Elon Musk’s SpaceX Targets November 19 To Launch Starship; What’s Next?
Starship could fly again on November 19 in its sixth test flight. According to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the lift off is scheduled within a 30-minute launch window which will open at 3:30 am IST from Starbase in Texas. The live webcast will begin 30 minutes prior to lift off and you can watch it on SpaceX’s X handle, its website or the X TV app.
Starship’s fifth flight test was a seminal moment in iterating towards a fully and rapidly reusable launch system.
Next up: the sixth flight test of Starship is targeted to launch as early as Monday, November 18 → https://t.co/oIFc3u9laE pic.twitter.com/5496ApNHkA
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 6, 2024
What to expect from Starship flight 6?
Similar to Starship’s fifth test flight, the highlight for the next mission will be catching the Super Heavy Booster using a tower. The 400-feet-tall two stage rocket comprises of the massive Booster (232-feet-tall) and a smaller upper stage – both of which are designed to be reusable.
However, SpaceX has recovered the Booster only once and doesn’t seem to recover the upper stage anytime soon.
The final phase of Super Heavy’s landing burn used the three center Raptor engines to precisely steer into catch position pic.twitter.com/BxQbOmT4yk
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 14, 2024
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For flight 6, the company outlined the mission objectives which involves catching the Booster and letting the upper stage crash in the Indian Ocean.
“The next Starship flight test aims to expand the envelope on ship and booster capabilities and get closer to bringing reuse of the entire system online,” SpaceX said in a statement. “Objectives include the booster once again returning to the launch site for catch, reigniting a ship Raptor engine while in space, and testing a suite of heatshield experiments and maneuvering changes for ship reentry and descent over the Indian Ocean.”
SpaceX said that it chose late afternoon to launch Starship instead of morning to get better visual observations of the rocket’s reentry. It also said that Starships flying from seventh flight onwards will have “significant upgrades including redesigned forward flaps, larger propellant tanks, and the latest generation tiles and secondary thermal protection layers.”
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