SpaceX plans to launch the eleventh check flight of its Starship megarocket on Monday night (Oct. 13), and we have got the knowledge you want to tune in reside.
The Starship Flight 11 check is scheduled to launch from SpaceX’s Starbase web site 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 may watch the liftoff reside on this web page, courtesy of SpaceX. You may go to our Starship Flight 11 reside updates web page for the most recent 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 main targets. (Flight 7, Flight 8 and Flight 9, which additionally launched this 12 months, have been extra checkered; SpaceX misplaced the Starship higher stage prematurely on every of them.) SpaceX intends to settle Mars utilizing Starship, and NASA has tapped the car as the primary crewed lander for its Artemis program of moon exploration. However the 400-foot-tall (121-meter-tall) Starship — the largest and strongest rocket ever constructed — remains to be within the testing part, and the corporate hopes Monday’s motion will get it nearer to the end line.
What time is SpaceX’s Starship Flight 11 launch?
SpaceX is focusing on Monday (Oct. 13), for the launch of Starship Flight 11, with liftoff anticipated at 7:15 p.m. EDT (2315 GMT). SpaceX has a 75-minute launch window, nonetheless, so Starship might fly any time between 7:15 p.m. and eight:30 p.m. EDT (2315 to 0030 GMT).
In line with native street closure alerts round Starbase, SpaceX has backup Flight 11 launch dates on Tuesday (Oct. 14) and Wednesday (Oct. 15), if Starship cannot get off the bottom on Monday.
Associated: Learn our SpaceX Starship and Tremendous Heavy information for an in depth look
Can I watch SpaceX’s Starship Flight 11 launch?
You may watch SpaceX’s Starship Flight 11 check launch in a couple of methods.
SpaceX will stream the liftoff reside by way of its X account, in addition to on its Starship Flight 11 mission web 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’d 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 reside commentary throughout “go for launch” polling and different key preflight actions.
Lastly, when you’re within the space, you possibly can watch SpaceX’s Starship Flight 11 in individual. SpaceX would not have an official launch-viewing web site 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 gives clear views of Starbase’s orbital launch mount from throughout the water. You may also stake out a spot alongside the shore of close by Port Isabel.
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 web site early — a number of hours early, if potential.
How lengthy is SpaceX’s Starship Flight 11?
If all goes in response to plan, Starship Flight 11 will final simply over an hour. The mission can be broadly much like Flight 10, with ocean landings deliberate for each Starship levels — the Tremendous Heavy booster and Starship (or “Ship” for brief) higher stage. (There can be no “chopsticks” catch of Tremendous Heavy by the Starbase launch tower this time.)
“The upcoming flight will construct on the profitable demonstrations from Starship’s tenth flight check with flight experiments gathering information for the next-generation Tremendous Heavy booster, stress-testing Starship’s warmth defend, and demonstrating maneuvers that may mimic the higher stage’s remaining method for a future return to launch web site,” SpaceX wrote in a mission overview.
The Flight 11 Tremendous Heavy already has a launch underneath its belt — it performed 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 response to 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 car that is anticipated to debut early subsequent 12 months. (Flight 11 would be the remaining launch of the present “Model 2” iteration of Starship.)
“Tremendous Heavy will ignite 13 engines in the beginning of the touchdown burn after which transition to a brand new configuration with 5 engines working for the divert part,” SpaceX wrote within the mission description.
“Beforehand accomplished with three engines, the deliberate baseline for V3 Tremendous Heavy will use 5 engines in the course of the part of the burn liable 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 heart engines for the tip of the touchdown burn, coming 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 predominant engine cutoff |
Row 2 – Cell 2 |
|
T+02:39 |
Scorching-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 |
Scorching-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 may also briefly reignite one among its six Raptor engines in house slightly underneath 38 minutes into the flight, demonstrating a key functionality for a car designed to journey to the moon and Mars.
As well as, Flight 11 will put Ship’s warmth defend and different reentry methods to the check, gathering information to pave the best way for “chopstick” catches of the higher stage down the street.
“For reentry, tiles have been faraway from Starship to deliberately stress-test weak areas throughout the car,” SpaceX wrote within the mission description. “A number of of the lacking tiles are in areas the place tiles are bonded to the car and wouldn’t have a backup ablative layer. To imitate the trail a ship will tackle future flights returning to Starbase, the ultimate part of Starship’s trajectory on Flight 11 features a dynamic banking maneuver and can check subsonic steering algorithms previous to a touchdown burn and splashdown within the Indian Ocean.”
Ship is predicted to reenter Earth’s ambiance just below 48 minutes after launch and hit the water off the coast of Western Australia about 18 minutes later.
What if Starship Flight 11 cannot launch?
SpaceX has two official backup days for Flight 11 at this level, in response to a seaside and street closure discover issued by Texas’ Cameron County — Tuesday (Oct. 14) and Wednesday (Oct. 15).
The launch home windows are doubtless the identical on Tuesday and Wednesday, although we’ll have to attend for affirmation from SpaceX on that finish.
