SpaceX's 10th Starship test flight restored the vehicle roughly to its June 2024 performance by achieving suborbital flight and returning both stages without exploding. The Super Heavy booster and the upper-stage Starship landed gently over the Atlantic and Indian Oceans after launching from SpaceX's Texas facility. At full stack, Starship stands 121 meters tall and represents the most powerful and tallest craft in history. The upper stage achieved a vertical, controlled engine-powered return to Earth. The vehicle still has not reached Earth orbit, a prerequisite for planned unmanned Mars missions in 2026 and NASA crewed lunar landings in 2027.
On Wednesday, the 10th test flight of the Starship mega-rocket has returned it, approximately, to where it was in June 2024, when for the first time it managed to get both the Super Heavy booster and its second stage to complete their suborbital flight and return to Earth without exploding, landing gently over the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, respectively, after taking off from the base of Elon Musk's company on the coast of Texas.
Starship is not only the tallest and most powerful craft in the history of space exploration, but also the first orbital-class shuttle to successfully land its upper stage the craft itself back on Earth in a vertical and controlled position, powered by its own engines. Of course, this major milestone for an orbital spacecraft comes with a significant catch: the craft has yet to reach Earth orbit.
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