SpaceX
SpaceX Starship Flight 6 goes full stack and ready to fly
In the early morning, SpaceX Starship Flight 6 went full stack and standing integrated ready to fly for the upcoming November 18 launch window to complete new milestones.
In the past two days, the rocket maker rolled out the super heavy booster and the second-stage spacecraft to the launch site for a full stack. After reaching the launch site, mechazilla arms lifted the booster to mount on the pad.
It was followed by the Starship (second stage), which was also lifted by the tower arms to stack on top of the booster.
Starship flight 6 full stack this morning at T-minus 3 days and counting!
11/15/24 pic.twitter.com/d4P84BF7kB
— Starship Gazer (@StarshipGazer) November 15, 2024
Last month, the company conducted Starship Integrated Flight 5 and completed two major milestones. The first is catching the booster with tower arms and the second is getting a controlled landing in the Indian Ocean.
Starship Flight 6 Full Stack welcomes its first Starbase Sunrise.https://t.co/e3xbqPnwZ5 pic.twitter.com/0OIWZItzau
— Chris Bergin – NSF (@NASASpaceflight) November 15, 2024
Interestingly, this flight and its objectives were completed within the scope of Flight 5’s FAA license. Therefore, the company had a pre-approval for the next flight.
This is the first and the fastest flight approval compared to the previous five flights. The other reason is no anomaly or vehicle malfunction occurred during the liftoff or descent of Flight 5.
To prepare for this new test, SpaceX has already completed static fire (for both stages), tank pressurization, and ground system tests. It has also fired the water deluge system, which is used to deflect flame and reduce thrust impact.
The aim for Flight 6 is to improve the first stage landing and validate all of the new improvements made over the previous launch. However, the company will follow a fail-safe strategy to halt booster catch if anything goes wrong.
On the other hand, SpaceX has confirmed new improvements for the spacecraft and installed new heat shield tiles to pass through the high-heat region en route to the splash zone.
The secondary objective is to observe the the second stage’s reentry and splashdown to improve future vehicles, collect data, and prepare for vertical landing at the launch site.
