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A Starship flight test is an integrated launch of two vehicles: the Super Heavy first-stage booster and the Starship upper-stage spacecraft. The booster supplies the thrust needed to leave the launch site; after separation, Starship continues the mission, which can include engine tests, payload deployment, atmospheric reentry and a landing or splashdown attempt.

There is no single, unchanging Starship flight profile. SpaceX changes the vehicle generation, recovery plan and in-space demonstrations from one test to the next. The sequence below uses SpaceX’s published Flight 13 timeline as a concrete example, while identifying which events are specific to that mission.

What is a Starship flight test?

Starship is a two-stage launch system rather than only the vehicle commonly called “the ship.” Super Heavy is the large, reusable booster at the bottom. Starship is the upper stage that separates from it and performs the remainder of the mission. A flight test evaluates the complete stack in an actual launch environment, where propulsion, guidance, staging, communications, thermal protection and recovery hardware interact at flight speed.

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SpaceX chooses objectives for each flight. One test may emphasize ascent and separation; another may add a booster return maneuver, payload deployment, an in-space Raptor relight or a controlled splashdown. A statement that a flight was “successful” should therefore be understood as SpaceX’s assessment against that flight’s objectives, not as proof that every future Starship mission will follow the same plan.

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What happens during a Starship launch?

1. Countdown, propellant loading and engine preparation

Before ignition, ground systems load liquid methane and liquid oxygen into both stages. SpaceX countdowns also include chilling the Raptor engines and conducting final launch polls. Flight 11’s published countdown, for example, lists propellant loading for the ship and booster, followed by engine chill and final checks. Those times are mission-specific; they are not a universal Starship countdown schedule.

  • Liquid methane and liquid oxygen: the methane fuel and oxygen oxidizer are loaded into the ship and Super Heavy.
  • Engine chill: cryogenic propellants are circulated to bring engine hardware to operating temperature before ignition.
  • Final polls: controllers verify vehicle, range and ground-system readiness before releasing the launch sequence.

2. Liftoff and ascent

Super Heavy’s Raptor engines ignite and the integrated vehicle rises from Starbase. The booster provides nearly all of the thrust during the first part of ascent. Aerodynamic forces increase as the vehicle accelerates through the atmosphere, reaching a point of maximum dynamic pressure known as Max Q.

SpaceX’s Flight 13 timeline places Max Q at approximately 58 seconds after liftoff. That is an elapsed-time marker for Flight 13, not a fixed constant of the Starship design. Weather, trajectory, vehicle mass and the selected flight plan can change the timing.

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3. Booster engine cutoff and hot-staging

As Super Heavy completes its main ascent contribution, most of its engines shut down. This event is called Super Heavy MECO, or main-engine cutoff. The upper stage then starts its engines while it is still separating from the booster. SpaceX calls this transition hot-staging.

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Hot-staging avoids waiting for the booster and ship to drift apart completely before Starship begins powered flight. The ship’s engines ignite through the separation sequence, while Super Heavy starts the maneuver assigned to it by that flight’s plan. Flight 13 lists MECO at about 2 minutes 18 seconds and hot-staging at about 2 minutes 21 seconds after liftoff.

What happens after Starship separates from the booster?

Super Heavy’s return attempt

Once separation is complete, the booster is no longer simply falling away. Its next task depends on the test objective. It can reorient, perform a boostback burn to alter its ground track and attempt a landing burn or a controlled water landing.

Flight 13’s timeline describes a directional flip followed by a boostback burn beginning at approximately 2 minutes 25 seconds. Flight 11 used a different profile: the booster descended toward a planned splashdown zone and performed a landing burn for a soft water landing. These are examples of generation-specific procedures, not a guarantee that every Super Heavy will return or use the same maneuver.

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Starship’s powered upper-stage flight

After staging, Starship continues along the planned trajectory under its own Raptor engines. The ship may be testing a target velocity, a suborbital path, a deployment system or an engine operation that would be needed on later missions.

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Flight 13’s approximate timeline gives Starship engine cutoff at 8 minutes 5 seconds. The ship then continued with mission demonstrations, including a payload-deployment demonstration beginning around 16 minutes 40 seconds and an in-space Raptor relight demonstration around 38 minutes 58 seconds. Flight 11 also reported deploying Starlink simulators and conducting an in-space engine relight. A simulator is a test payload, not an operational satellite service.

How does Starship return and land?

Atmospheric entry

For the return phase, Starship uses its body flaps to control attitude and aerodynamic lift. The vehicle must manage heating, deceleration and trajectory at the same time. SpaceX’s Flight 11 description included a dynamic banking maneuver followed by flap-guided descent. Flight 13’s timeline marks entry at approximately 47 minutes 30 seconds after liftoff, followed by transonic and subsonic milestones.

Landing flip and final burn

Near the end of descent, the ship transitions from a relatively horizontal, flap-controlled attitude to a vertical landing orientation. A landing burn then reduces the remaining descent speed. Depending on the test, the vehicle may target a designated landing area or a splashdown zone rather than a launch-site landing.

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Flight 13 lists its landing sequence as beginning at about 1 hour 5 minutes. Flight 11 likewise described a landing flip and soft splashdown. “Splashdown” means the vehicle intentionally reaches the ocean; it does not mean that a vehicle was recovered, refurbished or ready for another flight. The outcome must be reported for the specific test.

