SpaceX says the tenth built-in check flight of its Tremendous Heavy Starship launch car might launch as quickly as Aug. 24.
Liftoff from the corporate’s Starbase, Texas, manufacturing and check web site is anticipated throughout a launch window that begins at 7:30 p.m. EDT (2330 GMT). SpaceX introduced the launch date on X Friday (Aug. 15), about one week later than SpaceX CEO Elon Musk predicted in mid-July when he estimated Starship would launch once more in “about three weeks.”
Flight 10 can be Starship’s fourth launch of 2025, and comes at a important junction within the spacecraft’s improvement. Starship’s three beforehand flights this 12 months have ended with the lack of the higher stage, and with every loss comes a tighter squeeze on the timeline to prepared the car to function the lunar lander for the astronauts on NASA’s Artemis 3 mission to the surface of the moon, slated for sometime in 2027.
The fully stacked, the Super Heavy booster and the Starship upper stage stand about 394 feet (120 meters) tall. Flight 10 will fly Booster 16 and Ship 37, both Block 2 variants of the evolving launch vehicle, as SpaceX introduces incremental upgrades for each mission.
The launch follows Flight 9, which lifted off May 27 and ended with the Ship upper stage breaking apart in space about 45 minutes into flight. Less than a month later, on June 18, a static test fire at Starbase resulted in an explosion, destroying Ship 36 — the vehicle original slated for Flight 10 — and damaging SpaceX test infrastructure.
Those mishap investigations completed, Starship Flight 10 is headed to the launchpad with a contemporary set of mission aims. As soon as in house, after stage separation, Starship will deploy eight Starlink satellite tv for pc mass simulators, carry out an in-space Raptor engine relight and try a managed splashdown within the Indian Ocean. Booster 16, in the meantime, will alter its trajectory for a managed splashdown within the Gulf of Mexico.
The tenth flight check of Starship is making ready to launch as quickly as Sunday, August 24 → pic.twitter.com/j0YKKgAxAVAugust 15, 2025
Of the 9 Starship check flights to date, a number of have achieved partial success — together with catching a Tremendous Heavy booster utilizing the launch tower “Mechazilla” chopstick arms and refurbishing it for reuse — however not have but met all mission aims from launch to touchdown.
SpaceX is creating Starship as a part of Musk’s imaginative and prescient to make human life multiplanetary by sending individuals to Mars, and can be central to NASA’s Artemis program to return astronauts to the moon for long-duration missions.
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