SpaceX's Starship Flight 6 test launch scheduled for November 19
SpaceX is gearing up for its sixth Starship test flight, called Starship Flight 6, no sooner than Tuesday, November 19. The launch is slated for 5:00pm EST (3:30am IST, next day) from the company's Starbase site in South Texas, close to Boca Chica Beach. The sixth test flight of a Starship and its Super Heavy booster will also be the second attempt to catch the giant Super Heavy after a successful launch and rocket catch last month.
Starship Flight 6: Aiming to enhance capabilities
The next Starship flight test will "expand the envelope on ship and booster capabilities and get closer to bringing reuse of the entire system online," SpaceX said. The company's Starship and Super Heavy booster reach a height of nearly 122 meters when stacked, making it the world's tallest rocket. Its first stage's 33 Raptor engines and six others on the Starship upper stage also make it the world's most powerful launcher.
SpaceX has a 30-minute window to launch Flight 6 mission
Previous successes and future goals
The first Starship to reach space was the Flight 3 test vehicle, which launched on March 14. Flight 4, on June 6, was a complete success, with both Super Heavy and Starship landing in their respective splashdown zones. The fifth flight made an even better demonstration on October 13 by not just sending its Starship into space but also returning its Super Heavy booster to Earth, in a successful catch by the "Mechazilla" gantry arms on Starbase's launch tower.
A step toward full reusability
The sixth Starship test flight hopes to replicate SpaceX's Flight 5 success, as well as test new systems. Objectives include the booster once again returning to the launch site for catch, reigniting the ship's Raptor engine while in space, and testing a suite of heat shield experiments and maneuvering changes for ship re-entry and descent over the Indian Ocean. SpaceX is designing its Starship and Super Heavy rockets to be a fully reusable launch system.
NASA's Artemis 3 mission and SpaceX's Mars plans
NASA has picked Starship to land its Artemis 3 astronauts on the Moon by 2026. SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has said the company will attempt to launch a Starship to Mars as early as that year. These ambitious plans highlight the importance of the upcoming Starship Flight 6 test in propelling SpaceX's vision for space exploration and travel.
