BREMEN, Germany — SpaceX launched its Starship vehicle on its sixth test flight on Nov. 19, but canceled a planned landing of the Super Heavy booster at the launch site.

The Starship/Super Heavy vehicle lifted off from SpaceX’s Starbase test site in Boca Chica, Texas, at 5:00 PM Eastern. The launch took place at the opening of a 30-minute launch period, with no problems reported during the countdown. Among the guests at the launch was newly elected President Donald Trump, who has had close ties with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk since the election two weeks ago.

The Super Heavy booster, known as Booster 13, separated from the Starship’s upper stage about two minutes and 45 seconds after launch. The booster began returning to the launch site, but just over a minute later controllers announced ‘booster offshore divert’, meaning the booster would not return to the launch pad.

SpaceX did not specify under what condition the booster had to divert. Instead, the booster made a powered “landing” in the Gulf of Mexico just offshore of the launch site, before tipping over and exploding seconds later. It was at least a minor setback for SpaceX after the company successfully “captured” the booster at the launch tower on its previous launch on October 13.

However, the booster successfully placed the spaceship’s upper stage, known as ship 31, on a suborbital trajectory. During its time in space, SpaceX briefly reignited one of the vehicle’s Raptor engines, a test of that power needed for deorbit burns on later missions.

Starship then conducted a reentry over the Indian Ocean. Before the flight, the company said it was changing the reentry profile, including “purposefully emphasizing the limits of flap control,” and that it was also using an older version of the thermal protection system than the previous flight.

“Don’t be surprised if this isn’t a smooth flight to landing today. We are purposefully exploring how far we can go and discovering the true limits of the vehicle as we plan for future ship return and capture,” said Kate Tice, one of the hosts of the SpaceX webcast. SpaceX plans to eventually return Starship to the launch site with a catch like the one used for the Super Heavy booster.

The spacecraft made it through reentry intact, albeit with some visible damage to a valve and other parts of the thermal protection system. The vehicle made a soft landing in the ocean 65 and a half minutes after takeoff, tipped over on its side and floated on the surface. The shift in launch time from morning to afternoon meant the landing took place during daylight in the Indian Ocean, allowing for better video coverage of Starship’s return.

SpaceX is integrating upgrades into the next upper stage of the Starship, the company said during the launch webcast. That includes stretching the vehicle to accommodate larger fuel tanks, increasing the vehicle’s payload from 1,200 to 1,500 tons. The front flaps, used to control the vehicle during reentry, are smaller and in a different location to provide better protection against the heat of reentry. The company did not provide an estimated date for a launch.

SpaceX was able to conduct this flight just over a month after the previous flight because the company did not have to change its launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA’s license for the Flight 5 mission also approved this Flight 6 mission because the limited changes for Flight 6 were deemed “within the scope of what has previously been analyzed,” the FAA said in October when it issued the license handed out.

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