SpaceX recently completed the sixth test of the Starship, the most powerful rocket ever to fly.
In the days following Tuesday’s flight, the Elon Musk-led spaceflight company has been dropping various images of the mission on social media, with one of the latest pictures showing the dramatic moment when the upper-stage Starship spacecraft separated as planned from the first-stage Super Heavy booster.
Views from Starship after launch from Starbase on its sixth flight test pic.twitter.com/qa9C52yVu9
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 21, 2024
The separation occurred high over the Gulf of Mexico about 2 minutes and 45 seconds into the mission as the Super Heavy generated 17 million pounds of thrust to push the 120-meter-tall Starship vehicle toward space. Following separation, the spacecraft continued on to orbit, coming down in the Indian Ocean about 65 minutes after launch.
The Super Heavy, meanwhile, reduced power and began its descent. The hope was that the 70-meter-tall booster would repeat the awesome feat of the previous test flight in October when two giant mechanical arms on the launch tower secured the rocket as it returned to Earth. But a late issue not with the rocket but with the catching mechanism prompted mission controllers to send the Super Heavy away from the landing site in Boca Chica, Texas, and into the ocean.
Still, SpaceX considered the overall mission a success and will use the data gathered from it to help refine and improve the vehicle and its flight systems.
NASA is planning to use a modified version of SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft to land the first woman and the first person of color on the moon in the Artemis III mission, which could take place as early as September 2026.
SpaceX is also planning to make the Starship rocket even more powerful by adding several more — and more powerful — Raptor engines to the 33 that are currently part of the main booster.