Boca Chica, TX…The sixth flight test of Starship is targeted to launch Tuesday, November 19. The 30-minute launch window will open at 4:00 p.m. CT. A live webcast of the flight test will begin about 40 minutes before liftoff, which you can watch here and on X @SpaceX. You can also watch the webcast on the new X TV app. As is the case with all developmental testing, the schedule is dynamic and likely to change, so be sure to check in here and stay tuned to our X account for updates.
Watch Starship's sixth flight test → https://t.co/oIFc3u9laE https://t.co/acpdO2brbP
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 16, 2024
Starship’s fifth flight test was a seminal moment in iterating towards a fully and rapidly reusable launch system. On the first attempt, the Super Heavy booster successfully returned to the launch site and was caught by the chopstick arms of the launch and catch tower at Starbase. Starship’s upper stage went on to demonstrate several improvements, resulting in a controlled entry and high accuracy splashdown at the targeted area in the Indian Ocean.
The next Starship flight test aims to expand the envelope on ship and booster capabilities and get closer to bringing reuse of the entire system online. Objectives include the booster once again returning to the launch site for catch, reigniting a ship Raptor engine while in space, and testing a suite of heatshield experiments and maneuvering changes for ship reentry and descent over the Indian Ocean.
The success of the first catch attempt demonstrated the design feasibility while providing valuable data to continue improving hardware and software performance. Hardware upgrades for this flight add additional redundancy to booster propulsion systems, increase structural strength at key areas, and shorten the timeline to offload propellants from the booster following a successful catch. Mission designers also updated software controls and commit criteria for the booster’s launch and return.
Analogous to the fifth flight test, distinct vehicle and pad criteria must be met prior to a return and catch of the Super Heavy booster, which will require healthy systems on the booster and tower and a final manual command from the mission’s Flight Director. If this command is not sent prior to the completion of the boostback burn, or if automated health checks show unacceptable conditions with Super Heavy or the tower, the booster will default to a trajectory that takes it to a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. We accept no compromises when it comes to ensuring the safety of the public and our team, and the return will only take place if conditions are right.
The returning booster will slow down from supersonic speeds, resulting in audible sonic booms in the area around the landing zone. Generally, the only impact to those in the surrounding area of a sonic boom is the brief thunder-like noise with variables like weather and distance from the return site determining the magnitude experienced by observers.
Starship’s upper stage will fly the same suborbital trajectory as the previous flight test, with splashdown targeted in the Indian Ocean. An additional objective for this flight will be attempting an in-space burn using a single Raptor engine, further demonstrating the capabilities required to conduct a ship deorbit burn prior to orbital missions.
Several thermal protection experiments and operational changes will test the limits of Starship’s capabilities and generate flight data to inform plans for ship catch and reuse. The flight test will assess new secondary thermal protection materials and will have entire sections of heat shield tiles removed on either side of the ship in locations being studied for catch-enabling hardware on future vehicles. The ship also will intentionally fly at a higher angle of attack in the final phase of descent, purposefully stressing the limits of flap control to gain data on future landing profiles. Finally, adjusting the flight’s launch window to the late afternoon at Starbase will enable the ship to reenter over the Indian Ocean in daylight, providing better conditions for visual observations.
Future ships, starting with the vehicle planned for the seventh flight test, will fly with significant upgrades including redesigned forward flaps, larger propellant tanks, and the latest generation tiles and secondary thermal protection layers as we continue to iterate towards a fully reusable heat shield. Learnings from this and subsequent flight tests will continue to make the entire Starship system more reliable as we close in on full and rapid reusability.
Source = SpaceX
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Put the next one up Gavy’s hinder! My favorite pick for Trumps cabinet is w/o a guess, Tom Homan, he will kick ass and take names, he told Gavy to get “the hell out of the way”, I love it!
Homan aka whoman??
What a phony, blowhard POS.
Don’t know if he’s married, but if he is, can you imagine the mental abuse his wife goes through? Dude has issues.
He must have had as horrible a childhood as Anti.
I miss my stepmom Bill, Snivelet
Fuk you snivelet my
child hood was beter then yours
Good luck to the Iranian leaders that want to take out Trump!!!!!
Iranians aren’t interested in Joe he’s already brain dead.
To All Trump Voters: How Will You Measure His Success?
