SpaceX launches 10th test flight of Starship rocket

 SpaceX launched the 10th test flight of its giant Starship rocket.Starship lifted off from the company's Starbase facility in the US state after a two-day delay due to weather and technical issues.

Immediately after liftoff, the Super Heavy booster performed a boostback burn to reverse course and make a controlled descent into the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, the Starship upper stage activated its Raptor engine during hot-staging separation.

SpaceX later confirmed that the booster successfully made a targeted splashdown. The Starship upper stage completed its ascent burn and entered its planned coast phase.

About 18 minutes after liftoff, SpaceX demonstrated Starship's payload release capability for the first time, releasing a Starlink simulator satellite that followed the same suborbital trajectory and was expected to burn up during reentry.

In space, Starship successfully reactivated one of its Raptor engines before beginning a controlled reentry, ultimately landing in the Indian Ocean after more than an hour of flight.

The test flight targeted similar objectives to previous missions, including several reentry experiments designed to return the upper stage to the launch site for capture, SpaceX said.