Final launch of a Block 2 Starship, and the final launch from Pad 1 in its current configuration.
| Scheduled for (UTC) | 2025-10-13 23:23:00 |
|---|---|
| Scheduled for (local) | 2025-10-13 18:23 (CDT) |
| Launch Window (UTC) | 2025-10-13 23:23 to 2025-10-14 00:30 (1 hour 15 minutes) |
| Launch site | Pad 1, Starbase, Texas, USA. |
| Booster | B15-2 |
| Ship | S38 |
| Booster landing | Gulf of Mexico |
| Ship landing | Indian Ocean |
Webcasts
| Stream | Link |
|---|---|
| Space Affairs | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfUbb3L4f0g |
| Everyday Astronaut | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMD-Wo8jz90 |
| Spaceflight Now | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrcLIvoiKfw |
| NASASpaceflight | Stakeout stream, launch stream |
| LabPadre | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGUw41G4Jf0 |
| The Launch Pad | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNNj9Svq3HE |
| VideoFromSpace | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31KE1XY32SE |
| SpaceX | https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1972798064403357887 |
| The Space Devs | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYegpMZW2Vw |
Stats
Sourced from NextSpaceflight and r/SpaceX:
☑️ 5th launch of Starship version 2
☑️ 5th Starship Full Stack launch this year, 11th overall
☑️ 5th launch from Pad 1 this year, 11th overall
☑️ 47 days, 23:45:00 turnaround for Pad 1
☑️ 220 days, 23:45:00 turnaround for B15
☑️ 132nd SpaceX launch this year, 581st overall
Mission Details
SpaceX website (current, archive)
- Primary booster objective will be demonstrating a unique landing burn engine configuration planned to be used on the next generation Super Heavy.
- Super Heavy will ignite 13 engines at the start of the landing burn and then transition to a new configuration with five engines running for the divert phase. Previously done with three engines, the planned baseline for V3 Super Heavy will use five engines during the section of the burn responsible for fine-tuning the booster’s path, adding additional redundancy for spontaneous engine shutdowns. The booster will then transition to its three center engines for the end of the landing burn, entering a full hover while still above the ocean surface, followed by shutdown and dropping into the Gulf.
- Ship will deploy 8 Starlink simulators and perform an in-space Raptor relight.
- For reentry, tiles have been removed from Starship to intentionally stress-test vulnerable areas across the vehicle. Several of the missing tiles are in areas where tiles are bonded to the vehicle and do not have a backup ablative layer.
- To mimic the path a ship will take on future flights returning to Starbase, the final phase of Starship’s trajectory on Flight 11 includes a dynamic banking maneuver and will test subsonic guidance algorithms prior to a landing burn and splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
Apart from the spectator value of mounting a camera on one of the Starlink simulators, how much value would such a camera have to SpaceX in being able to monitor the re-entry? How long before the simulator was too far away / too hot to be able to continue transmitting useful images?
Well, for this flight, they’ve scheduled the in-space Raptor relight between payload deploy and reentry.
Even if they were to resequence this, I suspect that the differing mass-to-area ratios of the ship and the Starlink simulator would cause them to drift apart pretty quickly. It’s also possible that the reentry plasma would preclude communication between the camera and the ship.
Ah yes, that would increase the separation quite quickly.
I guess they do the relight test after the simulator deploy because it is a higher risk activity - the pez dispenser is very unlikely to cause a RUD.