This one goes out to all my Trump homies. To the MAGA voter, the Trump supporter, the fascist-curious, the Red Stater, the Fox News viewer, the boat parader, the “Let’s Go Brandon” flag flier, the “f— your feelings” T-shirt wearer.
To the mighty 49.8 percent: congratulations! You got your man. Orange Julius is about to once again rest his ample a– behind the Resolute Desk. My question to all you is simple: What are you hoping to get out of Trump II? When this second go-round has concluded, how will you determine whether it was a success? And what makes you think this time will be any better than the last?
We already know his first administration was a disaster: multiple impeachments, a million dead Americans, the economy in the toilet, jobs lost, a final job approval rating of 34 percent, etc. No wonder you want him back. After all, with a record like that, there’s a lot of room for improvement.
Trump supporters might credibly cry “foul” to that final report card. After all, it’s not his fault a global pandemic came out of nowhere. Fair point, except that we don’t judge presidencies as if they were rhythmic gymnastics competitions. We don’t throw out the best year and the worst year to get an average score.
If we followed MAGA logic, Herbert Hoover would be on Mt. Rushmore. After all, didn’t those 1920s roar? They sure did, right up until the moment that pesky Depression hit. Which returns me to my question: Now that we’ve seen the theatrical release of the Trump presidency, what are you hoping for in the director’s cut?
What metrics are y’all using to determine success this time around? What do you need to happen before you consider the second Trump presidency a success? Are you expecting him to finish the wall? If you recall, last time he ran on building a “big, beautiful wall” across the entirety of the southern border, funded by our amigos to the south. Did that happen? I’ll save you the trouble of Googling: It did not. So is that Job 1? Because I don’t even remember him mentioning it this time around.
Instead, he decided to change his focus from those coming in to those already here. “Mass deportation now!” placards danced behind Trump during his campaign appearances. He promised to use the police, National Guard, and armed forces to round up millions of people for deportation. How many millions need to be booted out before you decide he did the job he promised to do?
Will you be satisfied with his performance if he only deports half of those “poisoning the blood of this country,” as he said about immigrants? Or do you feel like you need all the poison drawn from our body politic before you again feel safe? How many millions do you need to see paraded through the streets before it’s enough?
What about the economy? The cost of eggs seems to be top of mind for a lot of Trump voters. No doubt expensive eggs are putting a real crimp in the wallets of hardworking Americans. We know costs went up during the pandemic and have never returned to their pre-pandemic levels. Do you need eggs to cost the same as in 2020 before you consider the Trump presidency a success or do you just need him to get inflation under control, despite the fact that inflation is already under control, currently hovering right around its target rate?
Trump’s economic plan during the 2024 campaign consisted of a single word: tariffs. Perhaps you’re thinking that if he just slaps tariffs on everything, egg prices will tumble (hopefully they are hard-boiled eggs).
Never mind the fact that economists who have looked at Trump’s tariff-forward economic plan have concluded that “Trump’s tariffs would cost the average U.S. household about $2,600 per year.” Do you Trump voters have an extra $2,600 to spend on s–t that you were going to buy anyway? Will you consider the second Trump administration a success if your annual household costs only go up $2,200?
Of course, Trump voters don’t only care about rounding up millions of people and housing them in concentration camps while they await deportation and how much a Denny’s Grand Slamwich costs. They also desire peace. And who can fault them for that? We all want peace, and it’s true that America finds itself supporting allies in two conflicts.
Thankfully, President-elect Trump has vowed to end the war in Ukraine straight away, telling Vice President Harris during their debate, “That is a war that’s dying to be settled. I will get it settled before I even become president.”
Great! This is one of those campaign promises we can easily use as a metric to determine success. As of this writing, Trump is not president and the war in Ukraine is not settled. Nor have any negotiations begun. Nor has Trump even mentioned Ukraine since the election.
So what’s going on? Is he just working the backstage phones with his boy blunder, Elon Musk? The Biden administration just approved long-range missile use from Ukraine to Russia. Does that seem very settled to you guys? Do we wait until Inauguration Day before we consider this a broken promise? Or do we give him a lil’ grace period once he gets into the Oval? Say, a week?
On the Israel side of things, Trump has promised to give Netanyahu a free hand to “get the job done.” What does that mean? Trump has already articulated his vision for what it looks like, stating that Gaza could be “better than Monaco.” What do you Trump voters think success looks like in the Middle East? During his first term, he promised that Jared Kushner would bring peace to the region.
