SpaceX prepares for Starship flight with first ‘chopstick’ landing.

SpaceX is making final preparations for the fifth and most ambitious Starship test flight ever. While the previous four flights were all intended for a splashdown in the sea, this test will be the first attempt to land on the launch pad.

What is Starship?

It is the heaviest and most powerful rocket ever flown. SpaceX aims to develop into a rapidly reusable launch vehicle that can take large payloads to space, land back at the launch pad and be ready for another mission within days or even hours. Subsequent test flights over the past two years have progressed towards this goal.

NASA has contracted SpaceX to provide a special lunar variant of Starship to take astronauts to the surface of the moon sometime after the end of 2026. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s ultimate ambition for Starship is to put man on Mars.

What will SpaceX test during its fifth test flight?

Flight five is likely the first attempt to get Starship’s Super Heavy booster — the first stage of the rocket — onto the launch pad. SpaceX’s launch tower, called Mechazilla, is equipped with a pair of “chopsticks” that eventually. pick up the booster at a specific point and make sure, that allows you to lower after the remaining distance to the ground.

The fourth test flight saw the booster make a “virtual landing” at sea, slowing its descent just above the surface to simulate what would be required for a real capture of Mechazilla, before it plunged into the water . After the success of this test, Musk posted on X that “I think we should try to capture the booster with the Mechazilla weapons next flight.”

When is it expected to launch?

We don’t have an official launch date yet, but a full length test burn of the first stage of the rocket was carried out on July 15, which means that there is little today in the way.

Musk himself said in a X post on July 6th that the launch would take place in “4 weeks” – placing the provisional on or around August 3. But third-party reports from a talk by Musk at the X Takeover conference on July 28 suggested that this was pushed back to late August or early September.

What happened during previous Starship launches?

Test Flight 1 on April 20, 2023 saw three of the 33 first stage engines fail to ignite. Several others failed later during the flight. The rocket then spiraled out of control, causing its self-destruct feature to activate.

Test Flight 2 on November 18 of the same year went further, gaining enough altitude that the first and second stages separated as planned. But as the first stage rotated to begin its slow-down and landing procedure, it exploded. The second stage continued successfully at an altitude of about 149 kilometers, passing the Kármán line that marks the beginning of space. However, a failsafe destroyed it when it stopped sending data, before it had a chance to complete an orbit or return to Earth.

Test flight 3 on March 14 of this year was at least a partial success as it reached space, performed fuel transfer tests and traveled further and faster than ever. But the craft failed to make its scheduled landing after losing attitude control during the flight.

Test flight 4 on June 6 of this year was the most successful so far, with Starship reaching an altitude of more than 200 kilometers and traveling at more than 27,000 kilometers per hour. Both the booster and upper stage completed soft splashdowns in the ocean. There were dramatic scenes as Starship re-entered Earth orbit, as extreme temperatures caused the skin on one of its control fins to burn – something the company says it has fixed with new resistant tile designs to the heat.

What happens if this launch goes wrong?

It will probably go wrong, in one respect, since Starship is highly unlikely to complete its mission flawlessly. But each failure provides data and experience that can be used to improve the design and processes for the sixth launch. SpaceX has shown that it can iterate quickly and make significant progress with each launch.

However, the company’s bold strategy to capture the booster on the launch pad will put not only the craft but also the ground hardware at risk. This means that the fifth test flight is perhaps the riskiest to date: Musk said in his talk at X Takeover that there was a 50 percent chance of success.