Success for SpaceX which launched a practically flawless suborbital mission with the Starship-Super Heavy Version 2 combination.
Tonight (October 14, 2025), SpaceX marked the end of a chapter in the Starship program, launching what turned out to be a virtually flawless suborbital mission with the Starship-Super Heavy Version 2 combination, the final run of this launch vehicle configuration. The giant – over 122 meters tall – left from platform A of the Starbase (Texas) at 01:23 (Italian time), starting a flight of about an hour.
An engine problem. During the climb phase, the only notable issue was that one of the Super Heavy booster’s 13 Raptor engines (tail number B15) failed to reignite on the climb phase. boostback, which consists of the controlled thrust maneuver performed immediately after the separation of the two stages. It is used to reverse the trajectory of the booster (the first stage) to return it towards the landing point — on land or on the ocean.
The engine restarted at the moment of the landing maneuver at sea, adopting a new configuration for SpaceX: the initial activation of 13 engines, then reduced to 5 and finally to 3, until complete shutdown and landing in the Gulf of Mexico. This was the second and last flight for the B15 booster: its first use dates back to Starship Flight 8, which took place in March.
The spaceship. Meanwhile, Starship’s S38 upper stage, headed towards the Indian Ocean, carried out a series of important experimental operations. It released eight large metal rectangles designed to simulate the size and mass of future satellites that Starship Version 3 will be able to carry. It also reignited one of the Raptor engines at sea level to simulate a de-orbit maneuver — an indispensable capability on future orbital missions.
During reentry, the rocket passed peak heating and max Q, keeping the vehicle essentially intact — a crucial achievement for testing the effectiveness of the heat shield. The primary objective was to delve deeper into the performance of protective materials during reentry.
The next version. Flight 11 is the last mission of the year for Starship and the last one to depart from platform A in its current configuration. From now on, SpaceX will focus its resources on the refinement and testing of Version 3 of Starship-Super Heavy, which will instead take off from platform B. It is precisely this third version that SpaceX intends to use for the transport of cargo into orbit and, later, for lunar and Martian missions.
However, to overcome the confines of low Earth orbit, there are still many challenges to face: among these, mastering the transfer and storage of propellant in orbit. NASA is counting on SpaceX to outline the logistics of the ship-to-ship transfer system for missions related to the Artemis program. In fact, SpaceX has obtained contracts for hundreds of millions, but there is also talk of billions of dollars, to support astronaut landing operations in the Artemis 3 missions and for the Artemis 4 mission.
Will it make it to 2027? First, however, a demonstration of propellant transfer into orbit is needed — a step that, in previous plans, was foreseen as early as 2025. It is not yet clear how many flights will be needed to fill a tanker version of Starship, which in turn will transfer fuel to a variant with a human landing system for missions to the Moon.
SpaceX also has an agreement to perform an uncrewed demonstration of descent and return from the lunar surface before sending astronauts, though the timing remains vague. Currently, Artemis 3 is scheduled for mid-2027, just over a year after Artemis 2, which does not include a moon landing.
