In a year marked early on by a string of explosive failures, SpaceX's Starship is on track to end 2025 on a high note.

The commercial spaceflight company, founded in 2002 by billionaire Elon Musk, launched the gargantuan rocket on a second successful uncrewed test flight in a row from its Starbase facilities in Texas. The mission, coming a little less than two months since the previous Starship demonstration in August, helped to further snap a run of three tests early in 2025 in which the vehicle met a premature fiery demise before completing many key objectives.

The latest test on Monday, Oct. 13 – which Musk praised on his social media site X – was also the final flight for SpaceX's current iteration of the spacecraft, known as Version 2.

As SpaceX prepares to roll out a bigger, more advanced prototype of Starship, the pressure will continue to be on for a vehicle selected to help NASA astronauts land on the moon. Musk also has big dreams for Starship, noted as the world's largest rocket, to transport the first humans to Mars in the years ahead.

NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy hailed the flight in a post on X as "another major step toward landing Americans on the Moon’s south pole" amid the U.S.' space race to the lunar surface with competitors such as China.

Here's everything to know about SpaceX's latest test of its Starship megarocket, a mission known as flight 11.

Was the Starship launch successful? What happened with upper stage

Starship got off the ground at 7:23 p.m. ET Monday, Oct. 13, from SpaceX's Starbase headquarters in South Texas, located about 23 miles from Brownsville near the U.S.-Mexico border. The mission marked Starship's fifth test of 2025 and 11th since tests began in April 2023.

The launch system vehicle's lower stage, known as Super Heavy, ignited all of its 33 engines – part of SpaceX's Raptor family of engines – as it propelled the upper stage high above the Texas coast. Starship’s upper stage, the vehicle where crew and cargo would one day ride, separated within a few minutes of liftoff to fire its own six Raptor engines and continue on its own flight on a lower suborbital trajectory, according to SpaceX.

As it flew halfway around the world, the vehicle – visible at one point in Florida – deployed mock Starlink internet satellites for the second time in a row and relighted a Raptor engine in space for the third time ever in a necessary maneuver to one day bring a vehicle back to the ground.

SpaceX also conducted mid-flight maneuvers that will be necessary for the Starship upper stage to one day be capable of returning and landing back at the launch site.

The vehicle eventually succeeded in making a planned splashdown about an hour after liftoff in the Indian Ocean west of Australia.

Starship flight 11 landing: Super Heavy booster makes splashdown

The rocket booster, known as Super Heavy, had a much shorter flight.

After stage separation, Super Heavy returned to make a water landing about seven minutes after launch in the Gulf of Mexico, renamed by the U.S. government as the Gulf of America.

During three separate Starship launches since October, SpaceX returned the massive spacecraft's rocket booster at its South Texas launch site to be caught by its giant tower with metal arms. But for the third time in a row, SpaceX had no plans to recover the booster as it instead sought to once again push its performance beyond what has so far been attempted.

During its time in the air, Super Heavy tested a landing configuration before it intentionally self-destructed upon landing.

When is the next Starship launch date? SpaceX working on Version 3 that could reach orbit

The test flight was the last for SpaceX's current iteration of Starship, known as Version 2.

Up next, the company plans to begin testing a new Starship rocket, Version 3 – or V3. The more advanced Starship prototype will be outfitted with upgrades essential for long-duration missions deep into space, according to SpaceX.

SpaceX said on its website that the next generation Starship could be the first to reach orbit.

Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX president and COO, said at a conference in Paris last month that she expected that iteration of Starship to fly by year's end or early next year, Reuters reported.

SpaceX has also indicated its desire to launch Starship from Florida potentially before the end of 2025, but has not provided an update on that plan since March.

While no official target launch date has been set for the Sunshine State, plans to expand Starship operations to Florida have continued. SpaceX is in the process of getting approval for Starship launches from both the Kennedy Space Center, where it is developing more infrastructure, as well as the Cape Canaveral Space Force Base.

Future iterations of Starship will need to demonstrate the ability for the upper stage to return to the launch site and also refuel in orbit, which is necessary for it to reach distant destinations.

What is Starship? How big is Mars-bound rocket?

The Starship, standing 403 feet tall when fully stacked, is regarded as the world's largest and most powerful launch vehicle ever developed. When fully integrated, the launch system is composed of both a 232-foot Super Heavy rocket and the 171-foot upper stage Starship, the spacecraft where crew and cargo would ride.

SpaceX is developing Starship to be a fully reusable transportation system, meaning the rocket and vehicle can return to the ground for additional missions.

In the years ahead, Starship is set to serve a pivotal role in future U.S. spaceflight.

Starship is the centerpiece of Musk's vision of sending the first humans to Mars, with plans for the first uncrewed Starship to head to the Red Planet as early as 2026.

A configuration of the vehicle is also critical in NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon's surface. The U.S. space agency has designs on using Starship to ferry Artemis III astronauts from an Orion capsule in orbit to the lunar surface as early as 2027.

Contributing: Reuters

Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: SpaceX launches Starship on another successful test flight. Here's what happened

Reporting by Eric Lagatta, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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