The sixth flight of SpaceX’s Starship unfolded on November 16, 2024, delivering a mix of experimental success and whimsy. While the mission lacked a capture landing for the Super Heavy booster, it marked a significant achievement with Starship’s powered daylight landing in the Indian Ocean—carrying a single banana as its payload.
Lifting off at 4:00 PM CST from SpaceX’s Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, the countdown proceeded smoothly for a developmental mission. As the massive rocket ascended, its 30 Raptor engines carried Starship past peak aerodynamic stress within a minute. The Super Heavy stage shut down its core engines at two minutes and 32 seconds, transitioning into a dramatic hot-staging sequence with Starship firing up as Super Heavy continued its burn.
Super Heavy executed a boost-back burn, but a Go/No Go safety check led to a soft landing in the Gulf of Mexico rather than a precision capture by the Mechzilla tower. Meanwhile, Starship soared to its planned trajectory, testing orbital return burns and reentering the atmosphere 47 minutes after launch. The spacecraft performed a controlled flip, aligning its engines downward for a daylight-powered landing after one hour and five minutes a milestone for engineers capturing vital data.
This mission also marked the final flight of the Starship Block 1 variant, with Block 2 set to debut in Flight 7, doubling payload capacity. Starship tested new propulsion redundancies, structural upgrades, software controls, and a revised heat shield accommodating docking systems for future orbital refueling missions.
Amid these technical triumphs, the banana payload stood as a playful nod to the simplicity of progress amid complexity, serving as a weightlessness visual during the flight. SpaceX’s upcoming Flight 7 will take longer to prepare but promises further advancements fruit selection pending. Catch highlights of this historic flight here.