SpaceX plans to launch the 11th test flight of its Starship megarocket tonight (Oct. 13), and we’ve got the information you need to tune in live.
The Starship Flight 11 test is scheduled to launch from SpaceX’s Starbase site in South Texas on Monday (Oct. 13), during a 75-minute window that opens at 7:15 p.m. EDT (2315 GMT; 6:15 p.m. local Texas time). You can watch the liftoff live on Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX. You can visit our Starship Flight 11 live updates page for the latest info.
Flight 11 will be the fifth Starship launch of 2025. SpaceX hopes to build 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, as well as on its Starship Flight 11 mission page and the X TV app. Coverage will begin about 30 minutes before launch — so, at 6:45 p.m. EDT (2245 GMT), if SpaceX continues to target the beginning of the launch window on Monday.
Space.com will simulcast the SpaceX Flight 11 stream on our watch live page, as well as on our homepage and our YouTube channel.
If you want a longer livestream, you can check out NASASpaceflight’s webcast on YouTube. This stream will begin at about 4:15 p.m. EDT (2015 GMT) and feature live commentary during “go for launch” polling and other key preflight activities.
Finally, if you’re in the area, you can watch SpaceX’s Starship Flight 11 in person. SpaceX doesn’t have an official launch-viewing site for the public or the media, but you can find a spot yourself.
One good option is Cameron County Amphitheater, in Isla Blanca Park on South Padre Island, which provides clear views of Starbase’s orbital launch mount from across the water. You can also stake out a place along the shore of nearby Port Isabel.
Traffic in the area tends to get very heavy in the leadup to a Starship launch, so plan to get to your preferred viewing site early — multiple hours early, if possible.
How long 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 Super Heavy already has a launch under its belt — it conducted Flight 8 on March 6, capping its work that day with a successful return to Starbase for a chopsticks catch. Twenty-four of its 33 Raptor engines are veterans of that previous mission, according to SpaceX.
The chief objective for Super Heavy this time around is to test a new landing-burn strategy for the next-generation Starship, a bigger vehicle that’s expected to debut early next year. (Flight 11 will be the final launch of the current “Version 2” iteration of Starship.)
“Super Heavy will ignite 13 engines at the start of the landing burn and then transition to a new configuration with five engines running for the divert phase,” SpaceX wrote in the mission description.
“Previously done with three engines, the planned baseline for V3 Super Heavy will use five engines during the section of the burn responsible for fine-tuning the booster’s path, adding additional redundancy for spontaneous engine shutdowns,” the company added. “The booster will then transition to its three center engines for the end of the landing burn, entering a full hover while still above the ocean surface, followed 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 |
Super Heavy liquid methane loading begins |
Row 3 – Cell 2 |
|
T-0:35:52 |
Super Heavy liquid oxygen loading begins |
Row 4 – Cell 2 |
|
T-00:19:40 |
Raptor engine chilldown begins on Ship and Super Heavy |
Row 5 – Cell 2 |
|
T-00:3:20 |
Ship fueling complete |
Row 6 – Cell 2 |
|
T-00:2:50 |
Super Heavy fueling complete |
Row 7 – Cell 2 |
|
T-00:0:30 |
Flight Director GO for launch poll |
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 (“Excitement Guaranteed,” 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/Super Heavy reach “Max Q” |
Row 1 – Cell 2 |
|
T+02:37 |
Super Heavy main engine cutoff |
Row 2 – Cell 2 |
|
T+02:39 |
Hot-staging separation/Ship Raptor engine ignition |
Row 3 – Cell 2 |
|
T+02:49 |
Super Heavy boostback burn startup |
Row 4 – Cell 2 |
|
T+03:38 |
Super Heavy boostback burn engine shutdown |
Row 5 – Cell 2 |
|
T+03:40 |
Hot-stage jettison |
Row 6 – Cell 2 |
|
T+06:20 |
Super Heavy landing burn startup |
Row 7 – Cell 2 |
|
T+06:36 |
Super Heavy landing burn shutdown (followed by splashdown) |
Row 8 – Cell 2 |
|
T+08:58 |
Starship engine cutoff |
Row 9 – Cell 2 |
|
T+00:18:28 |
Payload deploy demo starts |
Row 10 – Cell 2 |
|
T+00:25:33 |
Payload deploy demo complete |
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 |
Landing burn start |
Row 16 – Cell 2 |
|
T+1:06:00 |
Landing flip |
Row 17 – Cell 2 |
|
T+1:06:09 |
Landing burn three to two engines |
Row 18 – Cell 2 |
|
T+1:06:25 |
“An exciting landing!” SpaceX says. |
Row 19 – Cell 2 |
Ship will fly much farther and longer than Super Heavy on Flight 11. As on Flight 10, the upper stage will deploy eight payloads (dummy versions of SpaceX’s Starlink broadband satellites) into suborbital space. This milestone is scheduled to occur over a seven-minute stretch beginning 18.5 minutes after liftoff.
Ship will also briefly reignite one of its six Raptor engines in space a little under 38 minutes into the flight, demonstrating a key capability for a vehicle designed to travel to the moon and Mars.
In addition, Flight 11 will put Ship’s heat shield and other reentry systems to the test, gathering data to pave the way for “chopstick” catches of the upper stage down the road.
“For reentry, tiles have been removed from Starship to intentionally stress-test vulnerable areas across the vehicle,” SpaceX wrote in the mission description. “Several of the missing tiles are in areas where tiles are bonded to the vehicle and do not have a backup ablative layer. To mimic the path a ship will take on future flights returning to Starbase, the final phase of Starship’s trajectory on Flight 11 includes a dynamic banking maneuver and will test subsonic guidance algorithms prior to a landing burn and splashdown in the Indian Ocean.”
Ship is expected to reenter Earth’s atmosphere just under 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 windows are likely the same on Tuesday and Wednesday, though we’ll have to wait for confirmation from SpaceX on that end.
