Another Starship flight is in the books after a flawless countdown and waiting through the road closure which started at 8am CST, Starship Flight 6 composed of Ship 31 and Booster 13 lifted off right at the top of the window at 4 pm CST.
NSF, with around 27 camera views, was live on X and YT for launch day. Starting with the Stakeout Stream:
The launch countdown stream:
Flight 6
Booster 13 and Ship 31 lifted off from Orbital Launch Pad A at 4 pm CST on Nov 19, 2024. This stack seemed to lift off the pad faster than in the past as SpaceX appears to be running their Raptor 2 engines at full throttle rather than at 90% as in the past. Booster 13 performed flawlessly on the ascent with all 33 engines running. Once at stage separation, the callout was made, “Go for Catch.” After stage separation, Ship 31 ignited all six of its engines and headed for space.
Then, after the booster boost backburn shutdown, SpaceX called out “Booster Offshore Divert,” meaning something was not healthy with either the booster or Tower, which caused an abort for the catch attempt. Booster 13 then came down for a soft water landing and, once down, tipped over, and the methane tank exploded as soon as it hit the water.
Booster 13 splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. Tower was go, but booster was not. pic.twitter.com/RwhZDxPaQU
— Chris Bergin – NSF (@NASASpaceflight) November 19, 2024
After Booster 13’s demise in the Gulf of Mexico, Ship 31 entered its coast phase and traveled through the night. Then, at the expected time, Ship 31 performed an in-space relight with a single Sea Level Raptor for about one second. Once this was complete, the ship coasted into reentry, where there was once again burn-through on at least one of the forward flaps. But, even with Ship 31 still mostly using the older style heat shield, the ship survived reentry and made a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
Even though SpaceX didn’t try to catch the booster, the teams learned a lot from this flight while getting one last flight out of Block 1 ships. Next up is Flight 7 and Ship 33, the first Block 2 ship.
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
Flights 1-5
So far, SpaceX has made tremendous strides from flight to flight in the Starship Program. Flight 1 was all about getting off the pad and getting data on booster performance. There were not many expectations of success for Booster 7 and Ship 24. Even though the stack only got to 40 km, SpaceX achieved at least clearing the tower and gathering important data on booster performance.
Flight 1 paved the way for Flight 2 and Booster 9 to have a flawless ascent to stage separation using a new method for Starship not present on Flight 1, which never reached staging. This was hot staging where the ship ignites its engines while still attached to the booster. Unfortunately, Ship 25 was lost just shy of the ship engine cutoff. However, Booster 9 was lost during boost back, and Ship 25 was lost near the end of its burn.
Taking the lessons learned from Flight 2, Flight 3 was a huge step forward. Booster 10 passed the boost backburn but was lost during the landing burn. Ship 28 made it into space but lost roll control during the coast phase and started to tumble. This resulted in the heat shield not facing the atmosphere constantly, and Ship 28 burned up on reentry.
Ignition on Starship Flight 3 (Credit: BocaChicaGal for NSF)
Then came Flight 4, which saw the first engine out on the accent with the booster since Flight 1. However, Booster 11 completed its boost backburn and its landing burn before tipping over and exploding. SpaceX gained confidence after this landing to press on for the catch on Flight 5.
During the coast phase, Ship 29 didn’t do any extra testing compared to Ship 28 and just coasted into reentry. With a perfect attitude and full control, Ship 29 reentered. During reentry, plasma got into the port-side forward flap hinge, nearly melting it off. However, Ship 29 maintained control and completed a flip-and-burn with a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
After waiting for a few months due to modifications to the chopstick systems and regulatory hurdles, SpaceX launched Flight 5 of Starship. After all of the successes in the past and with the accuracy of Flight 4, the goal was to catch a Booster. The ascent was flawless, with no engine outs, hot staging, and boost back burn.
Liftoff of Starship Flight 4 (Credit: BocaChicaGal for NSF)
While Ship 30 headed for reentry to test its new heat shield, Booster 12 was sent on a trajectory to return to the launch site. After what seemed like a flawless reentry, Booster 12 ignited its engines for the landing burn and maneuvered between the chopsticks for a catch. After adjusting the engines, the pins landed on the landing rails, and Booster 12 was caught.
Ship 30 then completed its reentry, with the heat shield fairing much better than Ship 29 but still with some burn-through on the Forward Flaps. However, it landed perfectly on target in the Indian Ocean and was even caught by SpaceX’s buoy cams. With an on-target ship landing and a booster catch now achieved, SpaceX is poised to try and repeat the goals while trying some new things on Flight 6.
