List Of Starship Launches

SpaceX Starship flight tests include ten launches of prototypes of the Starship spacecraft on suborbital and low-altitude tests, and two orbital trajectory flights of the entire Starship launch vehicle with the Starship prototype atop the Super Heavy first-stage booster. Designed and operated by private manufacturer SpaceX, the flown prototypes of Starship so far are '' Starhopper'', SN5, SN6, SN8, SN9, SN10, SN11, SN15, S24/ B7, and S25/ B9.

Starship is planned to be a fully-reusable two-stage super heavy-lift launch vehicle. Unusual for previous launch vehicle and spacecraft designs, the upper stage of Starship is intended to function both as a second stage to reach orbital velocity on launches from Earth, and also eventually be used in outer space as an on-orbit long-duration spacecraft. It is being designed to take people to Mars and beyond into the Solar System.

Vehicle testing

Starship prototype tests can generally be classified into three main types. In proof pressure tests, the vehicle's tanks are pressurized with either gases or liquids to test their strength—sometimes deliberately until they burst. The vehicle then performs mission rehearsals, with or without fuel, to check the vehicle and ground infrastructure. Before a test flight, SpaceX loads the vehicle prototype with propellant and briefly fires its engines in a static fire test. Alternatively, the engines' turbopump spinning can be tested without firing the engines, referred to as a spin prime test.

Following successful testing, uncrewed flight tests and launches may take place. During a suborbital launch, Starship prototypes fly to a high altitude and then descend, landing either near the launch site or in the sea. During an orbital launch, Starship performs procedures as described in its mission profile. The tests, flights, and launches of the Starship rocket have received significant media coverage due to SpaceX's relatively open approach to allowing outsiders to view the facilities.

No discussion of SpaceX Starship and Super Heavy Flight Testing would be complete without describing how SpaceX develops technology using iterative design with rapid prototyping.

Eric Berger explains the SpaceX approach:

"… SpaceX is willing to tolerate some failure to go fast. With 'iterative design' the company builds vehicles, tests them, and flies them as quickly as possible. This approach strongly contrasts with more traditional aerospace, in which years are spent refining a vehicle's design before building a vehicle."

In this approach test articles and flight tests are designed with multiple goals where each goal proves out a specific function or collects data on a specific function for future design iterations. A flight test is not designed to achieve one large measurable goal but rather is designed to achieve many serially executed goals of increasing risk. A well designed flight test will serially perform goals in increasing risk where the goals with the most uncertain outcome are later in the sequence to maximize the number of goals executed prior to termination of the flight test.

A SpaceX Flight Test does not fit the traditional definition of a ''mission'' and so traditional definitions of ''mission success'' do not apply. Coming from a background in manned space flight, historically a space flight mission had an easily measurable goal, e.g. deliver humans and/or supplies to the International Space Station or inject a satellite into an accurate orbit. A mission that does not achieve its goal is easy to define as a failure. Prior to the introduction of autonomous flight, space flight required humans onboard; flight termination was simply not an acceptable outcome. A SpaceX flight test does not fit the traditional definition of a mission and so there is no easy definition of failure.

Ironically a failed iterative design flight test is one that successfully achieves all goals on the first test flight. This is a failure because it indicates that the flight test did not take enough risk in defining the flight test goals. The premise of using iterative design is that taking risks in flight tests will ultimately result in a successful design at a substantially lower design cost. Taking too little risk means that the design cost was higher than necessary.

In describing various SpaceX flight tests as success or failure, the definition of failure used in this article is that the test did not meet all goals. That does not minimize the tremendous amount of useful information gained from each of the goals that were met in the test. Likewise it might not accurately reflect the success criteria for an iterative design flight test. SpaceX has consistently reported all flight tests successful since one or more goals are achieved in the flight tests.

Suborbital campaign (2019–2021)

Launch outcomes

Landing outcomes

Orbital campaign (2023–)

The first orbital flight test of Starship took place on 20 April 2023 and ended in the destruction of the vehicle four minutes into the flight over the designated hazard area in the Gulf of Mexico. Following the second integrated flight test of Starship on 18 November 2023, Elon Musk tweeted that the "Starship Flight 3 hardware should be ready to fly in 3 to 4 weeks".

Launch sites

Launch outcomes

Booster landing outcomes

Spacecraft landing outcomes

Upcoming flights

Future operational flights

SpaceX has on various occasions made a few public statements about preliminary ideas for future operational orbital flights using the Starship system. All dates for future flights are speculative, and therefore approximate and "no earlier than" (NET) dates. Moreover, it is difficult to compare the dates in the tables since they have come from different sources and at different times over the past three years.

Elon Musk has stated that Starship would fly hundreds of times before launching with humans. A likely use of some of these flights would be to launch Starlink satellites.

Other flights

The HLS variant of Starship was selected by NASA in April 2021 to be the lander for the Artemis missions to the Moon. Artemis 3 is intended to be the first human mission to the Moon to use Starship for long-duration crewed lunar landings as part of the Artemis program.

According to space journalist Mike Wall in 2020, and as part of SpaceX's Mars ambitions, Musk is said to envision that eventually more than 1,000 Starships could be needed to depart for Mars every 26 months, which could lead to the development of a sustainable Martian city in 50–100 years.

Notes

See also

* SpaceX Starship design process

References

{{Spaceflight lists and timelines

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