It’s been an interesting year for SpaceX’s Starship. The megarocket’s launch schedule got off to a rocky start with back-to-back explosive failures, then got back on track with a near-perfect test flight in August. Needless to say, the pressure is on for Starship’s final launch of 2025, currently scheduled for no earlier than October 13.
Flight 11 will be the fifth full-scale test for Starship Version 2 and the last before SpaceX rolls out the larger, upgraded Version 3 in early 2026. But the exact timing of this transition will largely depend on the outcome of the upcoming launch. For the most part, the flight plan is business as usual, but this time, SpaceX will do a few things differently during Starship’s return.
Adding a dynamic banking maneuver
Just like flight 10 in August, the rocket’s Super Heavy Booster will splash down in the Gulf of Mexico while the upper stage—also known as “Ship”—continues on a suborbital arc and reenters the atmosphere for a water landing in the Indian Ocean. SpaceX will reignite one of Ship’s Raptor engines prior to reentry and test the rocket’s satellite deployer.
If the success of flight 10 is any indication, these repeated demonstrations should go smoothly. To mimic the path Starship will take on future flights returning to Starbase, however, SpaceX has added a “dynamic banking maneuver” to the final phase of Ship’s trajectory. This maneuver “will test subsonic guidance algorithms prior to a landing burn and splashdown in the Indian Ocean,” according to SpaceX.
New landing sequence for Super Heavy
Whereas flight 10 used a brand new Super Heavy booster, the booster on this flight—B15—previously flew on flight 8 in March and was caught by Mechazilla’s “chopstick” arms following reentry. According to SpaceX, 24 of the 33 Raptor engines launching on the booster this month are also “flight-proven.”
This time, the primary test objective for Super Heavy will be demonstrating a “unique landing burn engine configuration planned to be used on the next generation of Super Heavy,” SpaceX states. In this new landing sequence, the booster will ignite 13 of its 33 engines to begin the burn, transition to five engines during the “divert phase” to fine-tune its trajectory, and then downshift to three center engines for the final stage of the burn.
Previously, the booster shifted directly from the initial 13 engines to three engines. Adding an intermediate five-engine phase should provide “additional redundancy for spontaneous engine shutdowns,” according to SpaceX.
No mention of adding metallic tiles to heat shield
Like in flight 10, SpaceX has removed some of Starship’s ceramic thermal protection tiles to stress-test vulnerable areas across the vehicle. “Several of the missing tiles are in areas where tiles are bonded to the vehicle and do not have a backup ablative layer,” according to SpaceX.
Unlike flight 10, however, it doesn’t appear that SpaceX has added any experimental metal tiles to the heat shield this time. “We were essentially doing a test to see if we could get by with non-ceramic tiles,” Bill Gerstenmaier, a SpaceX executive in charge of build and flight reliability, explained during a presentation in September, according to Ars Technica.
Metal tiles would be simpler to manufacture and more durable than ceramic ones, but when it came to providing heat control, they “didn’t work so well,” Gerstenmaier said. Livestream footage of Ship’s landing showed a broad area of orange discoloration on one side of the vehicle due to oxidation of the metal during flight, Ars reports. Perfecting the heat shield is essential to SpaceX’s goal of rapid reusability, as any damage would require refurbishment.
These new tests and demonstrations should make for an interesting flight later this month. Stay tuned for updates on Starship’s final flight of 2025—you’ll be able to watch the action right here at Gizmodo.
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