Did that happen? Did moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem accomplish that task? Did the vaunted Abraham Accords? Or are people still slaughtering each other over a spit of land the size of New Jersey?
Do you Trump voters expect a two-state solution? A one-state solution? Trump’s first peace proposal for the region came out in 2020. Here’s how The New York Times described it: “The plan would discard the longtime goal of granting the Palestinians a full-fledged state. President Trump called it ‘a win-win’ for both sides; Palestinian leaders immediately rejected it.”
Back home, Trump has vowed to go after political opponents. What metric are you Trump voters using to determine whether he’s attacked/arrested enough of his political “enemies”? Do we want Adam Schiff in jail and Liz Cheney tried under a military tribunal, as he has fantasized?
Do we want NBC shut down because Kamala appeared on SNL? He’s already sued CBS for $10 billion because he didn’t like a Kamala 60 Minutes profile. Would we like to see all the networks lose their broadcast licenses for not paying sufficient obsequiousness? Would that be considered a success?
What about punishing trans people for existing? That seems like an easy one to accomplish. We can make their lives more difficult, outlaw the care they receive, demonize them, and prevent them from being able to use the restroom when in public.
Trump voters, how are you going to determine whether Trump has sufficiently punished people for the crime of wanting to live authentic lives? What do you think, guys? The problem with scapegoats is that once you’re in power you’ve got to actually do something about them. Historically, it rarely ends well for the goat.
I could go on, of course, but I’m not a Trump voter so it’s hard for me to know your priorities. Do you want policy or persecution? Maybe a lil’ bit of both for funsies? Four years from now, when we look around at a remade America, what are you hoping to see? How do you expect your life to improve? How do you expect your nation to improve? How are you going to judge this second, riskier presidency? What happens if things go bad? Who will be here to clean up all those broken eggs?
Oh my, my, my. You really need a good cry.
I certainly hope you feel better now!
They have suicide hotlines manned 24/7/365 days a year. Please don’t feel embarrassed at all if you just need to talk to someone.
They’ve had an increase in calls from many voters since the elections, so you are not alone.
Again, you should call, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about, these people hear from all types of people with all types of problems. Mental illness is just very serious, and has last effects on everyone, and it is life threatening.
You really should call.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAE
I DON’T HAVE TDS!!! I DON’T HAVE TDS!!! I DON’T HAVE TDS!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHA! I DON’T HAVE TDS!! I…I… DO… DON’T DON’T!!!! HAVE….WAAAAAAA WAAAAAAAA…MOMMY!
WHERE’S MY MOMMY?
I’ll tell you what I’m “embarassed” about. I’m embarassed that I live in a country that elects someone like Trump. Do you realize the entire planet is laughing at us? Shaking their collective heads that this country, a so called beacon of freedom, would elect a person who has the characteristics of this Trump person? The only ones not shaking their heads and laughing at us are the countries, their leaders that is, who are going to take advantage of this Trump figure. You know, like Putin, Ji, Orban, Un. They know that all they have to do is stroke his oversized ego, and he will do whatever they want. Of course Putin has some kind of material that allows him to blackmail the great orange one. Who knows what it is? Putin does. And he will use it to his advantage.
So bask in the glory uneducated voters for Trump. Just don’t complain when you, the working man and woman, get certain benefits cut and or eliminated in the name of progress. But don’t worry, Matt Gaetz will be there defending your legal rights. And who knows, one day people like Rick Scott, look him up uneducated ones, will get the power they desire and use it to eliminate the one thing, or two, that boomers all need and receive. You know, like SS and Medicare. Don’t YOU cry when they come after that. Don’t YOU cry when your right to protest is drowned out by an authoritarian regime. Don’t YOU, the uneducated Trump base, cry when you realize what you have in fact done. I pity the fool.
Too bad there isn’t a death penalty for any illegal that murders an American! The outcome of the Laken trial proved that! Joie and Harris are accessories to this crime, they should get the death sentence as well! Any of you listen and watch the horror of the parents at the end of the trial? How many of you would like to go through that, if so let us help you, Tom Homan will help you out! F all of this bullshit, we voted for COMMON SENSE, not protecting people that broke the law coming into “my country”!, so get over it TARDS!