SpaceX plans to launch the eleventh take a look at flight of its Starship megarocket on Monday night (Oct. 13), and we have the data it’s essential tune in dwell.
The Starship Flight 11 take a look at is scheduled to launch from SpaceX’s Starbase website in South Texas on Monday (Oct. 13), throughout a 75-minute window that opens at 7:15 p.m. EDT (2315 GMT; 6:15 p.m. native Texas time). You possibly can watch the liftoff dwell on this web page, courtesy of SpaceX. You possibly can go to our Starship Flight 11 dwell updates web page for the newest information.
Flight 11 would be the fifth Starship launch of 2025. SpaceX hopes to construct on the success of Flight 10, which launched on Aug. 26 and achieved all of its major objectives. (Flight 7, Flight 8 and Flight 9, which also launched this year, were more checkered; SpaceX lost the Starship upper stage prematurely on each of them.) SpaceX intends to settle Mars using Starship, and NASA has tapped the vehicle as the first crewed lander for its Artemis program of moon exploration. But the 400-foot-tall (121-meter-tall) Starship — the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built — is still in the testing phase, and the company hopes Monday’s action will get it closer to the finish line.
What time is SpaceX’s Starship Flight 11 launch?
SpaceX is targeting Monday (Oct. 13), for the launch of Starship Flight 11, with liftoff expected at 7:15 p.m. EDT (2315 GMT). SpaceX has a 75-minute launch window, however, so Starship could fly any time between 7:15 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. EDT (2315 to 0030 GMT).
According to local road closure alerts around Starbase, SpaceX has backup Flight 11 launch dates on Tuesday (Oct. 14) and Wednesday (Oct. 15), if Starship can’t get off the ground on Monday.
Related: Read our SpaceX Starship and Super Heavy guide for a detailed look
Can I watch SpaceX’s Starship Flight 11 launch?
You can watch SpaceX’s Starship Flight 11 test launch in a few ways.
SpaceX will stream the liftoff live via its X account, in addition to on its Starship Flight 11 mission page and the X TV app. Protection will start about half-hour earlier than launch — so, at 6:45 p.m. EDT (2245 GMT), if SpaceX continues to focus on the start of the launch window on Monday.
House.com will simulcast the SpaceX Flight 11 stream on this web page, in addition to on our homepage and our YouTube channel.
If you would like an extended livestream, you possibly can try NASASpaceflight’s webcast on YouTube. This stream will start at about 4:15 p.m. EDT (2015 GMT) and have dwell commentary throughout “go for launch” polling and different key preflight actions.
Lastly, in the event you’re within the space, you possibly can watch SpaceX’s Starship Flight 11 in particular person. SpaceX would not have an official launch-viewing website for the general public or the media, however yow will discover a spot your self.
One good possibility is Cameron County Amphitheater, in Isla Blanca Park on South Padre Island, which offers clear views of Starbase’s orbital launch mount from throughout the water. You may as well stake out a spot alongside the shore of close by Port Isabel.
Site visitors within the space tends to get very heavy within the leadup to a Starship launch, so plan to get to your most well-liked viewing website early — a number of hours early, if attainable.
How lengthy is SpaceX’s Starship Flight 11?
If all goes according to plan, Starship Flight 11 will last just over an hour. The mission will be broadly similar to Flight 10, with ocean landings planned for both Starship stages — the Super Heavy booster and Starship (or “Ship” for short) upper stage. (There will be no “chopsticks” catch of Super Heavy by the Starbase launch tower this time.)
“The upcoming flight will build on the successful demonstrations from Starship’s 10th flight test with flight experiments gathering data for the next-generation Super Heavy booster, stress-testing Starship’s heat shield, and demonstrating maneuvers that will mimic the upper stage’s final approach for a future return to launch site,” SpaceX wrote in a mission overview.
The Flight 11 Tremendous Heavy already has a launch below its belt — it carried out Flight 8 on March 6, capping its work that day with a profitable return to Starbase for a chopsticks catch. Twenty-four of its 33 Raptor engines are veterans of that earlier mission, in keeping with SpaceX.
The chief goal for Tremendous Heavy this time round is to check a brand new landing-burn technique for the next-generation Starship, an even bigger automobile that is anticipated to debut early subsequent yr. (Flight 11 would be the last launch of the present “Model 2” iteration of Starship.)
“Tremendous Heavy will ignite 13 engines at the beginning of the touchdown burn after which transition to a brand new configuration with 5 engines working for the divert section,” SpaceX wrote within the mission description.
