Talk:SpaceX Starship

Proposal: Combine the two sections "Integrated flight tests (2023–)" and "Past launches". The subsection called "Integrated flight tests (2023–)" largely repeats the content of the table below headed "Past launches". -- Ssilvers (talk) 04:40, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

• Yes (as proposer). The two sections are almost entirely repetitive, and any other information, such as the June 2025 static fire explosion, could remain with the material above. -- Ssilvers (talk) 01:27, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

(I recommend merging the two parts of that post, because it looks like its two posts, when its only one)

Complete deletion of that section is a bad idea, but it can certainly be condensed Redacted II (talk) 02:26, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

30.11.2025 here. ГеоргиУики (talk) 06:24, 31 October 2025 (UTC)

Table in the versions section give thrust in (tf) which is neither metric not compares to NM given later in the text. Be consistent, be metric. ~2025-35071-58 (talk) 10:38, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

• Starlab Space announced in January 2024 that it had selected SpaceX’s Starship to launch the station. It said it has a launch contract priced at $90 million to send Starlab to orbit https://spacenews.com/starlab-space-fully-books-commercial-payload-space-on-planned-space-station/
• Voyager discloses that "one launch at a future estimated launch date" will cost it $90 million https://www.fool.com/investing/2026/03/21/how-much-will-a-spacex-starship-launch-cost/
• The cost per kilogram to orbit using the SpaceX Starship is approximately $94 https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2025/01/spacex-starship-roadmap-to-100-times-lower-cost-launch.html

Dulliman (talk) 16:31, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

"Starship cargo flights to the lunar surface for research, development, and exploratory missions start in 2028, at a rate of $100 million per metric ton."*

Maybe for more tons have discounts?

It is same price for delivery to Mars.

Is possible prices to be lowered significantly in near (after 2028) or far future but not sure.

Citation is from official website.

Must scroll down and in right if watch website ot smartphone. ГеоргиУики (talk) 12:12, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

I think that article here must be redacted because this. Now we know that cost of development isn't just more of $5B but few times more to this moment. When I prompt one LLM answer was "between $15B and $18B", but now we have more valuable source.

It is not yet possible to quote the source, as the documents for the initial public offering of SpaceX are still confidential to the general public. However, the documents have already been reviewed by various state and private administrations. ГеоргиУики (talk) 08:45, 2 May 2026 (UTC)

It barely survived, this was not a success. It didn't crash, barely.

The correct category for that is "Partial failure" ~2026-30826-52 (talk) 02:00, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

It deployed it's payload into the desired trajectory

It made it down in excellent condition.

Under no logical definition can it be called anything but success Redacted II (talk) 02:38, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

Engine failure during ascent with trajectory deviation, failed to carry out vacuum relight demo, booster suffered massive engine relight failures and an uncontrolled crash into the ocean. Yeah, the Starship survived the descent. At best partial success, or partial failures - the mission didn't go as planned. Milestones were missed for future missions. Somewhen (talk) 08:16, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

The relight was planned with a sea level engine, and is not a mission critical burn. This isn't the first time they skipped the burn.

Similarly, the booster failing to land is irrelevant. Booster landing is not required for success (otherwise Falcon 9 would have a lot more failures).

Starship has engine out capabilities, and those were demonstrated.

All that matters for success v.s failure is payload deployment (see prior success v.s failure disputes). And that was achieved. Therefore, Success. Redacted II (talk) 16:06, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

Agree. Thelagrangianpoints (talk) 22:48, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

A agree. Test Flight 12 show a lot of unsolved problems. ГеоргиУики (talk) 08:01, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

A launch is considered successful if the payload reaches its intended orbit (or trajectory), regardless of whether the rocket itself experienced anomalies.

https://aerospace.csis.org/data/u-s-space-launch-success-and-failure/ ~2026-33223-86 (talk) 16:02, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

That is true if the payload is the objective (the dummy sats were launched into a suborbital track, and not the intended one). This flight was a test of the launch system so the success criteria should be related to that. Somewhen (talk) 17:14, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

The dummy sats were launched into the intended sub-orbital trajectory, and numerous systems on both Ship and Booster were successfully tested in flight. Some of those tests even successfully found flaws or failures in certain systems and components.

