SpaceX's Starship Flight 5 Super Heavy booster approaches its launch tower for the first-ever landing and capture at the pad after releasing on a suborbital test flight from Starbase in South Texas on Oct. 13, 2024. (Image credit: SpaceX)
SpaceX is targeting Tuesday afternoon (Nov. 19) for the launch of its 6th Starship flight test.
The approaching test flight is anticipated to take off on Nov. 19 throughout a 30-minute window that opens at 5 p.m. EST (2200 GMT). The Starship megarocket, which includes 2 totally recyclable components– a big very first phase called Super Heavy and an upper-stage spacecraft called Starship, or merely “Ship”– will release from the business's Starbase center near Boca Chica Beach in South Texas. You'll have the ability to enjoy the launch reside on Space.com, thanks to a SpaceX simulcast, starting 30 minutes before liftoff. Follow our Starship live updates for more objective turning points.
“The next Starship flight test intends to broaden the envelope on ship and booster abilities and get closer to bringing reuse of the whole system online,” SpaceX authorities stated in a declaration revealing the 6th test flight.
Starship Flight 6 follows an effective 5th test flight on Oct. 13, throughout which the Super Heavy booster was recorded utilizing huge metal “chopstick” arms upon its go back to Starbase, while the upper phase continued in flight before finishing a regulated entry and landing maneuver over the Indian Ocean.
Related: SpaceX rolls Starship Flight 6 spacecraft to pad ahead of Nov. 18 launch– and it's using a banana (pictures)
“The success of the very first catch effort showed the style expediency while offering important information to continue enhancing software and hardware efficiency,” SpaceX stated in the declaration.
If all goes according to strategy, the booster will when again show a catch landing back at Starbase throughout Flight 6, which will occur about 7 minutes after liftoff. Otherwise, Super Heavy will default to a regulated splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.
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After separating from the booster, Ship will fly the very same suborbital trajectory as it did on Flight 5. This time, nevertheless, the spacecraft will try an in-space burn of among its 6 Raptor engines, evaluating its deorbit burn abilities.
Starship will likewise carry out a series of heatshield experiments and navigating modifications for reentry– consisting of flying at a greater angle throughout the last stage of descent– before crashing in the Indian Ocean about 65 minutes post-launch. The window for Tuesday's test flight is actively arranged for late afternoon, permitting much better observations of reentry throughout daytime, according to SpaceX.
Ahead of Tuesday's test flight, hardware upgrades were finished, which “include extra redundancy to booster propulsion systems, increase structural strength at essential locations and reduce the timeline to unload propellants from the booster,” SpaceX stated in the declaration.