“Beforehand carried out with three engines, the deliberate baseline for V3 Tremendous Heavy will use 5 engines through the part of the burn accountable for fine-tuning the booster’s path, including extra redundancy for spontaneous engine shutdowns,” the corporate added. “The booster will then transition to its three middle engines for the tip of the touchdown burn, getting into a full hover whereas nonetheless above the ocean floor, adopted by shutdown and dropping into the Gulf of America.”
|
TIME (Hr:Min:Sec) |
EVENT |
Header Cell – Column 2 |
|---|---|---|
|
T-1:15:00 |
Flight director polls for fueling |
Row 0 – Cell 2 |
|
T-0:53:00 |
Ship liquid methane loading begins |
Row 1 – Cell 2 |
|
T-0:46:10 |
Ship liquid oxygen loading begins |
Row 2 – Cell 2 |
|
T-0:41:15 |
Tremendous Heavy liquid methane loading begins |
Row 3 – Cell 2 |
|
T-0:35:52 |
Tremendous Heavy liquid oxygen loading begins |
Row 4 – Cell 2 |
|
T-00:19:40 |
Raptor engine chilldown begins on Ship and Tremendous Heavy |
Row 5 – Cell 2 |
|
T-00:3:20 |
Ship fueling full |
Row 6 – Cell 2 |
|
T-00:2:50 |
Tremendous Heavy fueling full |
Row 7 – Cell 2 |
|
T-00:0:30 |
Flight Director GO for launch ballot |
Row 8 – Cell 2 |
|
T-00:00:10 |
Flame deflector activation |
Row 9 – Cell 2 |
|
T-00:00:03 |
Raptor ignition sequence startup |
Row 10 – Cell 2 |
|
T-00:00:00 |
Liftoff (“Pleasure Assured,” SpaceX says) |
Row 11 – Cell 2 |
|
TIME (Hr:Min:Sec) |
FLIGHT EVENT |
Header Cell – Column 2 |
|---|---|---|
|
T+00:02 |
Liftoff |
Row 0 – Cell 2 |
|
T+01:02 |
Ship/Tremendous Heavy attain “Max Q” |
Row 1 – Cell 2 |
|
T+02:37 |
Tremendous Heavy essential engine cutoff |
Row 2 – Cell 2 |
|
T+02:39 |
Sizzling-staging separation/Ship Raptor engine ignition |
Row 3 – Cell 2 |
|
T+02:49 |
Tremendous Heavy boostback burn startup |
Row 4 – Cell 2 |
|
T+03:38 |
Tremendous Heavy boostback burn engine shutdown |
Row 5 – Cell 2 |
|
T+03:40 |
Sizzling-stage jettison |
Row 6 – Cell 2 |
|
T+06:20 |
Tremendous Heavy touchdown burn startup |
Row 7 – Cell 2 |
|
T+06:36 |
Tremendous Heavy touchdown burn shutdown (adopted by splashdown) |
Row 8 – Cell 2 |
|
T+08:58 |
Starship engine cutoff |
Row 9 – Cell 2 |
|
T+00:18:28 |
Payload deploy demo begins |
Row 10 – Cell 2 |
|
T+00:25:33 |
Payload deploy demo full |
Row 11 – Cell 2 |
|
T+00:37:49 |
Ship engine relight demonstration |
Row 12 – Cell 2 |
|
T+00:47:43 |
Ship reentry |
Row 13 – Cell 2 |
|
T+01:03:30 |
Ship transonic |
Row 14 – Cell 2 |
|
T+1:03:52 |
Ship is subsonic |
Row 15 – Cell 2 |
|
T+1:05:58 |
Touchdown burn begin |
Row 16 – Cell 2 |
|
T+1:06:00 |
Touchdown flip |
Row 17 – Cell 2 |
|
T+1:06:09 |
Touchdown burn three to 2 engines |
Row 18 – Cell 2 |
|
T+1:06:25 |
“An thrilling touchdown!” SpaceX says. |
Row 19 – Cell 2 |
Ship will fly a lot farther and longer than Tremendous Heavy on Flight 11. As on Flight 10, the higher stage will deploy eight payloads (dummy variations of SpaceX’s Starlink broadband satellites) into suborbital house. This milestone is scheduled to happen over a seven-minute stretch starting 18.5 minutes after liftoff.
Ship will even briefly reignite one in every of its six Raptor engines in house a bit of below 38 minutes into the flight, demonstrating a key functionality for a automobile designed to journey to the moon and Mars.
As well as, Flight 11 will put Ship’s warmth protect and different reentry methods to the take a look at, gathering information to pave the way in which for “chopstick” catches of the higher stage down the street.
“For reentry, tiles have been faraway from Starship to deliberately stress-test susceptible areas throughout the automobile,” SpaceX wrote within the mission description. “A number of of the lacking tiles are in areas the place tiles are bonded to the automobile and wouldn’t have a backup ablative layer. To imitate the trail a ship will tackle future flights returning to Starbase, the ultimate section of Starship’s trajectory on Flight 11 features a dynamic banking maneuver and can take a look at subsonic steering algorithms previous to a touchdown burn and splashdown within the Indian Ocean.”
Ship is anticipated to reenter Earth’s ambiance slightly below 48 minutes after launch and hit the water off the coast of Western Australia about 18 minutes later.
What if Starship Flight 11 can’t launch?
SpaceX has two official backup days for Flight 11 at this point, according to a beach and road closure notice issued by Texas’ Cameron County — Tuesday (Oct. 14) and Wednesday (Oct. 15).
The launch home windows are possible the identical on Tuesday and Wednesday, although we’ll have to attend for affirmation from SpaceX on that finish.
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