Today is SpaceX’s historical Flight 10 Starship launch day (schedule here). The 10th Starship flight test (IFT-10) has its own goals and expectations, especially after the previous Starship 36 exploded during ground testing.
SpaceX does not plan to catch the Flight 10 Booster 16 on its way back to Earth. Elon Musk’s spaceflight company has set the Super Heavy booster to land in the Gulf of America in the IFT-10 test.
After the stage separatation event (hot staging), the Flight 10 Booster 16 rocket will attempt a flip maneuver, perform a boostback burn, and descend back to Earth. Before splashdown landing, the Flight 10 Starship booster will hover over water to test engine re-ignition and perform a soft landing.
The upper stage Starship 37 will continue its path. It will then enter the ascent phase and coast in space for a while before re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. This stage will provide SpaceX with crucial performance data for its thermal protection system (TPS) heat shield tiles during the reentry burn phase.
Finally, if all goes well, the Flight 10 Starship upper stage Ship 37 will make a water landing in the Indian Ocean (near Australia, refer to the diagram below for the complete trajectory path).
Ship 37 is the 5th Starship V2 generation of the prototype spacecraft. The first V2 Starship was used in the Flight 7 test earlier this year. All four of its predecessors have been destroyed either during flight or in ground testing (Ship 36 explosion).
We will be covering Starship’s 10th flight test live updates with multiple live streams (X and YouTube). Stay tuned.
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