SpaceX’s 403-foot Starship system completed its first fully successful end-to-end mission on Tuesday evening, lifting off from the company’s Starbase complex in south Texas at 6:30 p.m. Central Time. Thirty-three methane-fueled Raptor engines on Super Heavy Booster 16 propelled Ship 37 skyward after two days of weather and ground-system delays. Three minutes into flight, Starship separated from its booster, which executed a controlled boost-back and splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico—another first for the current Block 2 hardware. In orbit, Ship 37 deployed eight Starlink simulator satellites roughly half an hour after launch, marking the vehicle’s inaugural payload operation and a key step toward future large-scale satellite deliveries. SpaceX also reignited a single Raptor engine while in space, demonstrating a maneuver essential for future deorbit burns and deep-space missions. Just over an hour after liftoff, the spacecraft survived a high-speed atmospheric re-entry that tested redesigned heat-shield tiles, performed its flip maneuver, and splashed down on target in the Indian Ocean. The flight achieved every primary objective after three successive failures earlier this year, providing data that will guide design changes for the next generation of Starship and Super Heavy vehicles. The success strengthens the program’s prospects for launching heftier Starlink batches and supporting NASA’s Artemis III lunar landing, with SpaceX saying the results “provided critical data to inform designs of the next generation Starship and Super Heavy.”