South Padre Island, Texas - SpaceX's massive Starship rocket soared through Texas's golden-hour skies Monday before splashing down successfully, as the US company vies to silence critics who doubt Elon Musk's startup can deliver NASA's lunar projects on time.

In its 11th test voyage, the enormous rocket took off Monday from SpaceX's south Texas launch facilities just after 6:25 PM local time (2325 GMT), according to a live video feed which also featured resounding applause from engineering teams.

Its rocket booster – known as Super Heavy – landed in Gulf waters as planned, while the upper stage – also known individually as Starship – cruised through space and ran through tests, charting a similar path to the last successful mission in August.

It blazed into the Indian Ocean a little over an hour post-liftoff, having released mock satellites as it had on its previous flight. There was no recovery of the vehicle planned.

NASA plans to use the mammoth Starship – the world's largest and most powerful rocket – in its efforts to return astronauts to the Moon. It is also key to Musk's zealous vision to take humans to Mars.

The billionaire SpaceX founder said on the webcast prior to launch, he was planning to watch outside rather than inside as he previously had: it's "much more visceral," he said.

Monday's test mission was expected to be the last for this iteration of Starship prototypes. The next flight will debut a new model, Version 3, SpaceX said.

The space technology company could claim its two most recent flights as wins.

But those followed a series of spectacular explosions that raised concerns Starship ultimately might not live up to its promises – at least not on the timeline lawmakers and the scientific community had hoped for.