The countdown clock hit zero, and everything changed in an instant. After months of previous failures and broken promises, SpaceX launched Starship Flight 10 on Tuesday night, finally giving the company something to celebrate instead of repair.
This wasn’t just another rocket launch. This was a make-or-break moment for the world’s biggest and most powerful rocket – and for Elon Musk’s dreams of getting humans to Mars.
The Launch Time
At exactly 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time, SpaceX launched Starship from their Starbase facility in South Texas. The massive 400-foot-tall rocket lit up the Texas sky as 33 Raptor engines fired up, pushing the giant vehicle away from Earth with what witnesses described as a ground-shaking thunder.
For the first time in 2025, everything seemed to go right. After three straight failures earlier this year, SpaceX launched Starship on a mission that actually worked the way it was supposed to work.
The relief was obvious. SpaceX workers in both Texas and California were cheering and applauding throughout the entire one-hour flight test.
Why This Launch Mattered So Much
SpaceX launched Starship Flight 10 knowing that failure wasn’t really an option anymore. The company had been on a losing streak that was starting to worry even their biggest supporters.
Flight 7 in January? Exploded less than 10 minutes after takeoff. Flight 8 in March? Same thing – boom, gone. Flight 9 in May made it further but still broke apart during reentry.
That’s three rockets worth hundreds of millions of dollars, all destroyed in failed tests.
The Super Heavy Success Story
When SpaceX launched Starship Flight 10, the first big test was whether the Super Heavy booster could do its job properly. This is the bottom part of the rocket – the part with all those engines that gets the whole thing off the ground.
The 230-foot-tall booster worked exactly as planned. It pushed the upper Starship stage out of the lower atmosphere, separated cleanly, flipped around, and flew itself back down to splash into the Gulf of Mexico.
What’s interesting is that they deliberately shut down one of the engines during the descent to see what would happen. The booster compensated perfectly and still nailed its landing in the water.
“The booster compensated and the rocket, falling tail-first, dropped into the Gulf as planned,” SpaceX officials confirmed.
Starship’s Space Adventure
After the Super Heavy did its job, the upper Starship stage continued on its own journey through space. This is where SpaceX launched Starship technology really got put to the test.
The spacecraft deployed eight simulated Starlink satellites using what SpaceX calls a “Pez dispenser-like deployment system.” The system pushed out the fake satellites one by one in a controlled release.
Then came the big moment: a Raptor engine relight test. This might sound technical, but it’s actually huge. Starship needs to be able to restart its engines in space to change course, slow down for landing, or basically do anything useful.
It worked perfectly.
The Indian Ocean Finale
SpaceX launched Starship Flight 10 with the goal of having the spacecraft make a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean. After coasting through space and completing all its tests, that’s exactly what happened.
The ship fired up its engines one more time to slow itself down, reentered Earth’s atmosphere (with some heat shield damage but nothing critical), and made what SpaceX called an “on target soft landing” in the ocean.
Sure, it tipped over and exploded afterward, but that was totally expected. The important thing was that it made it all the way through the flight plan.
What Made This Different
So why did SpaceX launched Starship Flight 10 succeed when the previous three failed? The company made what they called “hardware and operational changes” to fix the problems that caused earlier explosions.
They also got smarter about testing. Instead of trying to do everything perfectly, they deliberately pushed some systems to their limits to see what would happen. That engine shutdown on the Super Heavy booster? That was on purpose.
“Each launch is about learning more and more about what’s needed to make life multiplanetary,” Musk explained earlier this year.
The Bigger Picture
When SpaceX launched Starship Flight 10, they weren’t just testing a rocket. They were testing the vehicle that NASA picked to land astronauts on the moon for the first time since 1972.
That’s right – this exact same rocket design is supposed to carry American astronauts down to the lunar surface by 2027. No pressure, right?
NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy was obviously relieved by the success. “Flight 10’s success paves the way for the Starship Human Landing System that will bring American astronauts back to the Moon on Artemis III,” he posted on social media.
The Mars Dream Lives On
Of course, Musk’s real goal isn’t the moon – it’s Mars. He wants SpaceX launched Starship missions to become so routine that they’re sending rockets to the Red Planet on a daily basis.
His vision? Manufacturing two to three Starships every single day and launching them to Mars regularly. Sounds crazy, but remember – this is the guy who said reusable rockets were impossible, then made them look easy.
“Progress is measured by the timeline to establishing a self-sustaining civilization on Mars,” Musk told employees in May.
What’s Next
Now that SpaceX launched Starship Flight 10 successfully, Musk wants to speed things up. He’s promised that the next three test flights will happen “approximately every 3 to 4 weeks.”
That means Flight 11 could happen by late September if everything goes to plan.
The company still has major challenges ahead, including figuring out how to refuel Starship in space (needed for those Mars missions) and consistently landing the rockets back at the launch pad instead of in the ocean.
But after Tuesday night’s success, those challenges suddenly seem a lot more manageable. SpaceX launched Starship Flight 10 and proved that sometimes, the biggest rockets really can stick the landing.
