Assembling Starship Flight Test 6

The NASASpaceflight folks had a live feed ready to start within minutes of when I sat down to write.  Originally set to start at 8:00 PM EST,that has shifted later three times already. So far. While the expected run time isn't given they don't tend to do these live streams for more than "a couple" of hours.  The goal?  To stack the Starship on the booster to prepare for Monday's flight test 6 (IFT-6).  

Starship 31 was rolled to the Orbital Launch Mount area on Tuesday, Nov. 12. Superheavy booster 13 was rolled to the pad earlier today, the 14th, and lifted onto the OLM yielding this view, posted to X earlier today. 

Image credit: SpaceX

Unfortunately, the cropping in the photo removes this detail, which changed the ship's name in my mind from Ship 31 to Starship Banana

Image credit: SpaceX

A closeup picture I saw of the Cogent Banana holding a much smaller banana shows the word "SCALE" on the smaller banana. I got the impression that means it's painted to the size of some standardized banana, to enable quick comparisons in videos. Not that I can see how that could be useful.  But I also concluded that Cogent Banana would be a good name for rock band.  Standardized Banana would be a lower level choice.

IFT-6 is currently scheduled for a 30 minute launch window opening at 5:00 PM EST on Monday, November 18 and will look much like previous Flight Test 5. 

The next Starship flight test aims to expand the envelope on ship and booster capabilities and get closer to bringing reuse of the entire system online. Objectives include the booster once again returning to the launch site for catch, reigniting a ship Raptor engine while in space, and testing a suite of heatshield experiments and maneuvering changes for ship reentry and descent over the Indian Ocean. 
...
Several thermal protection experiments and operational changes will test the limits of Starship’s capabilities and generate flight data to inform plans for ship catch and reuse. The flight test will assess new secondary thermal protection materials and will have entire sections of heat shield tiles removed on either side of the ship in locations being studied for catch-enabling hardware on future vehicles. The ship also will intentionally fly at a higher angle of attack in the final phase of descent, purposefully stressing the limits of flap control to gain data on future landing profiles. Finally, adjusting the flight’s launch window to the late afternoon at Starbase will enable the ship to reenter over the Indian Ocean in daylight, providing better conditions for visual observations.

Future ships, starting with the vehicle planned for seventh flight test, will fly with significant upgrades including redesigned forward flaps, larger propellant tanks, and the latest generation tiles and secondary thermal protection layers as we continue to iterate towards a fully reusable heat shield. Learnings from this and subsequent flight tests will continue to make the entire Starship system more reliable as we close in on full and rapid reusability.