Milestone Achieved: SpaceX's Starship Launches Satellites

SpaceX has reached another important milestone in the development of its Starship program. During the tenth test flight, the company successfully deployed a payload for the first time—eight Starlink satellite models. The launch faced several delays due to weather and technical issues, but it proceeded without any incidents. Previously, Starship experienced explosions during ascent in its seventh, eighth, and ninth flights. In June, yet another explosion occurred on the ground during pre-launch preparations.

The tenth flight commenced at 6:30 PM Central Time on August 26, 2025 (2:30 AM on August 27 in Kyiv) from the Starbase launch facility in Texas. The Super Heavy first stage ignited all 33 Raptor engines and lifted the rocket above the Gulf of Mexico. After staging, Super Heavy executed a series of complex maneuvers, including landing burn, intentionally shutting down one of the three central engines during the final phase and utilizing a backup. It even performed a brief 'hover' over the water before a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

The upper stage of Starship continued its journey into space, successfully deploying eight Starlink satellite models for the first time and executing a Raptor engine relight in space—a critical technology for future deorbit maneuvers.

Special attention was given to the reentry phase: the thermal protection and structure of Starship were intentionally subjected to extreme conditions to gather more data on structural integrity.

SpaceX emphasized that this flight is an essential step toward achieving complete reusability of the Starship system, but there is still work to be done to develop the technology for the upper stage's return for reuse.