less than a a month passed historic fifth flight SpaceX's Starship, during which the company held the booster with mechanical arms on the launch pad in Texas. Now, another test flight could come on November 18, the company announced on Wednesday.
The improbable but successful recovery of Starship's first stage with “chopsticks” last month, and the on-target splashdown of Starship's upper stage halfway around the world, allowed SpaceX to avoid an anomaly investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration. Thus, the company was able to proceed to the sixth test flight if it had flown with the same profile.
And that's what SpaceX plans to do, albeit with some notable additions to the flight plan.
Burning a Raptor in Space
one in statement on its websiteSpaceX said the first stage – known as Super Heavy – will fly on the same trajectory as the fifth test flight, which took place on October 13. However, the booster hardware and software will be modified by learnings from last month's test flight.
“The hardware upgrades for this flight add additional redundancy to the booster propulsion system, increase structural strength in key areas, and reduce the timeline for unloading propellant from the booster after a successful catch,” the company said. “Mission designers also updated software controls and commit parameters for the booster's launch and return.”
Starship's upper stage will also fly on the same suborbital trajectory it successfully followed in October, although it will involve an in-flight relight of one of the rocket's six engines. As Ars reported in a feature last week, this is the next milestone Development path for starships and is critical to Starship orbital missions to allow controlled re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.
Successfully demonstrating the Raptors' ability to reenter space would enable SpaceX to launch commercial missions with Starship and potentially open the way for Starlink launches, possibly in the first half of next year. These larger Starlink satellites can only fit into Starship's capacitive payload and will provide direct-to-sale Internet capability.
The company will also use Starship's next flight to assess new tiles and other elements of the vehicle's heat shield.
“Multiple thermal protection experiments and operational changes will test the limits of Starship's capabilities and generate flight data to inform ship capture and reuse plans,” the company statement said. “Flight testing will assess new secondary thermal protection materials and entire sections of heat shield tiles on either side of the ship will be removed in locations that are being studied for CATCH-capable hardware on future vehicles. The ship would fly at a deliberately high angle of attack in the final stages of descent, deliberately stressing the limits of flap control to obtain data on future landing profiles.
final flight of the first starship
Starship's last five flights, dating back to April 2023, have all launched near dawn from South Texas. For the upcoming mission, the company will look for a late-afternoon launch window, which would allow the vehicle to re-enter the Indian Ocean during daylight hours.
SpaceX's update also confirms that this will be the last flight of the initial version of the Starship vehicle, which will come with the next generation with redesigned forward flaps, larger propellant tanks, and new tiles and secondary thermal protection layers.
Reaching a nearly monthly cadence of Starship flights during only the vehicle's second year of operation is impressive, but also essential if SpaceX wants to unlock the full potential of a rocket that can be used to support Starship missions to the Moon or Mars. Requires multiple refueling launches.
Wednesday's announcement comes a day after the US presidential election in which Donald Trump was given a second term by US voters, and it is noteworthy that he was helped in this by the entire effort of SpaceX founder Elon Musk.
Musk's intervention in politics was highly controversial and alienated a significant portion of the American population and political class. Yet Musk's gambit paid off, as Trump's election will now accelerate development of Starship and increase its centrality to the country's space exploration efforts.
However, the timing of this launch announcement is likely coincidental, as SpaceX did not need formal regulatory approval to proceed with this sixth attempt – it depended almost entirely on the preparation of the company's hardware, software, and ground systems.
This story was originally published on Ars Technica,