{"id":67347,"date":"2025-10-13T23:59:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T23:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=67347"},"modified":"2025-10-17T16:28:29","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T16:28:29","slug":"satellite-signatures-of-spacex-starship-test-flight-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/67347","title":{"rendered":"Satellite signatures of SpaceX Starship Test Flight 11"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>

1-minute GOES-19 multi-panel images of all 16 ABI spectral bands, from 2322-2329 UTC on 13 October [click to play MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East)<\/em> images from all 16 ABI spectral bands (above)<\/strong><\/em> showed thermal signatures of SpaceX Starship Test Flight 11<\/strong><\/a> — launched from Starbase in South Texas at 2323 UTC on 13 October 2025.<\/p>\n

A thermal signature of the Super Heavy stage 1 booster rocket was apparent in Near-Infrared (Bands 04-06) and Infrared (Bands 07-16) spectral bands at 2125 UTC (below)<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

GOES-19 multi-panel image of all 16 ABI spectral bands at 2325 UTC on 13 October, with the Super Heavy booster thermal signatures highlighted by cyan circles [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>After separation from the stage 2 Starship, the stage 1 Super Heavy performed a boostback burn in order to descend and make a soft landing in the Gulf of Mexico (just off the Texas coast) — a thermal signature of the boostback burn was seen in Bands 05-07 at 2329 UTC (below)<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

GOES-19 multi-panel image of all 16 ABI spectral bands at 2329 UTC on 13 October, with the Super Heavy booster re-entry burn thermal signature in Bands 05\/06\/07 highlighted by cyan circles [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>A larger-scale stepped sequence of 1-minute GOES-19 images from all 16 ABI spectral bands is shown below.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

Stepped sequence of 1-minute GOES-19 images from all 16 ABI spectral bands, from 2322-2330 UTC on 13 October [click to play MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>In a toggle between two GOES-19 Upper-level Water Vapor images (below)<\/strong><\/em>, the change in appearance of the Starship’s superheated water vapor trail changed from a more linear shape at 2327 UTC (at lower altitudes of 50-70 km in the Stratosphere, where the atmosphere had more density and ambient pressure) to a “boomerang” shape at 2329 UTC (at higher altitudes of 70-100 km, where the atmosphere within the Mesosphere and Thermosphere had much less density and ambient pressure, allowing the water vapor trail to expand outward).<\/p>\n

<\/a>

GOES-19 Upper-level Water Vapor images at 2327 UTC and 2329 UTC on 13 October [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>A toggle between GOES-19 Shortwave Infrared and Upper-level Water Vapor images at 2330 UTC (below)<\/strong><\/em> revealed a cluster of hotter pixels (darker shade of red) at the leading edge of the water vapor trail (darker shades blue).<\/p>\n

<\/a>

GOES-19 Shortwave Infrared and Upper-level Water Vapor images at 2330 UTC on 13 October [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>1-minute GOES-19 Rocket Plume RGB<\/strong><\/a> images created using Geo2Grid<\/strong><\/a> (below)<\/strong><\/em> provided a single product to visualize the initial 2323 UTC<\/strong><\/a> launch thermal anomaly (pink), the Super Heavy and Starship water vapor plumes (brighter shades of green) and the slow westward drift of the Super Heavy launch condensation cloud (darker shades of red).<\/p>\n

<\/a>

1-minute GOES-19 Rocket Plume RGB images, from 2322-2329 UTC on 13 October [click to play animated GIF]<\/p><\/div>1-minute GOES-19 True Color RGB images from the CSPP GeoSphere<\/strong><\/a> site (below)<\/strong><\/em> showed the Super Heavy rocket booster condensation cloud as it slowly drifted westward over South Texas — along with the smaller condensation cloud from the Super Heavy booster as it later made its landing off the Texas coast.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

1-minute GOES-19 True Color RGB images, from 2322-2336 UTC on 13 October [click to play MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>The 2 condensation clouds are highlighted on the 2335 UTC GOES-19 True Color RGB image (below)<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

GOES-19 True Color RGB image at 2335 UTC on 13 October, highlighting the Super Heavy booster rocket condensation cloud from its launch and from its subsequent landing burn [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>A plot of rawinsonde data from Brownsville, Texas (KBRO) (below)<\/strong><\/em> showed easterly winds throughout the entire mid\/upper troposphere and lower stratosphere — which explained the westward drift of the Super Heavy booster condensation cloud after launch.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

Plot of rawinsonde data from Brownsville TX at 0000 UTC on 14 October [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East) images from all 16 ABI spectral bands (above) showed thermal signatures of SpaceX Starship Test Flight 11 — launched from Starbase in South Texas at 2323 UTC on 13 October 2025. A thermal signature of the Super Heavy stage 1 booster rocket was apparent in Near-Infrared (Bands 04-06) and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":67419,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[132,159,45,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-geo2grid","category-goes-19","category-redgreenblue-rgb-images","category-rocket-signatures"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67347"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67421,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67347\/revisions\/67421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}