SpaceX rolls out Starship spacecraft for November 18 launch (Photos)

SpaceX is gearing up for the sixth test flight of its Starship mega-rocket, which is now less than a week away.

Elon Musk‘s company rolled the sixth Starship the vehicle’s 50-meter-high upper stage to the launch pad at the South Texas Starbase for testing prior to the planned launch on November 18.

SpaceX documented the milestone on post three photos of the move on Tuesday (November 12).

close-up of part of a silver spacecraft, with a drawing of a cartoon banana holding a banana. — The Starship’s upper stage features a banana “for scale”. (Image credit: SpaceX via X)

One of the photos is a close-up that focuses on some colorful artwork adorning the stainless steel spacecraft: a pixelated, smiling cartoon banana holding a relatively realistic banana.

This is apparently a reference to the ‘banana for scale’ joke that engineers and other aerospace professionals – including Tory Bruno, CEO of United Launch Alliance – like to make.

a large silver spacecraft stands next to a launch tower near the sea, with the rising sun in the background

The sixth upper stage of the spacecraft next to the launch tower at Starbase in South Texas. (Image credit: SpaceX via X)

Starship is the largest and most powerful rocket ever built. The vehicle consists of the upper stage – known as Starship, or simply ‘Ship’ – and a massive first stage booster called Super Heavy. When these two elements are stacked, the rocket is almost 400 feet tall.

Both Starship stages are designed to be completely and rapidly reusable, a breakthrough that SpaceX says will usher in a new era of space travel and exploration.

Starship has flown five times so far: in April and November 2023 and in March, June and October this year. During the most recent flight, that one took place on October 13SpaceX successfully landed Super Heavy back on the launch pad, catching the giant booster with the “chopstick” arms of Starbase’s launch tower.

The company will attempt to repeat this feat on Flight 6. The upper stage, meanwhile, will crash into the Indian Ocean, just as it did on Flight 5.