SpaceX closed a troubled but instructive chapter in its Starship rocket program Monday with a near-perfect test flight that carried the stainless steel spacecraft halfway around the world from South Texas to the Indian Ocean. Moments later, the 404-foot-tall (123-meter) rocket began a vertical climb away from SpaceX’s test site in Starbase, Texas, near the US-Mexico border. This was arguably SpaceX’s most successful Starship test flight to date. The only flight with a similar claim occurred one year ago Monday, when the company caught the rocket’s Super Heavy booster back at the launch pad after soaring to the uppermost fringes of the atmosphere. “Starship’s eleventh flight test reached every objective, providing valuable data as we prepare the next generation of Starship and Super Heavy,” SpaceX posted on X.SpaceX’s 11th Starship flight climbs away from Starbase, Texas.