SpaceX’s sixth launch and landing test of a Starship prototype resulted in a successfully completed mission on Tuesday 19th November 2024.
However, like it happened in Flight 5, the global space enthusiast community was expecting the catch of the Flight 6 Super Heavy rocket booster by the launch tower Chopsticks.
Even after ground control announcing that the Super Heavy booster was a go-for landing-catch, SpaceX aborted it in the last moments. The Flight 6 booster (Booster 13) was then redirected to the Gulf of Mexico for a soft splashdown landing in the ocean. The alternate trajectory and landing location were pre-decided as a backup plan if the catch wasn’t possible.
During the Starship Flight 6 live webcast, SpaceX hosts explained that the landing-catch was aborted due to safety reasons. If the Super Heavy crashed during the landing-catching, it would destroy the launch tower (Mechazilla), the orbital launch mount (OLM), and the nearby tank farm that is used to load and empty propellant from both the 1st—and 2nd-stage Starship.
To watch the Starship Flight 6 test in person, President-elect Donald Trump and the general public were also present in the surroundings of Starbase, Boca Chica, Texas (at least a few miles away from the launch and landing site). This situation made safety even more critical at the time and SpaceX decided to land the booster in the ocean.
Still, the question remained — why was the landing-catch aborted? Which system actually lapsed that pushed SpaceX to take this decision?
The best way to get a clear and straightforward answer is to ask none other than the SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. Yesterday, as Musk posted his Diablo IV gameplay footage inside the X Community of the video game, he was asked this question by a space influencer.
“What caused the catch abort?” the Musk/SpaceX fan asked.
“Lost comms to the launch tower computer. Catch would probably still have worked, but we weren’t sure, so erred on the side of caution,” Elon Musk replied.
The Flight 6 Super Heavy booster lost communications to the launch tower computer. As safety was the top priority, SpaceX decided to land the booster in the ocean.
During the live-stream webcast by Everyday Astronaut (at 3:26:40), Zack Golden from CSI Starbase pointed out that the lightning/communications tower on Mechazilla was damaged. The communications tower (image below), was most probably damaged during Flight 6 liftoff. Musk later confirmed that the Flight 6 Super Heavy catch abort was due to the loss of communications with the booster.
The loss of communications in return resulted in the booster being diverted to the Gulf of Mexico for a vertical splashdown landing.
Update:
In its official summary of the Starship Flight 6 test, SpaceX confirmed that the abort was triggered by automated health checks of critical hardware on the launch tower and catch tower. SpaceX wrote:
Following a nominal ascent and stage separation, the booster successfully transitioned to its boostback burn to begin the return to launch site. During this phase, automated health checks of critical hardware on the launch and catch tower triggered an abort of the catch attempt. The booster then executed a pre-planned divert maneuver, performing a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.
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