Well, excited? Starship’s 10th test flight is blasting off tonight from Starbase, Texas, with a launch window kicking off at 6:30 p.m. CT—weather’s a coin flip at 45% favorable, so fingers crossed for no cosmic curveballs. This one’s all about pushing reusability: the Super Heavy booster (Booster 16) will flip, boost back, attempt a two-engine hover, and splash down in the Gulf, with a backup engine test thrown in for good measure. The upper stage (Ship 37) aims to deploy 8 Starlink simulators, nail an in-space Raptor engine relight, and test upgraded reentry tiles and flaps to survive the fiery plunge back to Earth—because who doesn’t love a good heat-shield glow-up after those explosive past flings? Improvements from Flight 9 include beefed-up hardware to fix those pesky setbacks, like better engine reliability and trajectory tweaks for smoother orbital experiments. It’s boom or bust on the road to Mars—stay tuned for the results, if Mother Nature doesn’t hit snooze!
Well, turns out tonight wasn’t the night after all. Starship 10 was moments from liftoff when the countdown froze at T-10 seconds—weather pulled the plug. A reminder that even rockets bow to Mother Nature.
The good news? Hardware is fine, nothing exploded, and all the ambitious tests are still queued up for the next attempt. Outlook stays the same: booster flip, hover-splash, Starlink demos, reentry stress test. Just with a little extra suspense in the mix.
