The sixth test flight of the Starship system was met with partial disappointment when SpaceX announced shortly after liftoff that it would not attempt to catch the Super Heavy booster at the launch tower, as it had successfully done during the fifth test, just over a month ago. Instead of attempting to land at the launch site in South Texas, the booster redirected its course and executed a landing maneuver over the sea and after briefly hovering above the water, it plunged into the Gulf of Mexico.
The company stated that it decided to forgo the landing attempt since "automated health checks of critical hardware on the launch and catch tower triggered an abort of the catch attempt." SpaceX had previously emphasized that landing the booster on the launch pad would only occur if all safety conditions were met—for both the rocket and the launch site—and with final approval from the control team leader. In the event of a safety concern, the booster would be directed to a sea landing, as was the case during this test flight.
Other components of the launch performed well: the launch itself was smooth, with all 33 Raptor engines of the Super Heavy operating as planned. Approximately 2 minutes and 40 seconds after liftoff, the hot staging phase was executed: just seconds before separation from the booster, the engines of the spacecraft ignited, continuing its planned trajectory into space. About six minutes later, the spacecraft’s six Raptor engines shut down as planned, allowing it to proceed on a ballistic trajectory, reaching an altitude of nearly 200 kilometers at a speed exceeding 26,000 km/h.
The most significant progress during the sixth test occurred about 30 minutes after launch, when for the first time, one of the Starship’s six engines was reignited in space. Engine reignition in space is a crucial step toward realizing SpaceX’s future plans to land both the booster and the spacecraft itself on the launch pad in a controlled manner. Engine reignition will also be essential for inserting the spacecraft into orbit around Earth—a milestone not yet achieved—for reentry from such an orbit, refueling maneuvers between spacecraft, and missions to destinations like the Moon and Mars, including landing on their surfaces.
Approximately 40 minutes after launch, the spacecraft began its high-speed reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. SpaceX engineers introduced several changes to the spacecraft’s heat shield structure, which was smaller than in the previous test. Thousands of tiles were removed to test the spacecraft's resistance to the high temperatures of atmospheric reentry, along with slight modifications to the composition of other protective layers. The spacecraft passed this test highly successfully, achieving a perfect landing at its target site in the Indian Ocean, despite the changes to its heat protection system. This time, the water landing was scheduled to occur during daylight hours to provide better footage from cameras on buoys around the landing site—not only for public relations but primarily to study the performance of the spacecraft and its systems.
Summary of previous and upcoming chapters
The latest launch marked the sixth test flight of the Starship system. In the first test, conducted in April 2023, the spacecraft failed to separate from the booster, resulting in both exploding mid-air. In the second test, in November 2023, the spacecraft reached space but exploded there, while the booster failed during an attempt to perform a sea landing maneuver. In the third test, in March 2024, the spacecraft burned up and exploded upon reentry into the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean, while the booster partially completed its sea landing maneuver but failed to finish it.
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In the fourth test, in June 2024, the spacecraft successfully reentered the atmosphere and, despite damage to its flaps, performed a landing maneuver over the Indian Ocean. The booster also completed its landing maneuver over the sea, this time in the Gulf of Mexico, not far from the launch site. In the fifth test, as mentioned, the booster achieved a perfect landing at the launch site, being caught by the tower arms, while the spacecraft successfully executed its landing maneuver over the Indian Ocean before plunging into the sea as planned.
In the upcoming tests, SpaceX is expected to advance toward putting the Starship spacecraft into orbit around Earth and attempting controlled landings on solid ground for both the booster and the spacecraft.
Breaking the market on the way to Mars
This test marks another milestone in SpaceX’s long-term journey to develop a reliable, reusable launch system for heavy payloads to space. This system aims to drastically reduce launch costs—from thousands of dollars per kilogram today to as low as 100 per kilogram. Starship is designed to serve as NASA’s lunar lander for the first crewed landings of the Artemis program and will also enable SpaceX to further expand its Starlink satellite communications network.
Already capturing a growing market share, the Starlink network provided continuous communication with the spacecraft throughout the sixth test mission, both in space and during reentry. Moreover, the powerful launch system will grant SpaceX near-total dominance in the heavy payload market, including launching space stations, large communication satellites, and space telescopes. This capability will allow for larger and more robust designs than ever before.
If the Starship program unfolds as planned, SpaceX is likely to become a leading force in space exploration, with capabilities rivaling those of most nations. However, Elon Musk’s ultimate and most ambitious goal is not merely to dominate Earth’s orbit but to use Starship to establish and develop a human colony on Mars. For this purpose, SpaceX is already designing even larger, more advanced versions of Starship.
To achieve even less ambitious goals, such as lunar Starship missions, SpaceX still needs to develop several fundamental capabilities, including spacecraft maneuvering in space, docking, and refueling in microgravity. Each of these must function flawlessly, even in less complex missions than that of colonizing Mars. Nonetheless, SpaceX consistently demonstrates its willingness to tackle challenges and, most importantly, its ability to learn and improve with every test.