less than a It’s been a month since historic fifth flight of SpaceX’s Starship, during which the company trapped the booster with mechanical arms on the launch pad in Texas. Now, another test flight could take place on November 18, the company announced Wednesday.
The improbable but successful recovery of the Starship first stage with “chopsticks” last month, and the target landing of the Starship upper stage on the other side of the world, allowed SpaceX to avoid an anomaly investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration. In this way, the company was able to move forward with a sixth test flight if it flew with a similar profile.
And that’s what SpaceX plans to do, albeit with some notable additions to the flight plan.
Powering up a raptor in space
in a statement on their websiteSpaceX said the first stage, known as Super Heavy, would fly a similar trajectory to the fifth test flight, which took place on October 13. However, the booster hardware and software will be modified with what was learned from last month’s test flight.
“Hardware upgrades for this flight add additional redundancy to the booster propulsion systems, increase structural strength in key areas, and shorten the time to discharge the booster propellants after a successful capture,” the company said. “Mission designers also updated the software controls and commitment criteria for booster launch and return.”
Starship’s upper stage will also fly the same suborbital trajectory it successfully followed in October, however it will incorporate an in-flight re-ignition of one of the rocket’s six engines. As Ars explained in an article last week, this is the next milestone in the development path for Starship and is critical to enabling Starship orbital missions to perform controlled re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.
Successfully demonstrating the ability to restart Raptors in space allows SpaceX to begin flying commercial missions with Starship and likely paves the way for Starlink launches, possibly as early as the first half of next year. These larger Starlink satellites can only fit within Starship’s extensive payload and will provide direct-to-cell Internet capability.
The company will also use Starship’s next flight to evaluate new tiles and other elements of the vehicle’s heat shield.
“Several thermal protection experiments and operational changes will test the limits of Starship’s capabilities and generate flight data to inform ship capture and reuse plans,” the company statement said. “The flight test will evaluate new secondary thermal protection materials and will remove entire sections of thermal protection plates on both sides of the ship in locations that are being studied for capture-enabling hardware on future vehicles. The ship will also intentionally fly at a higher angle of attack in the final phase of descent, intentionally emphasizing the limits of flap control to obtain data on future landing profiles.”
Final flight of the first spacecraft
The five previous Starship flights, dating back to April 2023, launched near dawn from south Texas. For the next mission, the company will seek a late afternoon launch window, allowing the vehicle to re-enter the Indian Ocean during the day.
SpaceX’s update also confirms that this will be the last flight of the initial version of the Starship vehicle, and that the next generation will include redesigned front fins, larger propellant tanks, and newer tiles and secondary thermal protection layers.
Reaching a near-monthly cadence of Starship flights during just the vehicle’s second year of operation is impressive, but it’s also essential if SpaceX wants to unlock the full potential of a rocket that needs multiple refueling launches to support Starship missions to the Moon or Mars. .
Wednesday’s announcement comes a day after the US presidential election in which American voters gave Donald Trump a second term, and it is notable that it was aided by an all-out effort from SpaceX founder Elon Musk.
Musk’s interventions in politics were highly controversial and alienated a significant segment of the American population and political class. Musk’s tactic paid off, however, as Trump’s election will now likely accelerate Starship’s development and increase its centrality to the nation’s space exploration efforts.
However, the timing of this launch announcement is likely a coincidence, as SpaceX did not need formal regulatory approval to move forward with this sixth attempt; It depended almost entirely on the preparation of the company’s hardware, software and ground systems.
This story originally appeared on Ars Technique.