SpaceX Starship flight tests

SpaceX Starship flight tests include fourteen launches of prototype rockets during 2019–2024 for the SpaceX Starship launch vehicle development program. Eleven test flights were of single-stage Starship spacecraft flying low-altitude tests (2019–2021), while three were orbital trajectory flights of the entire Starship launch vehicle (2023–2024), consisting of a Starship spacecraft second-stage prototype atop a Super Heavy first-stage booster prototype.^{[a][1][2][3][4][5]} None of the flights to date has carried an operational payload. More flight tests are planned in 2024 and 2025.

Designed and operated by private manufacturer SpaceX, the prototype Starship and Super Heavy vehicles flown to date are Starhopper, SN5, SN6, SN8, SN9, SN10, SN11, SN15, Ship 24/B7, Ship 25/B9, and Ship 28/B10.^[6][7][8][b]

Starship is planned to be a fully-reusable two-stage super heavy-lift launch vehicle,^[9] and this affects expansion of the flight envelope during the long-running flight test program. Unusual for previous launch vehicle and spacecraft designs, the upper stage of Starship is intended to function both as a second stage to reach orbital velocity on launches from Earth, and also eventually^[10] be used in outer space as an on-orbit long-duration spacecraft. It is being designed to take people to Mars and beyond into the Solar System.^[11]

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