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SpaceX again planned to try to guide the booster back into the mechanical arms — or “sticks” — of the launch tower, but it didn’t meet the necessary criteria and abandoned today’s booster capture attempt.
The nearly 121-meter Starship system lifted off Nov. 19 from Starbase near Brownsville, Texas.
The two-stage megarocket — which features a Starship spacecraft stacked on top of a Super Heavy booster — took off during a 30-minute window that opened at 5 p.m. local time on Tuesday.
SpaceX is live streaming the event on the company’s X account.
The event is attended by President-elect Donald Trump.
Trump is joined by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, another example of Musk’s growing role in Trump’s orbit.
This unmanned test marks the fastest turnaround time so far in SpaceX’s test campaign for Starship, which will play a key role in NASA’s flagship Artemis program.
Aiming to put boots on the moon as soon as 2026, the space agency plans to use the rocket’s upper stage, the Starship spacecraft, as a lunar lander that carries astronauts to the surface of the moon.
The goal of these test flights is to clarify how SpaceX could one day recover and quickly use Super Heavy boosters and Starship spacecraft for future missions.
Rapid reuse of rocket parts is seen as key to drastically reducing the time and cost of getting cargo – or ships with people – into space.
Development of Starship, a reusable system
The Federal Aviation Administration, which issues licenses for commercial rocket launches, said it did not have to undertake the lengthy process of reviewing a launch license change because the flight path of this week’s test flight is expected to closely mimic an earlier test flight.
“The FAA determined that SpaceX met all safety, environmental and other licensing requirements for the suborbital test flight,” the agency said in a statement.
“The FAA determined that the changes requested by SpaceX for (Tuesday’s test flight) were within the scope of what was previously analyzed.”
Starship’s fifth integrated test flight was launched on October 13, drawing international attention for SpaceX’s ambitious attempt to maneuver the 71m Super Heavy back to the massive landing structure after the booster separated from the Starship spacecraft.
“Starship’s fifth flight test was a pivotal moment in the iteration toward a fully and rapidly reusable launch system,” the company said in a statement.
Starship is seen as key to SpaceX’s founding mission to eventually transport humans to Mars for the first time.
For NASA’s Artemis program, SpaceX has government contracts worth nearly $4 billion to complete the task of developing a cost-effective space transportation system.
When the countdown clock struck zero, the Super Heavy booster fired its 33 powerful Raptor engines and propelled the Starship spacecraft, which sits atop the booster, into space.
After consuming most of its fuel and separating from the Starship spacecraft, the Super Heavy booster changed course and headed back toward the launch site.
The booster was scheduled to make another precision landing in the arms of a launch and landing structure — which Musk dubbed “Mechazilla” — at the company’s Starbase facility.
But the test flight team did not find conditions favorable for a landing attempt, and the booster crashed into the Gulf of Mexico near the Texas coast.
“Similar to the fifth flight test, various vehicle and pad criteria must be met prior to return and capture of the Super Heavy booster, which will require healthy systems on the booster and tower and a final manual order from the mission’s flight director,” according to SpaceX.
“If this command is not sent before the end of the boostback storm, or if the automated health checks show unacceptable conditions with the Super Heavy or the tower, the booster will default to a trajectory that leads it to a landing burn and gentle fall into the Gulf of Mexico.
“We do not accept compromises when it comes to the safety of the public and our team, and the return will only happen if the conditions for it are created.”
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The Starship spacecraft, meanwhile, ignited its six engines before entering the deceleration phase as it flies through space.
The capsule briefly restarted its engine about half an hour later before preparing for re-entry – the process by which it returns to the thickest part of Earth’s atmosphere.
According to SpaceX, it’s the first time a Starship has successfully ignited one of its Raptor engines while in space.
That’s a big deal, explained Garret Reisman, a former NASA astronaut who now advises SpaceX.
“They’re finicky little beasts — (Starship rocket engines) — and they’re not that easy to turn on, turn off, and turn on again,” Reisman told CNN.
During Starship’s fourth integrated test flight in early June, the spacecraft suffered significant damage.
The Starship spacecraft has discarded a number of heat plates designed to protect the vehicle from the high temperatures caused by the pressure and friction of re-entry.
“Because of the missing tiles … the front flaps were so melted it was like trying to control it with skeleton arms,” Musk said after the mission, adding that the fourth flight landed about 6 miles (9.7 kilometers) from the intended crash site in the Indian Ocean . .
However, SpaceX made significant strides during Starship’s fifth integrated test flight in mid-October.
Prior to that mission, SpaceX implemented what it called “a complete overhaul of (Starship’s) heat shield, with SpaceX technicians spending more than 12,000 hours replacing the entire thermal shield system with newer-generation wafers, a spare ablative layer and additional shielding between the flap structure .”
SpaceX has always said it will evaluate flight data and make a decision to attempt a landing based on real-time flight data.
“In 2025, SpaceX plans to conduct long-duration flight testing and propellant transfer flight testing,” according to a recent report from NASA’s Office of the Inspector General, or OIG.
Demonstrating the ability to launch a Starship into orbit and then rendezvous the spacecraft with a fuel tanker is considered critical to the success of NASA’s Artemis program.
For the lunar landing mission, called Artemis III, the Starship may need to dock with more than a dozen fuel tankers before continuing its mission to the lunar surface.
SpaceX will also face a “critical design review” for next summer’s Artemis III mission, according to the OIG.
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