The sixth flight test of Starship launched from Starbase on November 19, 2024, seeking to expand the envelope on ship and booster capabilities and get closer to bringing reuse of the entire system online.

The Super Heavy booster successfully lifted off at the start of the launch window, with all 33 Raptor engines powering it and Starship off the pad from Starbase. Following a nominal ascent and stage separation, the booster successfully transitioned to its boostback burn to begin the return to launch site. During this phase, automated health checks of critical hardware on the launch and catch tower triggered an abort of the catch attempt. The booster then executed a pre-planned divert maneuver, performing a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.

Starship completed another successful ascent, placing it on the expected trajectory. The ship successfully reignited a single Raptor engine while in space, demonstrating the capabilities required to conduct a ship deorbit burn before starting fully orbital missions. With live views and telemetry being relayed by Starlink, the ship successfully made it through reentry and executed a flip, landing burn, and soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

Data gathered from the multiple thermal protection experiments, as well as the successful flight through subsonic speeds at a more aggressive angle of attack, provides invaluable feedback on flight hardware performing in a flight environment as we aim for eventual ship return and catch.

With data and flight learnings as our primary payload, Starship’s sixth flight test once again delivered. Lessons learned will directly make the entire Starship system more reliable as we close in on full and rapid reusability.

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In just this year, we’ve launched 114 successful Falcon missions and counting for our commercial and government customers, deployed ~1,700 @Starlink satellites to provide high-speed internet for millions of people all around the world, and made extraordinary strides developing Starship’s capability to return humanity to the Moon and ultimately send people to Mars.
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Starship’s fifth flight test lifted off on October 13, 2024, with our most ambitious test objectives yet as we work to demonstrate techniques fundamental to Starship and Super Heavy’s fully and rapidly reusable design.

And on our first try, Mechazilla caught the booster.

Following a successful liftoff, ascent, stage separation, boostback burn, and coast, the Super Heavy booster performed its landing burn and was caught by the chopstick arms of the launch and catch tower at Starbase. Thousands of distinct vehicle and pad criteria had to be met prior to the catch attempt, and thanks to the tireless work of SpaceX engineers, we succeeded with catch on our first attempt.

Prior to catch, Starship executed another successful hot-staging separation, igniting its six Raptor engines and completing ascent into outer space. It coasted along its planned trajectory to the other side of the planet before executing a controlled reentry, passing through the phases of peak heating and maximum aerodynamic pressure, before executing a flip, landing burn, and splashdown at its target area in the Indian Ocean. The flight test concluded at splashdown 1 hour, 5 minutes and 40 seconds after launch.

On Tuesday, September 10, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launched the Polaris Dawn mission to orbit from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Polaris Dawn became the first crew to perform the first-ever spacewalk from Dragon, travel the farthest (1,408 km) within Earth’s orbit since the completion of the Apollo program in 1972, and test Starlink laser-based communications aboard Dragon. Additionally, the crew conducted approximately 36 experiments designed to better life on Earth and on future long-duration spaceflights, shared special moments with mission partners including reading Kisses from Space to patients at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®, and inspired the world with a global music moment before safely returning to Earth on Sunday, September 15.

During its five day mission, Dragon and the Polaris Dawn crew completed 75 orbits around Earth.

A live webcast of the Polaris Dawn EVA will begin about one hour prior to the beginning of the spacewalk on Thursday, September 12, which you can watch on X @SpaceX. You can also watch the webcast on the new X TV app. The four-hour window opens at 3:23 a.m. ET. If needed, a backup opportunity is available on Friday, September 13 at the same time.

A live webcast of the Polaris Dawn EVA will begin about one hour prior to the beginning of the spacewalk on Thursday, September 12, which you can watch on X @SpaceX. You can also watch the webcast on the new X TV app. The four-hour window opens at 3:23 a.m. ET. If needed, a backup opportunity is available on Friday, September 13 at the same time.

Starship’s fourth flight test launched with ambitious goals, attempting to go farther than any previous test before and begin demonstrating capabilities central to return and reuse of Starship and Super Heavy. The payload for this test was the data.

Starship delivered.

On June 6, 2024, Starship successfully lifted off at 7:50 a.m. CT from Starbase in Texas and went on to deliver maximum excitement.

The fourth flight of Starship made major strides to bring us closer to a rapidly reusable future. Its accomplishments will provide data to drive improvements as we continue rapidly developing Starship into a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond.

At ~700 km above Earth, the EVA suit will support the Polaris Dawn crew in the vacuum of space during the first-ever commercial astronaut spacewalk.

Evolved from the Intravehicular Activity (IVA) suit, the EVA suit provides greater mobility, a state-of-the-art helmet Heads-Up Display (HUD) and camera, new thermal management textiles, and materials borrowed from Falcon’s interstage and Dragon’s trunk.

Building a base on the Moon and a city on Mars will require millions of spacesuits. The development of this suit and the execution of the spacewalk will be important steps toward a scalable design for spacesuits on future long-duration missions as life becomes multiplanetary.

The goal of SpaceX is to build the technologies necessary to make life multiplanetary. This is the first time in the 4-billion-year history of Earth that it’s possible to realize that goal and protect the light of consciousness.

At Starbase on Thursday, April 4, SpaceX Chief Engineer Elon Musk provided an update on the company’s plans to send humanity to Mars, the best destination to begin making life multiplanetary.

Go to (https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1776669097490776563) for the full talk, which also includes the mechanics and challenges of traveling to Mars, along with what we’re building today to enable sending around a million people and several million tonnes to the Martian surface in the years to come.