Raw Video: Views of Starship Test Flight#6 Liftoff from International Space Station
While orbiting approximately 250 miles above Earth, external cameras aboard the International Space Station partially captured the sixth test flight of SpaceX’s Starship after liftoff at 4 p.m. CST on Tuesday, November 19. For Artemis III, the first crewed return to the Moon in over 50 years, NASA is working with SpaceX to develop Starship as a lunar lander. Prior to the crewed Artemis III mission, SpaceX will perform an uncrewed landing demonstration mission on the Moon.
The sixth flight test of Starship launched from SpaceX Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, on Nov. 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.
"Starship is essential to both SpaceX’s plans to deploy its next-generation Starship system as well as for NASA, which will use a lunar lander version of Starship for landing astronauts on the Moon during the Artemis III mission through the Human Landing System (HLS) program."
Height: 121m/397ft
Diameter: 9m/29.5ft
Payload to LEO: 100 – 150t (fully reusable)
https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/
Duration: 2 minutes, 55 seconds
Capture Date: Nov. 19, 2024
Release Date: Dec 3, 2024
#NASA #SpaceX #Space #ISS #Earth #Mars #Moon #MoonToMars #ArtemisProgram #ArtemisIII #Starship #Spacecraft #Starship6 #TestFlight6 #HeavyBooster #SuperHeavyRocket #ElonMusk #Engineering #SpaceTechnology #HumanSpaceflight #CommercialSpace #SpaceExploration #Starbase #BocaChica #Texas #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video
.jpg)
.jpg)
RD-APoD.jpg)
APoD.jpg)
