Skip to main content

SpaceX shares photos of Starship ahead of sixth flight on Tuesday

SpaceX's Starship ahead of its sixth test flight.
The Starship on the launchpad at SpaceX's Starbase facility in Texas ahead of its sixth test flight. This is one of four images shared by SpaceX on Sunday. SpaceX

SpaceX is just a couple of days away from sending its enormous Starship rocket on its sixth test flight from its facility in Boca Chica, Texas.

The mission had originally targeted Monday, November 18, for the launch of the vehicle — comprising the main-stage Super Heavy booster and the upper-stage Starship spacecraft — but on Friday, SpaceX pushed the launch to Tuesday, November 19. Here’s how to watch a livestream of the mission.

Recommended Videos

The Elon Musk-led spaceflight company has just released a set of images showing the 120-meter-tall Starship stacked and pretty much ready to fly.

“Propellant load test and preflight checkouts complete ahead of Starship’s sixth flight test,” SpaceX said in a post on X.

Propellant load test and preflight checkouts complete ahead of Starship's sixth flight test → https://t.co/oIFc3u9laE pic.twitter.com/r6XNKyY2Zf

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 17, 2024

The Starship took its first test flight in April 2023, but it only lasted a matter of minutes before an anomaly prompted the mission team to blow up the rocket in midair over the Gulf of Mexico.

But each subsequent flight showed improvements in every aspect of the rocket’s performance. On the fifth flight last month, SpaceX performed a successful and truly spectacular “catch” of the 70-meter-tall Super Heavy at its first attempt, a challenging maneuver that took place as the booster returned to Earth following its deployment of the Starship spacecraft to orbit.

Packing a colossal 17 million pounds of thrust at launch, the Starship is the most powerful rocket ever to get off the ground. Once fully tested, NASA and SpaceX want to use the vehicle to transport crew and cargo to the moon, Mars, and possibly beyond. It could even be configured to fly approximately 100 people in a single flight, though a mission of that magnitude is a long way off.

One of the Starship’s first big tests will be to use a modified version of the upper-stage spacecraft to land two NASA astronauts on the lunar surface in the Artemis III mission, which is currently scheduled for 2026.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
These 6 rocket explosions show how SpaceX likes to roll
A Starship prototype explodes during testing.

The upper-stage of SpaceX’s next-generation Starship rocket exploded in a massive fireball at its Starbase facility near Boca Chica, Texas, on Wednesday night. No one was hurt in the incident.

The vehicle was being prepared for the 10th flight test of the most powerful rocket in the world, which also includes the first-stage Super Heavy booster.

Read more
SpaceX suggests potential cause of huge Starship explosion
SpaceX's Starship spacecraft explodes at Starbase.

SpaceX has offered an update on the massive explosion which destroyed the Starship spacecraft on a test stand on Wednesday.

The dramatic explosion took place at SpaceX’s Starbase facility near Boca Chica, Texas, during preparations for the Starship rocket’s 10th test flight, which was expected to take place in the coming weeks. No one was reported killed or injured in the incident.

Read more
SpaceX reveals new target date for private crewed launch to ISS
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket waits to launch the Ax-4 mission to the space station.

SpaceX, partnering with NASA and Axiom Space, is aiming to blast a four-person crew to orbit at 3:42 a.m. ET on Sunday, June 22.

The private Ax-4 mission was supposed to launch to the International Space Station (ISS) from Florida's Kennedy Space Center on June 10, but inclement weather in the ascent corridor forced the mission team to call off the effort. A plan to launch 24 hours later was also ditched following the discovery of a liquid oxygen leak on the rocket.

Read more