Starship Flight 6

The Mechazilla tower at Starbase had caught one booster on the previous flight. The arms were ready to catch a second.

On 19 November 2024, Booster 13 lifted from OLP-1 in the late afternoon and began its return. During ascent the engine plume had bent a communications antenna on the tower, and by the time the booster was on approach the link required to authorize a catch had gone. SpaceX diverted it to a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.

Ship 31 carried Starship's first payload — a stuffed toy banana, serving as the zero-gravity indicator. It stayed onboard. Above the ocean, a single Raptor relit in space for the first time, raising the apogee from 190 to 228 kilometres. The ship reentered along a steeper trajectory with heat-shield tiles deliberately removed in places, and splashed down in the Indian Ocean in daylight, the first Starship reentry to do so.