The test flight trajectories are posted with the FAA and covered in numerous places, for instance

Article: https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/05/13/spacex-outlines-plans-...

Video (Marcus House): https://youtu.be/9-9k513UIVw?t=298

Basically both vechicles (the massive booster and the starship itself (2nd stage) are going to "land" on the water, which means a hover and then sinking into the water.

Booster - Boost and separate, boostback burn and splashdown off the coast. Starship - 90 min orbit at about 120km, reentry and spashdown near Hawaii

It's fairly quite likely that both would crater on this first flight - for instance this is the first booster flight and also the first reentry for the starship itself.

The Falcon 9 booster also had similar flight plans until it could successfully fly a controlled trajectory to the surface of the ocean before they risked a drone ship too.

Yep, this is what I meant, thanks for the sources.

Although, I'm not sure about that "then sinking into the water" part. There are big LO2 and methane tanks and If they are empty enough and closed, both Starship and Booster shouldn't sink. I guest, we'll see it soon.

It's generally considered unlikely that the skyscraper-sizes rocket can fall over in the water and remain intact enough to float, although it did happen once to Falcon 9, so it's not impossible.

In a recent interview [1] Elon stated that empty booster "has the density of an empty beer can" which is a great mental aid. So it will certianly float.

But part of it will be underwater, initially the very expensive flamey part (engines). They will not "be the same" after the experience.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t705r8ICkRw

"sinking into the water" means that it enters the water. A splashdown. It doesn't mean that it will sink to the bottom.

> The Falcon 9 booster also had similar flight plans until it could successfully fly a controlled trajectory to the surface of the ocean before they risked a drone ship too.

They also don't yet have any drone ships capable of landing the Starship or booster.

But yes, it'll very much "prove it can more or less land" prior to actually giving them anything (breakable) to land on.

Thanks :)

The plan for the first test flight is to aim for a controlled water landing, but the odds of that being completely successful aren't high enough to risk a land landing. The new drone ships are still under construction: https://spaceexplored.com/2021/07/07/update-on-spacexs-gulf-...