SpaceX To Launch Starship Again Next Week—Everything You Need To Know About Its 6th Test Flight

 SpaceX’s Starship rocket will be launched for a sixth test flight next week, the latest experiment by the Elon Musk-owned aerospace firm to create reusable spacecraft after a previous test resulted in a “seminal moment” for the company.

Starship and its Super Heavy booster will launch from SpaceX’s facility near Boca Chica Beach in Texas at around 5 p.m. EST, according to the company, which will livestream the test flight on its website and on X.

During Starship’s fifth flight test in October, the Super Heavy booster returned about five minutes after launching and was caught in mid-air by two mechanical arms, while the Starship capsule landed in its targeted area in the Indian Ocean.

The next test flight will test returning the booster to the launch site again, reigniting the ship’s Raptor engine while in space, completing experiments involving the spacecraft’s heatshield and maneuver changes for Starship’s reentry and descent.

Though the booster was successfully caught during the last test flight, additional upgrades were included to improve propulsion systems and increase structural strength, SpaceX said.

Starship’s seventh test flight, which SpaceX said is expected in early 2025, will include other upgrades to the spacecraft: Redesigned forward flaps, larger propellant tanks and improved thermal protection layers.

SpaceX’s Starship has launched five times over the last 19 months, including the spacecraft’s debut in April 2023. That flight lasted just four minutes, and a second test flight in November 2023 ended after about eight months because of a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.” Starship nearly reentered Earth’s atmosphere in its third test flight in March, though the company lost contact with the spacecraft, which later landed in the Indian Ocean. In its fourth test launch in June, SpaceX maintained contact with Starship throughout its flight and the spacecraft completed its first landing burn about an hour after launch. Starship is intended to test reusable space travel technology, which Musk has said would be used to return humans to the moon and travel to Mars. NASA has tapped Starship to land its Artemis 3 astronauts on the moon by 2026.