WASHINGTON — Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched its 11th Starship rocket from Starbase, Texas on Monday, a test mission to demonstrate the giant vehicle’s reusable design for lofting satellites and eventually taking humans to the moon and Mars.

Starship, consisting of the Starship upper stage stacked atop its Super Heavy booster, launched at around 6:20 p.m. CT from SpaceX’s Starbase facilities. After sending the Starship stage to space, Super Heavy returned for a soft water landing in the Gulf of Mexico, roughly 10 minutes after liftoff.

Its last mission, in August, ended a streak of testing failures earlier this year as SpaceX pushed to stress-test features for its total reusability. SpaceX, after Monday’s flight, is hoping to start launching a more advanced Starship prototype equipped with f

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