SpaceX launched the most recent test of its mega rocket Starship on Tuesday (August 26, 2025) evening and accomplished the first-ever deployment of a test payload — eight dummy satellites — into area. After simply over an hour coasting by way of area, Starship splashed down as deliberate within the Indian Ocean.
Starship blasted off from Starbase, SpaceX’s launch website in South Texas, simply after 6:30 pm. It was the 10th test for the world’s largest and strongest rocket, which SpaceX and NASA hope to make use of to get astronauts again on the moon.
SpaceX’s mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, on August 26, 2025.
| Photo Credit:
AP
NASA has ordered two Starships to land astronauts on the moon later this decade, and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s final purpose is Mars. No crew members have been aboard the demo launch.
The test additionally included the profitable return of the craft’s Super Heavy Booster, which splashed down within the Atlantic after testing a landing-burn engine sequence.
The Starship itself continued to orbit the Earth — passing from daylight in Texas by way of evening and again into daytime once more — forward of the deliberate splashdown. Before the craft hit the waves, its engines fired, flipping its place so it entered the water upright with the nostril cone pointed upward.
The profitable demo got here after a yr of mishaps. Back-to-back assessments in January and March ended simply minutes after liftoff, raining wreckage into the ocean. The most up-to-date test in May — the ninth attempt — ended when the spacecraft tumbled uncontrolled and broke aside.
SpaceX later redesigned the Super Heavy booster with bigger and stronger fins for larger stability, based on an organization publish on the social platform X this month.
The first Starship exploded minutes into its inaugural test flight in 2023. SpaceX’s first batch of Starlink satellites was launched in 2019 from a Falcon rocket that lifted off from Cape Canaveral.
