SpaceX’s Starship Could Embark on Its 6th Test Flight in Two Weeks
SpaceX is moving ahead quickly with its Starship rocket.
Elon Musk’s space-exploration company announced on Wednesday that the next Starship test flight could take place as soon as two weeks from now, Wired reported. That’s just about a month after the previous test flight, in which SpaceX successfully caught the Starship booster on its launchpad.
The sixth test flight could happen as early as November 18, and it’ll include a few changes from the most recent Starship flight, the publication noted. While the trajectory will be mostly the same, the SpaceX team is including updates to the hardware and the software in response to what they learned from the prior flight. There will be extra redundancy added to the booster propulsion systems, better structural strength at key areas, and a shorter timeline for offloading propellants from the booster following its catch, among other improvements.
Notably, the next test will include the relighting of one engine during the flight, Wired wrote. This is integral to Starship’s development, and it will eventually allow the rocket to make a controlled reentry into Earth’s atmosphere after orbital missions. Moving forward, it will also let Starship carry out commercial missions and could help with the pathway toward launches of Starlink, SpaceX satellites that will provide internet capability.
Another key change for the sixth test flight is that SpaceX is aiming for a late-afternoon launch. All previous flights have taken off around dawn from Texas, but changing the timing means that Starship could reenter into the Indian Ocean during daylight hours. Once the sixth flight takes off, it’ll be the last launch of the initial version of the vehicle, Wired added, before the next generation Starship takes its place.
SpaceX has been carrying out test flights of the Starship rocket since April 2023—with varied results. In that first launch, the rocket exploded just minutes after taking off, although Musk deemed it a success, with the SpaceX team learning from those initial difficulties. Over the past year and half, they’ve made a number of changes that resulted in the breakthrough that occurred just last month.
Now it seems like Starship development is really ramping up, and we may get even more launches in quick succession if this next flight goes well. Eventually, we could be seeing quite a bit of the Starship rocket.
Authors
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Tori Latham