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Flight 13 timeline: an example, not a universal schedule

SpaceX labels the Flight 13 times below as approximate elapsed mission times. They show how the major events fit together, but they should not be reused as a schedule for another flight.

Mission event Approximate time after liftoff What it represents
Liftoff 00:00:00 Super Heavy and Starship leave the launch site as one vehicle.
Max Q 00:00:58 Peak aerodynamic pressure during the early ascent.
Super Heavy MECO 00:02:18 Booster main-engine cutoff.
Hot-staging 00:02:21 Starship ignites its engines while separating from Super Heavy.
Boostback start 00:02:25 Beginning of the booster’s return-direction maneuver.
Starship engine cutoff 00:08:05 The ship ends its primary powered ascent.
Payload-deployment demonstration 00:16:40 A planned demonstration of releasing or simulating payload deployment.
Raptor relight demonstration 00:38:58 An in-space restart test of a Raptor engine.
Starship entry 00:47:30 The ship begins atmospheric reentry.
Landing sequence About 01:05:00 Final descent, landing flip and landing-burn portion of the test.

Why hot-staging matters

In a conventional staged launch, the first stage shuts down, the stages separate and the upper-stage engine starts after separation. Hot-staging overlaps the separation and ignition events: Starship’s engines come on as the ship moves away from Super Heavy. That arrangement can preserve upward momentum and reduce time between booster cutoff and upper-stage thrust, but it also creates demanding mechanical, thermal and guidance conditions at the interface between the vehicles.

The practical point for viewers is that the bright engine plume and apparent close spacing immediately after MECO are intentional parts of the staging method. The booster and ship are already following different jobs even though they have only just separated.

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How Flight 11 and Flight 13 illustrate changing objectives

Comparing flights requires more than asking whether each vehicle reached a particular altitude. The useful questions are which hardware generation flew, what the booster was supposed to do, which upper-stage demonstrations were scheduled and how entry ended.

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Comparison point Flight 11 Flight 13
Booster profile Descent toward a planned splashdown zone, including a landing burn and reported soft water landing. Directional flip and boostback burn described in the flight timeline; the return profile was specific to that test.
Upper-stage demonstrations Deployment of Starlink simulators and an in-space engine-relight demonstration. Payload-deployment demonstration and an in-space Raptor-relight demonstration listed in the approximate timeline.
Entry and ending Dynamic banking, flap-guided descent, landing flip and soft splashdown were described by SpaceX. Entry, transonic and subsonic milestones, landing burn, landing flip and splashdown were listed in the timeline.
Interpretation SpaceX said the flight met its major objectives. SpaceX presented a V3 vehicle and a different set of demonstrations; its timings should be read as Flight 13 data.

SpaceX’s Flight 13 page describes that booster as using 33 Raptor 3 engines and the ship as using six Raptor engines. Those specifications belong to that vehicle configuration; they should not be treated as an immutable specification for every Starship generation.

What “test flight” means in the Starship program

A test flight is an experiment conducted with flight hardware, not merely a public demonstration. Engineers collect data on engine performance, structural loads, stage separation, communications, guidance, thermal protection and recovery operations. The next vehicle can then incorporate changes suggested by what happened on the previous flight.

SpaceX’s V3 update, dated May 12, 2026, reported production of more than three dozen Starships and 600 Raptor engines. Those are company-reported production figures, not an independent inventory. The same update describes changes associated with later vehicle and booster generations, which is why a procedure observed on one flight may be modified on the next.

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Who authorizes a Starship launch?

Launch activity also has a regulatory track separate from the engineering test. The Federal Aviation Administration says its license evaluation covers four broad areas:

  • Public safety: whether the operation protects people and property on the ground and along the flight path.
  • National security and foreign-policy interests: whether the proposed activity raises those concerns.
  • Insurance requirements: whether the operator meets applicable financial responsibility obligations.
  • Potential environmental effects: whether the activity complies with environmental requirements.

Environmental review is not itself a launch license. FAA project information for proposed operations at Kennedy Space Center’s LC-39A states that completing environmental review does not guarantee that a launch license will be issued. A review page therefore should not be presented as proof that a proposed site is already licensed or operating.

How to interpret a Starship launch report

When reading a post-flight announcement or watching coverage, separate observed events from planned objectives and from the operator’s assessment. A useful checklist is:

  • Identify the flight number and vehicle generation before using a time, engine count or recovery description.
  • Check whether “landing” means a ground landing, a controlled splashdown or only an attempted maneuver.
  • Distinguish a payload deployment demonstration or simulator from an operational payload.
  • Read “met its objectives” as SpaceX’s own evaluation unless an independent authority has confirmed the result.
  • Do not assume that an environmental review, a proposed launch site or a future flight listing is evidence of final launch authorization.

As of October 17, 2026, the latest detailed official timeline described here is Flight 13. An official listing showed Flight 14 on September 28, 2026, but a comparable detailed technical timeline was not available in the material used for this explanation. Flight counts, objectives, vehicle generations and licensing status can change, so any report about an upcoming or most recent test should use that flight’s own official account.

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