SpaceX Fails to Land Booster During Starship’s 6th Flight Test
Elon Musk’s commercial spaceflight company SpaceX has conducted its sixth flight test on Tuesday (Nov. 19).
The Starship system — serialized as Ship 31 and Super Heavy Booster 13 — launched from the company’s Starbase Boca Chica facility in Brownsville, Texas at 16:00 Central Time (22:00 UTC), at the top of its launch window.
Liftoff of Starship! pic.twitter.com/rSLQ2DDy63
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 19, 2024
A livestream was posted on X, which Musk also owns, covering the flight test. Unlike previous launches that flew in the morning, Tuesday’s flight was conducted in the afternoon to make sure the landing could be visible in the daytime.
Going Bananas on Pushing Capabilities
While the liftoff was nominal, a catch attempt on the Super Heavy booster was aborted, prompting it to divert into an offshore splashdown at the Gulf of Mexico, unlike the previous flight test in October. However, SpaceX stated that it was pushing the envelope on the Starship system’s flight and hardware capabilities, which meant that flight data from the launch was its primary objective.
It was revealed that part of the launch tower intended to catch the booster, known internally and to spaceflight fans as “Mechazilla,” was damaged, and that remnants of the booster remained buoyant after splashdown and detonation, albeit burning from one side.
In line with its cheeky reference to pop culture, the company used the “Banana for Scale” meme as the theme for the sixth test flight, including having a banana as a zero-g indicator and a banana holding a banana as Ship 31’s decal as part of the pun.
Splashdown confirmed! Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on an exciting sixth flight test of Starship! pic.twitter.com/bf98Va9qmL
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 19, 2024
Nominal Reentry, Landing from Nosedive
Part of SpaceX’s move to push the envelope on the spacecraft’s capabilities was to demonstrate the upper stage’s tolerance to a steeper reentry profile. It is also understood that Tuesday’s flight was also a stress test for its Starlink communication platform as it provided telemetry and footage during Ship 31’s reentry, a capability unique to SpaceX in a time when all other human-rated spacecraft have no way of communicating due to the plasma heating during reentry.
As the upper stage survived reentry, the company intentionally differed the spacecraft’s orientation to test its capacity to make a soft landing from a nosedive in the Indian Ocean off the western coast of Australia, which was cheered on by SpaceX employees.
Some of the comments on the company’s tweets wondered what happened to the banana stowed on board, while a few are asking when would SpaceX conduct its next flight test.
Trump’s Visit and SpaceX’s NASA Projects
President-elect Donald Trump attended the event to watch the launch alongside Musk, who is projected to head a government efficiency board come January alongside Vivek Ramaswamy. Musk gave Trump a tour of Starbase prior to the launch.
According to the Associated Press, Trump’s visit to Starbase Boca Chica could have huge implications to the US space program, including the Artemis lunar missions in this decade and the deorbiting of the International Space Station in 2030. SpaceX was selected by NASA to build a lunar lander based on Starship and a deorbit vehicle based on its current Dragon capsule, respectively.
It could be recalled that Musk supported Trump during the final days of the campaign period, using his influence and platforms to bolster the latter’s win against outgoing US Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump’s son, Donald Jr., accompanied his father during the launch and tweeted a photo of the president-elect watching the ascending Starship.
Truly a day I will never forget @SpaceX with @realDonaldTrump @ @elonmusk. pic.twitter.com/WJF44MxPzX
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 20, 2024