship Block 3 out of production by the end of the year. That is certainly doable; however, flight will likely be harder to pull off. Between finishing the pad, getting Massey’s back up and running as a test site, and, most importantly, finishing the Gigabay for final ship and booster assembly, SpaceX has a lot to get done before a Starship Block 3 flight.
