SpaceX Starship launch live: Watch megarocket attempt sixth test flight in Texas

SpaceX told press that, if conditions are not ideal, its Super Heavy booster will default to a trajectory that will force it to splashdown safely in the Gulf of Mexico.

The company said that the booster’s return to the launchpad will only take place if the conditions are right to ensure the safety of the public and the SpaceX team.

Ideally, however, this afternoon’s launch will provide valuable data on the particulars of its ‘chopstick’ landing back on the launch pad.

Musk has said that ‘thousands of small design changes [are] also being tested,’ although he didn’t specifically state what those changes happen to be.

But, per SpaceX itself, the company hopes to further observe and improve its hardware and software performance, based on data collected during this test, to ‘increase structural strength at key areas, and shorten the timeline to offload propellants from the booster following a successful catch.’

In its current iteration, Starship is a two-stage reusable space vehicle and the largest and most powerful rocket ever built.

Musk has boasted that his Starship is now ‘more than twice as powerful as the Saturn V Moon rocket’ which launched NASA’s Apollo 4 mission in 1967.

Consisting of the Starship upper stage and the Super Heavy booster, this version of Starship is powered by six engines: three normal ‘Raptor’ engines and three Raptor Vacuum (RVac) engines, tailor-made by SpaceX’s team for the unique needs of operating in the vacuum of space.

The Super Heavy booster, which will help the craft break free of Earth’s atmosphere, is powered by 33 Raptor engines, with 13 at the center and 20 more around the perimeter of the booster rocket’s aft or trail end.

These myriad individual boosters are what will be blasting in a delicate dance to stick the reusable craft’s now famous ‘chopstick’ landing.

Musk has set an epic fantasy tone for his sixth test launch of Starship.

The billionaire mogul posted a photo showing a pair of launch scaffolds used to keep the spacecraft stable during takeoff, with an allusion to Tolkien’s second ‘Lord of the Rings’ novel, ‘The Two Towers.’

Tolkien was never clear publicly on which of the five towers in this fantasy novel were being directly referenced with his book’s title, and it is even less clear here what subtext Musk is endeavoring to convey.