How to watch SpaceX launch Flight 6 of its Starship megarocket today
Advertising
Just before sunset this evening (Nov. 19) on the outskirts of the southernmost town in Texas, SpaceX’s Starship rocket is scheduled to launch on its sixth test flight to space, and you can watch it live on Space.com.
The two-stage reusable vehicle is the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, consisting of the Starship upper stage and its Super Heavy booster. Today’s launch, designated Integrated Flight Test-6 (IFT-6), is scheduled to lift off during a 30-minute window that opens at 5:00 p.m. EST (2100 GMT; 4 p.m. local Texas time).
This will be SpaceX’s second Starship launch in as many months, having successfully flown IFT-5 on Oct. 13. Today’s launch will largely mirror that most recent flight, with the return and catch of the Super Heavy booster using the launch tower’s “chopstick” arms, and a controlled splashdown of Starship in the Indian Ocean.
The livestream for SpaceX’s Starship Flight 6 will begin 30 minutes before the opening of the launch window, around 4:30 p.m. EST (2030 GMT). SpaceX’s official stream can be found through the company’s X account, which will be simulcast on the Space.com YouTube channel, VideoFromSpace. Live coverage of the launch will also appear at the top of the Space.com homepage.
Related: SpaceX rolls Starship Flight 6 Super Heavy rocket to pad ahead of Nov. 19 launch (photos)
Building on the success of IFT-5, today’s Starship launch will also attempt to perform a boost-back and chopstick arm catch of the Super Heavy booster. The Starship upper stage has new objectives not included in its last flight, including, “reigniting a [Star]ship Raptor engine while in space, and testing a suite of heatshield experiments and maneuvering changes for ship reentry and descent over the Indian Ocean,” the company wrote in a mission description.
Super Heavy and Starship were separately transported to the pad at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in southern Texas last week, where the two were stacked in preparation for today’s launch. Combined, the integrated Starship rocket stands nearly 400 feet (122 meters) tall, with a diameter of 30 feet (9 m). Once in operation, it is expected that Starship will be capable of lifting payloads up to 100 tons to low Earth orbit, and transporting crews to the surface of the moon and Mars.
NASA is counting on that capability as a part of its Artemis program. SpaceX was awarded NASA’s first Human Landing Services contract in 2021, tapping Starship as the lunar lander for Artemis 3, which will return NASA astronauts to the surface of the moon for the first time since the end of the Apollo missions, in 1972. Artemis 3 is currently scheduled to launch in September 2025.
The space agency’s vested interest in Starship’s success comes alongside possible delays to both Artemis 3 and its predecessor Artemis 2, which face uncertainty as damage to Orion’s heat shield on Artemis 1 is under scrutiny from the NASA inspector general.
