SpaceX caught its Super Heavy booster in mid-air using a pair of metal “wandstick” arms, the first time such a maneuver has been successfully completed. Credit: SpaceX
The sixth test flight of Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket to ever fly, will launch no earlier than 5 pm EST on Monday, Nov. 18, SpaceX said Wednesday.
The previous test flight of the Starship, which SpaceX also refers to simply as “Ship,” and the Super Heavy booster resulted in the unprecedented capture of Super Heavy using a pair of metal “rod” arms.
The maneuver, which returned the booster to the same platform from which it was launched, demonstrated its reusability, a key feature that SpaceX expects will reduce launch lead times from months to days, or even hours. NASA has estimated that Starship will require about 15 flights before a variant of the spacecraft’s Human Landing System (HLS) is ready to land astronauts on the moon. That mission, Artemis 3, is scheduled for 2026.
The spacecraft’s upper stage, meanwhile, made a second controlled reentry and landed after being lost or exploded during the first three test missions.
During Flight 6, SpaceX will again attempt to pluck Super Heavy from the sky after the booster hurtles towards Earth at supersonic speeds, generating a sonic boom. Using data from the previous flight, the company said it added redundant hardware to the rocket’s propulsion systems and sped up the process of unloading propellant after capture, among other upgrades. If the attempt were to be cancelled, the Super Heavy would instead dent in the Gulf of Mexico.
The spacecraft’s upper stage will follow the same path as the previous mission. But this time SpaceX will try to perform an in-flight burn with one of its six Raptor engines. The goal is to show how the ship could perform a deorbit burn, which will be required before refueling at an orbiting depot for missions to the Moon and, potentially, Mars.
Another feature unique to Flight 6, SpaceX will remove some of the ship’s heat shield tiles in places where “capture-enabling hardware” may be incorporated on future models. The spacecraft will re-enter the atmosphere at a higher angle of attack, putting stress on the new configuration to evaluate how it might perform in subsequent tests.
If the ship launched on Nov. 18, the mission would arrive just over a month after Flight 5 — arguably the fastest transition among the Starship flights.
SpaceX has publicly criticized the FAA for the pace of its license change approval process, to which Administrator Mike Whitaker responded during a hearing, calling the timeline “necessary” for safety. The agency also imposed fines of more than $630,000 on SpaceX for alleged violations of its previous launch licenses, which CEO Elon Musk has vowed to fight in court.
SpaceX and Musk, who said in September that Whitaker, President Joe Biden’s nominee, “should step down,” were showered with praise by President-elect Donald Trump during a post-election speech on Wednesday.
A NASA official revealed during a recent interview that the space agency expects SpaceX to perform an in-orbit propellant transfer demonstration using two Starships in March, a major step toward Musk’s ambitions to land humans on the Moon – and beyond.
Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on FLYING.
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