SpaceX targets Starship Flight 11 with water landings and heat shield

SpaceX is targeting the evening of Monday, October 13, for the 11th full-scale flight test of its Starship rocket from its Starbase facility near Boca Chica, Texas. The 123-meter vehicle will attempt a repeat of August's successful test by aiming for controlled water landings of both stages while carrying experiments to stress the upper stage heat shield and validate new landing and reentry techniques.

According to SpaceX, the Super Heavy first stage assigned to Flight 11 previously flew on Flight 8 and will lift off with 24 flight-proven Raptor engines. Rather than attempting a return-to-launch-site catch, the booster will follow a trajectory toward the Gulf of Mexico and test a revised landing-burn sequence intended for the next-generation Super Heavy. The sequence will begin with 13 engines at the start of the landing burn, transition to five engines during the divert phase to provide additional redundancy in case of shutdowns, and finish on three central engines for a brief hover before cutoff and splashdown.

The Ship upper stage will reenter on a suborbital arc aimed at a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean northwest of Australia. In orbit and during reentry it will...