The November 18th next from Boca Chica, the SpaceX teams will try the impossible again. After the fifth flight of Starship and Super Heavy on October 13, the heavy launcher will return to service to confirm the feat: catching up with the first stage with “Mechazilla”, its launch and now landing tower.
The sixth flight arrives much earlier than expected, not because the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) has become more flexible with SpaceX, but because the mission will take the same flight profile, and will therefore be able to exploit the same authorization as that granted for flight number 5.
However, some changes will be made. But they mainly concern the second floor, in other words the Starship. Changes which will form the main objectives of this new launch, in addition to the necessary confirmation of the landing of Super Heavy, in the arms of its launch tower, for the second time.
Starship soon ready to enter orbit (and deorbit)
In a press release, SpaceX highlighted the changes that will be made to Starship during this sixth flight. The first (and most important) concerns its engines. During its suborbital flight, SpaceX teams will carry out a re-ignition of one of the Raptor engines. The goal? Demonstrate that Starship can restart its engines, and therefore that it will subsequently be able to enter orbit and then deorbit.
Currently, the FAA allows SpaceX to fly its Starship at an altitude and speed close to orbit, but never reach it. The vessel has not yet demonstrated that it can deorbit, by following a much more difficult restart process in orbit than on Earth or by following another trajectory (for a question of fuel pumping in particular).
In view of the tight deadline between flight number 5 and this flight number 6, we suspect that SpaceX took advantage of not changing the flight profile of its Starship, so that the FAA would not have to re-examine the mission to issue a new permit. That said, with a Raptor re-ignition, Starship's trajectory could be altered. It therefore seems that SpaceX is preparing to carry out a re-ignition without modification of the trajectory. A very brief rekindling, then.
Preparing for Starship catch-up
The second difference concerns thermal protection. SpaceX plans to subtract thermal protection tiles from your shipnot to complicate the task, but to prepare the future version of Starship which can be caught by the launch tower, like Super Heavy last month. To do this, he will need growths, which will allow Mechazilla's articulated arms to support the ship when it catches up.
That said, Starship has already shown us that its resistance to heat, upon re-entry into the atmosphere, was a real problem. It could well be that the ship is encountering many more problems with its heat shield than during the previous flight. But on this point, nothing alarming, because SpaceX is against recovering as much data as possible before moving on to missions using the second generation of Starship.
The last flight of Starship V1
Indeed, this will be the last test flight of Starship in V1, before the arrival, on flight number 7, of the new generation of the ship, en version V2. The future Starship 33 will therefore be completely new, including a larger fuel tank, better thermal protection, and redesigned flaps.
To make the images look good, SpaceX decided to change the time of its firing window. Rather than taking off Super Heavy in the early morning in Boca Chica, in the United States, you will have to wait until 4 p.m. on Monday, November 18 (11 p.m. in France).
No grazing light or sunrise therefore, but the opportunity, during Starship's return to the Indian Ocean, to obtain images in the early morning, normally around 6 a.m. Until now, Starship's last two landings in the Indian Ocean took place at night, following the time difference.
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