Starship flight test 6 was the sixth flight test of a

SpaceX Starship Starship is a two-stage fully reusable launch vehicle, reusable super heavy-lift launch vehicle under development by American aerospace company SpaceX. On 20 April 2023, with the Starship flight test 1, first Integrated Flight Test, Starship b ...

launch vehicle. The

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototype ...

vehicles flown were the Ship 31 upper stage and first stage Booster 13. The flight test started on November 19, 2024, at 22:00:00

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

(4:00pm CST, local time at the launch site). Although the flight had a similar profile to Flight 5, a suborbital flight to the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

, it had several changes to gain flight data for future ship recovery and reuse. The ship reentered the atmosphere at a steeper angle to test the limits of the flaps, and certain parts were outfitted with new thermal protection materials. Certain areas of the heat shield were removed in anticipation of the addition of catch hardware on future ships, which will be needed to land the ship on the arms of the launch tower. Flight 6 was the first flight to include an in-space burn of a single Raptor engine, demonstrating the deorbiting capability of Starship. The launch occurred at a later time of day than previous flights to enable the ship to descend to the ocean in the daylight at the landing location for better visual observations. This was the last flight of the Block 1 Starship upper stage. Block 2 and eventually Block 3 will be used for future flights.

Background

Vehicle testing ahead of launch

Starship Ship 31 (S31) was rolled to Masseys Test Site at SpaceX Starbase in Texas for cryogenic testing on May 11, 2024. During its first cryogenic test on May 12, an electrical anomaly occurred, and Starship Ship 31 was rolled back to the production site for repairs on May 15. S31 completed a successful cryogenic test in early July. S31 completed a successful static fire on September 18. It was rolled to launch site on November 11. Super Heavy Booster 13 (B13) was moved to the Orbital Launch Pad on October 22, 2024. While on the launch pad it conducted a

static fire Launch vehicle system tests assess the readiness of a launch system to safely reach orbit. Launch vehicles undergo system tests before they launch. Wet dress rehearsals (WDR) and more extensive static fire tests prepare fully assembled launch veh ...

of all 33 of its Raptor engines on October 24. It was rerolled to the launch site and stacked with S31 on November 14. On November 17 B13 and S31 conducted a partial tanking test ahead of launch.

Mission profile

The mission profile for flight test 6 mirrored the trajectory of flight test 5, with

Starship A starship, starcraft, or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for interstellar travel, traveling between planetary systems. The term is mostly found in science fiction. Reference to a "star-ship" appears as early as 1 ...

launching on November 19, 2024, at 22:00:00

(4:00pm CST, local time at the launch site). At T+ 2:39, the Starship upper stage hot-staged from Super Heavy, and continued its ascent. Although Super Heavy was supposed to return to

Starbase The concepts of Space station, space stations and space habitats feature in science fiction. The difference between the two is that habitats are larger and more complex structures intended as permanent homes for substantial populations (though ge ...

, the booster catch was called off due to a loss of communication to the launch tower. It was later found that during launch a communications and weather station antenna were bent from the engine plume. Instead, Super Heavy came down for a controlled landing downrange in the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...

where it soon broke up. Its

liquid oxygen Liquid oxygen, sometimes abbreviated as LOX or LOXygen, is a clear cyan liquid form of dioxygen . It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard, an application which is ongoing. Physical ...

tank section continued to float before being sunk the following day. Shortly after, Ship 31 shut its engines down, entering a coast phase. The upper stage Starship spacecraft reached an initial

apogee An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. The line of apsides (also called apse line, or major axis of the orbit) is the line connecting the two extreme values. Apsides perta ...

of and a

perigee An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. The line of apsides (also called apse line, or major axis of the orbit) is the line connecting the two extreme values. Apsides perta ...

of at a 26.3 degree orbit, marking the first time Starship has had positive perigee. At 22:37:46, the Ship successfully conducted the first Raptor engine relight in the vacuum of space, which raised the apogee to and the perigee to . Starship reentered the atmosphere at 22:47:13, and at 23:05:24, Starship performed a controlled splash down in the

, which marked the first time Starship landed from space during daylight hours.

Flight timeline

Payload

stuffed toy A stuffed toy is a toy with an outer fabric sewn from a textile and stuffed with flexible material. They are known by many names, such as plush toys, plushies, lovies and stuffies; in Britain and Australia, they may also be called soft toys ...

banana served as the zero-g indicator, becoming Starship's first payload, though it remained within the vehicle for the duration of the flight.

References

{{SpaceX 2024 in spaceflight 2024 in Texas SpaceX Starship test flights