Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Flight test six of the SpaceX Starship departed from Starbase, near Brownsville, Texas on November 19, “seeking to expand the envelope on ship and booster capabilities and get closer to bringing reuse of the entire system online,” noted the company, founded by chief rocketeer, Elon Musk.

The Super Heavy booster successfully lifted off at the start of the launch window, with all 33 Raptor first stage engines powering it off the pad.

Boostback burn

Following a nominal ascent and stage separation, the mega-booster successfully transitioned to its boostback burn to begin the return to launch site.

However, a SpaceX posting notes that, during this phase, “automated health checks of critical hardware on the launch and catch tower triggered an abort of the catch attempt.”

Aborting that on-the-pad catch, the booster then executed “a pre-planned divert maneuver,” but made a landing burn and soft, water splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.

Indian Ocean: soft splashdown

Continuing onward, Starship completed a successful ascent, placing it on the expected trajectory.

“The ship successfully reignited a single Raptor engine while in space,” SpaceX adds. In doing so, that demonstrated the capabilities required to conduct a ship deorbit burn before starting fully orbital missions.

Relayed by SpaceX Starlink, live views and telemetry from the ship showed the craft plowing its way through reentry, executing a flip, making a landing burn, followed by a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

Closing in on full and rapid reusability

“Data gathered from the multiple thermal protection experiments, as well as the successful flight through subsonic speeds at a more aggressive angle of attack,” explains SpaceX, “provides invaluable feedback on flight hardware performing in a flight environment as we aim for eventual ship return and catch.”

Starship’s sixth flight test delivered, yielding data and flight knowledge as the mission’s primary payload. “Lessons learned will directly make the entire Starship system more reliable as we close in on full and rapid reusability,” SpaceX concludes.

“We will do one more ocean landing of the ship. If that goes well, then SpaceX will attempt to catch the ship with the tower,” Musk posted post-test flight.

Moon, Mars plans

SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket – collectively referred to as Starship – represent a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond.

 

Starship is the fully reusable spacecraft and second stage of the Starship system. The vehicle offers an integrated payload section and is capable of carrying passengers and cargo to Earth orbit, planetary destinations, and between destinations on Earth.

Starship leverages tanker vehicles (essentially the Starship spacecraft minus the windows) to refill the Starship spacecraft in low-Earth orbit prior to departing for Mars. Refilling on-orbit enables the transport of up to 100 tons all the way to Mars. And if the tanker ship has high reuse capability, the primary cost is just that of the oxygen and methane, which is extremely low.

 

 

Starship will be used to land astronauts on the lunar surface on NASA’s Artemis III mission, which will put the first humans on the Moon since 1972.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For a replay of the test flight six, go to:

https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-6

For flight profile, go to:

https://x.com/i/status/1858988675423772928