WASHINGTON — SpaceX has scheduled its next Starship test flight for as soon as Nov. 18, making incremental changes since the previous flight in October.
The company announced Nov. 6 that it was planning the sixth integrated Starship/Super Heavy flight from its Starbase facility at Boca Chica, Texas, for the afternoon of Nov. 18. The announcement coincided with the release of airspace restrictions for the flight attempt by the Federal Aviation Administration.
SpaceX described the upcoming flight as one intended to “expand the envelope on ship and booster capabilities and get closer to bringing reuse of the entire system online.” The flight will follow a similar suborbital profile as the previous flight Oct. 13, including an attempt to return the Super Heavy booster to the launch site for a “catch” by the launch tower.
Among the changes for this flight will be a relight of a Raptor engine on Starship while in flight to demonstrate the ability to perform a deorbit burn on future orbital missions. SpaceX had planned a similar test on the vehicle’s third flight in March, but did not attempt it because of the vehicle’s roll rates.
SpaceX plans to test changes on the thermal protection system on Starship. “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 company stated. SpaceX plans to eventually recover Starship using the same launch tower “catch” technique used for the Super heavy booster.
Starship will also fly at a higher angle of attack during its final descent, “purposefully stressing the limits of flap control to gain data on future landing profiles.”
To assist in those reentry observations, SpaceX is changing the launch time for this mission. While previous launches have occurred in the morning at Starbase, this flight is scheduled for…
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