Booster 12 coming in for Landing (Credit: Max Evans for NSF)
Timeline and Trajectory
Regarding Timeline and Trajectory, Flight 6 is near-identical to Flight 5. There are a few changes to the booster events of a few seconds that should help refine the flight profile with lessons learned from Flight 5. However, with the ship, there is a noticeable addition: the return of an in-space Raptor relight demo. This is set to occur at T+37 minutes and 34 seconds. This will help verify the Raptor firing in space and should help SpaceX push to orbit on Flight 7 or 8.
Starship Flight 6 Timeline (Credit: SpaceX)
The trajectory is exactly the same as that of Flight 5; however, the launch time is completely different. So far, SpaceX has chosen to launch early in the morning for weather conditions and clear views during the coast phase. For Flight 6, SpaceX intends to launch in the afternoon to have a daylight ship landing. The window opens at 4 p.m. CST and lasts for 30 minutes.
During the final stages of reentry, SpaceX will fly Ship 31 at a higher angle of attack to test the limits of flap control and future landing profiles. Assuming Ship 31 makes it through reentry, there is the potential of gaining Ship landing views like the old suborbital hop days.
Here is another angle captured by @NASASpaceflight of what appears to be crews installing the Flight Termination System on Ship 31. This reinforces as to why SpaceX has not destacked Ship 31 from Booster 13. https://t.co/lJBh6JDv67 https://t.co/Km4guWkIKW pic.twitter.com/lOeI4vIQxS
— Ryan Weber (@rweb11742) November 18, 2024
Ship 31 and Booster 13
SpaceX has continued to refine the prelaunch flow. Ship 31 was rolled out first on Nov 11, and it appears its flight termination system was installed on the night of Nov 12. Booster 13 was rolled out on Nov 14, and its flight termination system was installed shortly after stacking Ship 31 on Nov 16. This may become the first stack only to have one stack and one destack, the destack being hotstaging.
With Flight 6 delayed a day, possibly due to weather, SpaceX decided to perform one last test on these vehicles: a partial propellant load test on Sunday, November 17. Once completed, SpaceX confirmed that it was a success, and all final checkouts were completed.
Propellant load test and preflight checkouts complete ahead of Starship's sixth flight test → https://t.co/oIFc3u9laE pic.twitter.com/r6XNKyY2Zf
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 17, 2024
Ship 31 and Booster 13 only have a few noticeable changes on the outside and probably dozens of changes internally.
First, Booster 13 has a slightly redesigned raceway. Instead of using stringers on the forward and common domes to cover the raceway, it now has its own aero covers. A new liquid oxygen (LOX) vent has been added to the top of the LOX tank, and new cowbells have been designed for the reaction control vents.
As for lessons learned from Booster 12, Booster 13’s chines have a few extra rivets holding them down to prevent the chine blowout that happened during Booster 12’s landing.
Booster 13 with its new LOX vent (Credit: Max Evans for NSF)
Ship 31 is pretty unique, as it is the final Block 1 starship to fly with a booster since Ship 33, a Block 2 ship, is slated to fly on Booster 14 and Flight 7. Ship 31 started its life with an anomaly: during its first cryo, an electrical anomaly caused decent damage to its raceway. After fixing this damage, SpaceX eventually finished its testing campaign, which is now slated to fly.
Ship 31 does not have the completely replaced heat shield that Ship 30 had to endure ahead of its flight. Instead, only the flaps and flap fairings got the new ablative layer, as far as can be seen. SpaceX did redo all of the major adhesive areas on the nose cone and the man tank sections and added gap filler material to the flaps. In addition to this, SpaceX is also going to be testing new secondary heat shield materials on this flight in an attempt to gather data for future flights.
Ship 31 Stacked on Booster 13 (Credit: Jack Beyer for NSF)
The biggest noticeable change to Ship 31 is that SpaceX removed about eight columns of heat shield tiles on the port and starboard sides. This is related to SpaceX wanting to test for catch hardware on ship in the future. If this is successful ship catch hardware could come very soon.
Also, in the tradition of some of SpaceX’s more fun play on the Starship program, Ship 31 has a pair of Banana Stickers, which hold a Banana that says for scale on it. SpaceX often used to ship Raptors from McGregor to Starbase with memes and fun stickers over in the past.
Banana for scale. Gotta love SpaceX! 🍌🔥🚀 pic.twitter.com/xGTvQz0AYX
— Mary (@BocaChicaGal) November 7, 2024
SpaceX hasn’t made any significant changes to the launch pad this time; most of the work has been refurbishment to turn the pad around in a month.
SpaceX is attempting to try some new things on Flight 6. It will be interesting to see if the changes to Ship 31 allow it to survive reentry. As always, SpaceX might catch a booster for the second time.
Featured Image: Flight 6 Liftoff (Credit: Max Evans for NSF)
