Takeoff is scheduled for this Tuesday evening, around 11 p.m. French time. On November 19, SpaceX should launch its Starship rocket. A sixth flight which should serve as confirmation, after the great success of the previous attempt.
After two “experimental” attempts in 2023 and 3 much more complete flights in 2024, SpaceX should therefore take advantage of a 30-minute firing window this November 19 to launch, a sixth time, its 122-meter-high rocket into the air .
A return as spectacular as ever
Among the points that will be monitored during this sixth flight, the return of the Super Heavy booster will obviously be a highlight. After the feat of the 5th attempt, and a controlled return to Starbase, SpaceX would like to reproduce a similar feat during this flight on November 19.
This will obviously be very complicated for the company, which only managed to catch the first stage of its rocket at the last second. Faced with this level of complexity, the slightest error of even a few millimeters could tip the mission over.
A (still) suborbital flight
If this is not the most interesting part for the general public, Starship’s flight time in space is important data for NASA. The latter plans to use Starship to send astronauts to the Moon, so this vessel must be capable of flying for long minutes in the vacuum of space.
In order to obtain all NASA qualifications to be part of the Artemis 3 mission (and the return of man to the Moon), SpaceX must notably succeed in flying its Starship on an orbital trajectory. For the moment this has never happened and it is still not on the program for this sixth flight.
Instead, the rocket will follow a suborbital trajectory. It will therefore travel in space, but will eventually fall back to Earth, never reaching “escape speed” (minimum speed to counter gravity and stay in orbit). The return of the vessel is planned, as for the 5th flight, in the Indian Ocean. It should not be collected after the mission.
Outdoor lighting
Ultimately the only difference between the flight plans of Starship 5 and 6 is found in space. For this November 19 mission, Elon Musk’s company hopes to be able to restart a Raptor engine on its ship, once it is in space.
This slowing down maneuver is designed to simulate a “deorbit” of the vessel. In 2026, when man returns to the Moon, this is exactly what will happen, with a small impulse given around the Earth to make the spacecraft fall into the atmosphere.
You can follow the flight live on SpaceX YouTube channel.
