SpaceX’s Starship successfully launched its latest test flight, deploying eight dummy satellites before making a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean

SpaceX carried out the latest test flight of its massive Starship rocket on Tuesday night, marking a major milestone with the first-ever deployment of a payload — eight dummy satellites — into orbit. After spending just over an hour coasting through space, the vehicle made a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean, as planned.

The nearly 400-foot-tall rocket lifted off from Starbase, SpaceX’s launch site in South Texas, shortly after 6:30 p.m. local time. This was the 10th test of Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, which SpaceX and NASA intend to use for future crewed lunar missions. NASA has contracted two Starship landers for astronaut missions to the moon later this decade, while SpaceX founder Elon Musk continues to pursue his ultimate goal of reaching Mars. No astronauts were on board this test flight.

The demonstration also featured the successful return of the Super Heavy booster, which splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico after completing a landing-burn engine sequence. Starship itself continued orbiting the Earth, transitioning from daylight in Texas to night and back into daytime, before performing a final engine burn to reorient upright and enter the water nose-first.

The achievement follows a string of setbacks. Earlier this year, test flights in January and March failed minutes after launch, scattering debris into the ocean, while a May attempt ended when the spacecraft lost control and disintegrated. The very first Starship exploded during its debut test in 2023. In response, SpaceX upgraded the booster with larger, stronger fins for added stability, according to a recent company update on X.

SpaceX has been steadily expanding its launch capabilities since 2019, when it deployed its first batch of Starlink satellites using a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral.