SpaceX is targeting Monday, October 13, for the eleventh test flight of its Starship launch system. The launch window is expected to open at 6:15 p.m. CT. 

Similar to past Starship missions, a live webcast will begin about 30 minutes before launch on SpaceX’s website, X account, and X TV app. As with all SpaceX tests, the estimated timeline for Starship Flight 11 remains subject to change based on conditions and readiness.

Super Heavy booster landing test

The upcoming mission will build on the data gathered from Starship’s tenth test flight, focusing on booster performance and upper-stage capabilities. The Super Heavy booster, previously flown on Flight 8, will launch with 24 flight-proven Raptor engines, according to SpaceX in a blog post on its official website. Its primary objective is to validate a new landing burn engine configuration designed for the next generation of Super Heavy.

Instead of returning to Starbase, the Super Heavy booster will follow a trajectory toward the Gulf of America. During descent, it will ignite 13 engines before transitioning to a five-engine divert phase and then completing the landing burn with three central engines, entering a full hover while still above the ocean surface, followed by shutdown and dropping into the Gulf of America.

Starship upper-stage experiments

The Starship upper stage for Flight 11 will carry out a series of in-space demonstrations, including the deployment of eight Starlink simulators that are comparable in size to next-generation Starlink satellites. These payloads will reenter and burn up during descent. A planned Raptor engine relight in orbit will also provide valuable test data.

To evaluate the upper stage’s resilience during reentry, SpaceX engineers have intentionally removed heat shield tiles from select areas to stress-test Starship’s thermal protection system. The vehicle will attempt new maneuvers during descent, including a banking profile and subsonic guidance algorithms intended to simulate future return-to-launch-site missions. The upper stage will ultimately target a splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

SpaceX has already posted a link to the livestream for Starship Flight 11: 

Elon Musk once stated that no one ever changed the world working just 40 hours a week. This was something that is openly known among his companies. They have the potential to change the world, but they require a lot of hours.

SpaceX’s working environment was recently criticized by Chris Kemp, the chief executive officer of Astra. During some remarks at the Berkeley Space Symposium 2025 earlier this month, Kemp shared some sharp remarks about the Elon Musk-led private space enterprise.

SpaceX working conditions and Starbase

As noted in a report from Ars Technica, Kemp discussed a variety of topics during his talk. These included Astra’s successes and failures, as well as his thoughts on other players in the spaceflight industry. To be fair to Kemp, he practically shaded every major rival, calling Firefly’s engine “garbage,” dubbing Blue Origin as slow, and stating that Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket is “too small.”

SpaceX also received some colorful words from the Astra CEO. According to Kemp, SpaceX is leading the way in the spaceflight industry and Elon Musk is admirable in the way that he is willing to fail in order to move quickly. He did, however, highlight that Astra offers a significantly better working environment than SpaceX.

“It’s more fun than SpaceX, because we’re not on the border of Mexico where they’ll chop your head off if you accidentally take a left turn. And you don’t have to live in a trailer. And we don’t make you work six and a half days a week, 12 hours a day. It’s appreciated if you do, but not required,” Kemp said.

Elon Musk’s demands

It is known that Elon Musk demands quite a lot from his employees. However, it is also known that Musk-led companies move very fast and, in more ways than one, they have accomplished world-changing feats. Tesla, for example, has practically ushered in the era of the modern electric vehicle, and SpaceX has made space attainable through its reusable rockets. With this in mind, employees at Musk’s companies, and this of course includes SpaceX, are likely proud of their long work hours. 

No one could probably go to Mars in this lifetime with a team that really works just 40 hours a week, after all.

Elon Musk has stated that a self-sustaining human settlement on Mars could be established in 25-30 years, provided launch capacity increases dramatically in the coming decades. 

Speaking at the All-In Summit, the SpaceX CEO said building a self-sufficient colony depends on exponential growth in “tonnage to Mars” with each launch window, highlighting Starship’s role as the company’s pathway to interplanetary initiatives.

Mars settlement goals

Musk noted that true self-sufficiency requires Mars to develop “all the ingredients of civilization,” from food production to microchip manufacturing. Starship Version 3 is expected to support the first uncrewed Mars test flights, while future iterations could reach 466 feet in height and deliver larger payloads critical for settlement. Ultimately, Musk stated that an aggressive timeline for a city on Mars could be as short as 30 years, as noted in a Space.com report.

“I think it can be done in 30 years, provided there’s an exponential increase in the tonnage to Mars with each successive Mars transfer window, which is every two years. Every two years, the planets align and you can transfer to Mars. 

“I think in roughly 15, but maybe as few as 10, but 10-15-ish Mars transfer windows. If you’re seeing exponential increases in the tonnage to Mars with each Mars transfer window, then it should be possible to make Mars self-sustaining in about call it roughly 25 years,” Musk said. 

Starship’s role

Starship has flown in a fully stacked configuration ten times, most recently in August when it completed its first payload deployment in orbit. The next flight will close out the Version 2 program before transitioning to Starship Version 3, featuring Raptor 3 engines and a redesigned structure capable of lifting over 100 tons to orbit.

While SpaceX has demonstrated Super Heavy booster reuse, Ship reusability remains in development. Musk noted that the heat shield is still the biggest technical hurdle, as no orbital vehicle has yet achieved rapid, full reuse.

“For full reusability of the Ship, there’s still a lot of work that remains on the heat shield. No one’s ever made a fully reusable orbital heat shield. The shuttle heat shield had to go through nine months of repair after every flight,” he said.