As a purely diagnostic flight (which all Starship flights so far have been) success or failure of the flight overall is not really a meaningful or useful metric. Largely Legible Layman (talk) 19:01, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

I love that! The launch successfully found failures. ;) Somewhen (talk) 19:19, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

The intended objective was to clear the tower and not destroy the launch pad. The vehicle cleared the tower, and while damage was exerted on the pad, it was not destroyed. As even stated on the livestream, anything further was icing on the cake. Can it be changed to success or at least partial success? Thelagrangianpoints (talk) 23:00, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

Please provide citations to independent reliable sources which describe the flight as a success. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:19, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1wcilQ58hI&t=2936s "everything after clearing the tower was icing on the cake"

https://web.archive.org/web/20230419182009/https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-test "success is measured by how much we can learn" I daresay they learned a lot.

https://ici.radio-canada.ca/rci/en/news/2057173/spacexs-starship-launches-from-texas-on-its-3rd-test-flight"It [SpaceX] deemed IFT-1 a success because it cleared the pad without exploding."

https://www.spacex.com/launches/starship-flight-test "Starship successfully lifted off from the orbital launch pad for the first time... With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and we learned a tremendous amount about the vehicle and ground systems today that will help us improve on future flights of Starship." Thelagrangianpoints (talk) 01:10, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

The system used to determine success v.s failure is as follows:

Success: correct orbit

Partial Failure: Wrong orbit that forces the payload to correct after separation from the launch vehicle.

Failure: Payload was left in an unrecoverable orbit, or didn't even get to orbit at all

S24 (the "payload" of Flight 1" didn't make it to the transatmospheric orbit desired. It didn't even separate from B7 until the booster exploded. And by then the FTS had gone off nearly a minute before. Thus, it was correctly deemed a Failure.

For Flight 2, S25 got further. Much, much further. But it didn't reach the right trajectory by the time the engines cut off (due to onboard fires), so the FTS was triggered. Again, Failure.

Flight 3, S28. It reached the right orbit, and since it wasn't flying a payload, it was a Success, despite the loss of attitude control shortly after SECO.

S29 on Flight 4 had no issues until reentry, and it still made it down, though 6 km from the target. No payload, so the correct trajectory is enough for Success.

Flight 5 was an almost perfect flight. On target landing, successful tower catch of the booster. Success.

Flight 6 had a catch abort during boostback. Other than that it was just as successful as Flight 5, so Success.

Flight 7... S33 vibrated itself to death before SECO, so it's payload didn't reach the desired transatmospheric orbit. Failure.

S34's only difference from S33 was the cause of the failure. Failure.

Flight 9 was almost a repeat of Flight 3, with one crucial difference. It had a payload. And this payload wasn't able to be deployed due to the pressure inside of the nosecone. This caused the flight to be a Failure.

Flights 10 and 11 were very similar, with nominal booster and ship landings. Payloads were deployed, so Success.

Flight 12 did have issues (like the booster breaking B7s record for most engine failures during its boostback burn and S39 losing an engine nearly 30 seconds later), but the payloads were deployed into the right trajectory. Success.

Hopefully this helps explain things. Redacted II (talk) 00:32, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

The system used to determine whether content is included in a Wikipedia article is to assess what can be cited to independent reliable sources. Hopefully this helps explain things. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:53, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

Fair, but could it not be said that the target orbit was one with a apogee of >0km? It just seems misleading, this metric. Is it really 'one size fits all'? This was a test flight, and by the metrics, a successful test. To the public, a failure, so should it not be clarified? I could be mad, and need to be put in my place, but am I the only one who supports this perspective? The 'neutral-point-of-view'? Thelagrangianpoints (talk) 01:14, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

The target was, IIRC, a 250 x 50 km transatmospheric orbit. Redacted II (talk) 01:15, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

Is that intended orbit, or ceiling parameters if it makes it that far?

Legitimate question. Thelagrangianpoints (talk) 01:25, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

Intended orbit. Redacted II (talk) 01:40, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

This is only "not neutral" if you consider the word failure to be negative or an insult. It's not, when it comes to testing, especially iterative development like SpaceX does. Failure is an option. You learn from failures. RickyCourtney (talk) 01:19, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

I do not consider it to be an insult, but I do not believe it was a failure. Nor does SpaceX. Flight 7? Failure. Flight 8? Even more failure. Flight 1? Contested, but I lean to success. Thelagrangianpoints (talk) 01:24, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

Next Spaceflight (a reliable and secondary source) also considers it a failure: https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/6754/ RickyCourtney (talk) 01:34, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

Next Spaceflight is not all knowing.

https://nextspaceflight.com/reuse/191/ Falsely describes the New Glenn boosters as SN-???, when correct it is 7E-?? Thelagrangianpoints (talk) 01:43, 10 June 2026 (UTC)