This article has been revised to account for the rescheduled launch on Saturday. The delay is necessary to provide ground teams with additional time to replace a grid fin actuator on the booster.
Now armed with an FAA launch license, SpaceX is poised for the second test flight of a fully integrated Starship rocket. Regardless of the outcome, the event is bound to be a visually stunning spectacle. Here’s how you can witness the action.
The 20-minute launch window opens at 8:00 a.m. ET on Saturday, November 18, with the rocket blasting off from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas.
The two-stage rocket lasted for approximately six minutes during its first test flight on April 20, with a failed stage separation forcing ground controllers to issue a self-destruct command with the vehicle above the Gulf of Mexico.
You can watch a live webcast of the flight test at SpaceX’s website or at SpaceX’s official X channel. A number of third-party providers will also be setting up livestreams, which we will add here as they become available. the rescheduled launch
During the upcoming second test flight of Starship, SpaceX is introducing several key innovations. These include the testing of a new water-cooled steel flame deflector, the implementation of an electronic thrust vector control system for the booster’s Raptor engines (enabling mid-flight steering), and the adoption of a new hot-staging approach. In this hot-staging method, the Starship upper stage engines will ignite before the separation of stages.
The extensive preparations for this rocket’s second flight test involve over a thousand different modifications, showcasing SpaceX’s commitment to refining and advancing its technology.