Overseen by Elon Musk and President-elect Donald Trump, the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Super Heavy/Starship combination lifted off at 2200 GMT on 19 November 2024 from its launch site at Boca Chica, near Brownsville, Texas. The flight was again supposed to be a near orbit suborbital flight to enact a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean. This was successfully achieved about one hour and five minutes later.
The colourful glow of Starship IFT-6’s re-entry plasma was captured by on-board TV cameras. Courtesy: SpaceX/X
While the remains of crumpled craft will be analysed in a post flight examination, from visual televised observations(enabled by streaming via SpaceX’S Starlink network) there did not appear to be significant burn through on the control surfaces and their hinges during the re-entry. SpaceX will thus be wondering if it is worth trying for an on-land landing next time. One amusement was that while there was no formal payload a board, a banana, a symbol of the mission, was carried on the flight. No news yet on its condition.
Starship IFT-6 comes in for a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean. Courtesy: SpaceX/X
A secondary aim of the flight was to re-land the Super Heavy stage on the Mechzilla gantry ‘chopsticks’ as was managed on the previous Starship test flight. This did not happen. For unspecified technical reasons, this landing attempt was ‘waved off’ and the Super Heavy was left to make a controlled landing/splashdown into the Gulf of Mexico.
Comment by David Todd: Another brilliant success – albeit that its 190 km apogee was a little lower than previous flights. Overall SpaceX will be pleased that it has apparently made progress on the burn through issues on the flaps. The failure to make a chopsticks landing will still be a concern however. Time is not on SpaceX’s side as it has to prove soon that it can manage cryogenic refuelling in orbit, if it is to provide a Starship-based Human Landing System lunar lander in time for NASA’s planned Artemis III landing attempt in two years time.
