Humanity is "one step closer to the Moon" thanks to a landmark SpaceX rocket launch, Nasa has said.

Elon Musk's space firm launched its 11th Starship rocket from Texas on Monday, with the craft eventually coming down in the Indian Ocean just west of Australia.

It marked the last flight before SpaceX begins testing a new version of the giant rocket outfitted with more features for moon and Mars missions.

Starship, which includes the Starship upper stage stacked on top of its Super Heavy booster, launched just after midnight, UK time, from SpaceX's Starbase facilities.

After sending the Starship to space, Super Heavy returned for a soft water landing in the Gulf of Mexico seven minutes after liftoff, testing a landing engine configuration before blowing itself up.

Its last mission, in August, marked the end to a series of test failures earlier this year.

Monday's flight was similar to the previous one, deploying a batch of mock Starlink satellites, briefly turning on its engines in space and testing new heat shield tiles upon its return.

Nasa chief Sean Duffy said the mission had been "another major step toward landing Americans on the Moon’s south pole".

Elon Musk's SpaceX launched its 11th Starship rocket from Texas on Monday

SpaceX now expects to launch a more advanced Starship prototype kitted out for deep space travel.

It will be given "docking adapters" and other hardware changes key to refuelling in orbit, a complex process involving two Starships docking in orbit to transfer huge amounts of super-cooled propellant from one to the other.

The upgraded prototype "is really the vehicle that could take humans to the Moon and Mars," SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said at a conference last month. "That's really the one we want to get to."

Ms Shotwell said she expects the "deep space" Starship to fly by the end of this year or in early 2026.

Nasa chief Sean Duffy said Monday's mission had been 'another major step toward landing Americans on the Moon’s south pole'

Mr Musk himself has given the refuelling mission a preliminary 2026 start date.

Refuelling remains a key milestone to make before the rocket can carry humans to the surface of the moon, which is scheduled for 2027.

Multiple Starship tankers are needed to fill up one Starship with enough fuel for a moon landing - central to Nasa's demands of SpaceX.

Four years ago, Mr Musk's firm won a $3billion (£2.25billion) contract for Nasa's Artemis program, the effort to put Americans on the moon for the first time since 1972.

Elon Musk's firm is leading the charge to put Americans on the moon for the first time since 1972

China, meanwhile, is aiming for its own crewed landing in 2030.

But last month, Nasa safety bosses warned that slow progress in designing the lunar lander risked setting back the US Moon effort by years.

Carrying out a successful test-landing on the lunar surface is another top priority for SpaceX under its contract.