After a series of high-profile setbacks, SpaceX made significant progress in righting the ship for its Starship program, at least for one mission.

       The latest generation of the world's most powerful rocket and spacecraft combo completed its mission on Tuesday evening during its 10th test flight, achieving the company's primary objectives.

       The combination of the Starship, which could someday carry astronauts and cargo to the moon and Mars, and the Super Heavy booster, the rocket that propels the Starship in space, is more than 400 feet tall, made of stainless steel, and is being designed by SpaceX to be fully reusable.

       The uncrewed Starship successfully lifted off from a launch tower at the company's Starbase in South Texas at 7:30 p.m. ET, atop its Super Heavy booster powered by 33 Raptor engines delivering 3.3 million pounds of force.

       After reaching space on a suborbital trajectory, Starship deployed a series of Starlink simulators, which SpaceX said are similar in size to the next generation of the device, and was the first time the company has deployed a payload. The vehicle then relit one of its six engines. The deployment and relight were two key objectives that Starship was unable to perform during the last flight, and crucial for future orbital missions.

       And unlike the last several missions that ended prematurely due to technical problems, SpaceX returned Starship to Earth with a landing burn and splashdown in the Indian Ocean, west of Australia, a little over an hour after liftoff, a critical milestone for the company.

       A buoy camera captured the splashdown and appeared to show an explosion after Starship landed in the water. The explosion isn’t an unexpected outcome as the spacecraft isn’t designed for water landings and will eventually return to the launch pad upon completion of the mission.

       For Tuesday's test, SpaceX decided on a soft splashdown for the Super Heavy booster in the Gulf, instead of using the robotic "chopsticks" attached to the launch tower to catch it as it did during previous missions. And although the booster lost an engine, it splashed down as planned.

       While the 10th flight test was an engineering triumph for the company, it has not come easily.

       In mid-June, a Starship exploded on the launch pad during a pre-flight engine test. SpaceX said, "The vehicle was in the process of loading cryogenic propellant for a six-engine static fire when a sudden energetic event resulted in the complete loss of Starship and damage to the immediate area surrounding the stand."

       An analysis by the company found that the likely cause was the failure of a pressurized tank that stores gaseous nitrogen for the ship's environmental control system, which triggered the explosion.

       That explosion occurred less than a month after test flight nine ended prematurely when the "Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly" due to mechanical failures early in the flight, according to SpaceX.

       The company also lost the first stage heavy booster during the test after it appeared to explode while splashing down in the Gulf. SpaceX blamed "higher than predicted forces on the booster structure" for the loss.

       Test flight eight in March ended after what SpaceX described as a "hardware failure" with one of the upper-stage Raptor engines, leading to fuel igniting where it shouldn't have. The company believes the vehicle then automatically self-destructed. Debris was spotted across South Florida and the Atlantic, prompting temporary ground stops at nearby airports.

       A similar failure occurred in January 2025 during Starship's seventh flight test when stronger-than-expected vibrations caused a propellant leak, explosion and the loss of the spacecraft.

       In a post-incident report, SpaceX stated that it has implemented "hardware and operational changes" to enhance the reliability of Starship and the Super Heavy booster for the next mission.

       SpaceX CEO and Chief Engineer Elon Musk has long acknowledged the challenge of creating a fleet of reusable spacecraft capable of taking humans to the moon and Mars.

       Writing on X, Musk said, "There is a reason no fully reusable rocket has been built - it's an insanely hard problem. Moreover, it must be rapidly & completely reusable (like an airplane). This is the only way to make life multiplanetary."

       And despite the earlier setbacks, the company's test schedule has remained aggressive, with launches often just months apart. During the test flights, engineers intentionally test the limits of the spacecraft, removing heat tiles in critical areas. That pace and design strategy is central to SpaceX's iterative engineering process, which involves learning as they go, identifying problems, and making changes and improvements after each flight test.

       Still, the company has a long way to go before NASA will give them a green light to carry humans to space aboard Starship. For that to happen, Starship and the Super Heavy booster must be certified by NASA during its "human-rating" process.

       According to NASA, the human-rating process "is a critical certification process that validates the safety, reliability, and suitability of space systems—including orbiters, launch vehicles, rovers, spacesuits, habitats, and other crewed elements—for human use and interaction."

       To receive NASA's sign-off, SpaceX will have to show that Starship and its Super Heavy booster "can tolerate failures, provide life-sustaining environments, and offer the crew sufficient control and situational awareness." A spacecraft must be safe enough to meet NASA's goal of keeping the loss of a crew to 1 in 500 during launches and landings.

       And if SpaceX is going to fulfill Musk's vision of daily Starship launches to Mars, the company will have to demonstrate that the vehicle can accomplish more than just a single successful launch and landing. NASA will require Starship to complete numerous test flights successfully, demonstrating that the vehicle's safety and abort features are effective, and showing that astronauts can manually pilot the craft.

       During a presentation in May, Musk said that he believes Starship will eventually enable humans to become multiplanetary, a goal he considers necessary for the survival of humanity.

       "Each launch is about learning more and more about what's needed to make life multiplanetary and to improve Starship to the point where it can be taking ultimately hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people to Mars," Musk said during the event. "Rapidly reusable reliable rockets is the key," he added.