STARBASE, Texas—SpaceX launched the 10th test flight of the company's Starship rocket Tuesday evening, sending the stainless steel spacecraft halfway around the world to an on-target splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
The largely successful mission for the world's largest rocket was an important milestone for SpaceX's Starship program after months of repeated setbacks, including three disappointing test flights and a powerful explosion on the ground that destroyed the ship that engineers were originally readying for this launch.
For the first time, SpaceX engineers received data on the performance of the ship's upgraded heat shield and control flaps during reentry back into the atmosphere. The three failed Starship test flights to start the year ended before the ship reached reentry. Elon Musk, SpaceX's founder and CEO, has described developing a durable, reliable heat shield as the most pressing challenge for making Starship a fully and rapidly reusable rocket.
And there were lessons to learn from Tuesday's test flight. The ship made it all the way to the Indian Ocean intact, arriving next to a prepositioned buoy northwest of Australia, where it was just after sunrise Wednesday morning at the time of splashdown. A camera on the buoy showed the ship slowing down before contacting the water, then tipping over and exploding as expected.
But a large section of the ship had transitioned from its original silver color to a rusty hue of orange and brown. Officials didn't immediately address this or say whether it was anticipated, but it could suggest heating damage to the rocket's stainless steel skin during reentry. If so, that might require more changes to the design of the ship's heat shield, but this is the kind of information engineers were looking for with this test flight.