SpaceX Starship Flight 6: No catch, But a Banana was Involved

SpaceX’s Starship Flight 6 launched today, missing a second capture landing for the Super Heavy first stage. However, it featured a dramatic daylight soft landing of the Starship second stage in the Indian Ocean—along with a banana.

Today’s mission experienced an unusually smooth countdown for an experimental development flight, with the final hold skipped as the world’s largest rocket launched at 4:00 pm CST from SpaceX’s Starbase site in Boca Chica, Texas.

Smooth Ascent and Hot-Stage Separation

The ascent proceeded smoothly, with peak aerodynamic stress occurring around one minute into the mission. At two minutes and 32 seconds, all but the core of the 30 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy first stage shut down. Seven seconds later, the Starship second stage separated in a hot-staging maneuver, with the Super Heavy continuing to fire its engines while Starship ignited.

As Starship entered a suborbital trajectory, the Super Heavy performed a routine boostback burn to return to Starbase. However, the Mechzilla tower system did not capture it, as safety concerns led to a Go/No Go decision vetoing the capture. Instead, the rocket made a soft landing in the Gulf of Mexico.

Starship Coasts to Landing with Orbital Return Burn Test

Meanwhile, Starship coasted toward its landing site in the Indian Ocean. During the flight, it reignited a Raptor engine. While not required for the mission, this served as a test for the orbital return burn necessary for Starship’s future reusability.

Approximately 47 minutes after launch, Starship reentered the atmosphere, performed a flip to position its engines downward, and made a powered landing 1 hour and 5 minutes after launch in daylight. This provided not only stunning footage but also valuable data for SpaceX engineers.

The mission marked the final flight of Starship’s Block One, with Flight 7 set to debut the upgraded Block 2, which will carry double the payload. Notably, Flight 6 also carried the first actual payload on a Starship—a single banana suspended on strings to serve as a visual cue for when the spacecraft reached weightlessness.

The mission’s practical goals included testing redundant propulsion systems, enhanced structural reinforcement, and updated software controls. Additionally, Starship featured a new heat shield configuration designed to accommodate docking systems for future fuel deliveries to an orbital supply depot. This updated shield is also better equipped to withstand the steeper reentry angle necessary for future capture landings.

SpaceX stated that due to the transition to a new version of Starship, Mission 7 will take longer to prepare than the time between Flights 5 and 6.

No details have been released regarding what type of fruit will be onboard.

Read the original article on: New Atlas

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