Well folks, it’s time for Starship IFT-6! Another booster RTLS and chopsticks catch attempt, as well as the first in-space Raptor relight attempt.
| Scheduled for (UTC) | 2024-11-19 22:00 |
|---|---|
| Scheduled for (local) | 2024-11-19 16:00 (CDT) |
| Launch Window (UTC) | 2024-11-19 22:00 to 2024-11-19 22:30 (30 minutes) |
| Launch site | Pad A, SpaceX Starbase, TX, USA. |
| Booster | B13 |
| Ship | S31 |
| Booster landing | Chopsticks catch at Pad A or soft water landing in Gulf of Mexico |
| Ship landing | Indian Ocean |
Webcasts
| Stream | Link |
|---|---|
| Space Affairs | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucEu075bgx0 |
| Everyday Astronaut | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjDFirLcQDM |
| Spaceflight Now | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtmvbQDou4I |
| NASASpaceflight | Stakeout stream, launch stream |
| LabPadre | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdGJ5p4PP1M |
| The Launch Pad | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSxOuFrqyks |
| VideoFromSpace | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7cM90N-CDc |
| SpaceX | https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1857841326542434339 |
| The Space Devs | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpyWcPuepV8 |
Stats
Sourced from NextSpaceflight and r/SpaceX:
☑️ 4th Starship Full Stack launch this year
☑️ 6th Starship Full Stack launch overall
☑️ 119th SpaceX launch this year
☑️ 431st SpaceX launch overall (including Starship hops)
☑️ 4th launch from Pad A this year
☑️ 37 days, 9:35:00 turnaround for this pad
Mission Details 🚀
- SpaceX website (current): Starship’s Sixth Flight Test
The objectives for Starship Flight 6 are:
- Restart of Raptor engines in vacuum.
- Daylight landing of the ship.
- Higher peak heating (steeper) reentry.
- Faster/harder booster catch.
There are thousands of small design changes also being tested.
Link to Starship Dev thread
“Booster offshore divert.” No booster catch today.
Booster landing burn and splashdown confirmed.
Liftoff!
Raptor startup and shutdown confirmed. Pretty short burn, maybe only 5 to 10 seconds.
MECO, hot staging, stage separation, and boostback burn startup!
Tower is go for catch.
Ship landing burn and splashdown confirmed!
S31 contains a single banana as a zero-g indicator and dummy payload. Also served as a test run for approving Starship payloads with the FAA. The banana will not be deployed.
Ship engine cutoff confirmed. Ship FTS has safed, nominal orbit insertion.
Raptor in-space relight demo scheduled for T+37:46.
Hot stage ring jettison confirmed.
Hosted webcast is back for in-space raptor relight test.
Tower and launch mount venting has started.
Engine chill, range safety is go.
Huh interesting, they’re planning on pitching the ship nose-down during final descent to test the limits of flap control.
Raptor engine chill.
Tank farm “pope stack” has started venting.