MARK YOUR CALENDARS: SpaceX’s Starship Test, Weeks After the Last One, Highlights Rapid Changes in the Space Industry.

You’d think that a high-tech space company, in an industry known for painstaking research and vastly costly hardware development, would sit on its laurels for a while and carefully consider its next steps. Nope. It seems SpaceX’s engineers have already done that, and are so satisfied with the progress of the rocket’s development they just set a date for the next test flight, now scheduled for Nov. 18.

That’s about a month between the fifth and sixth flights of the world’s most powerful rocket. It means that SpaceX has the rocket and engine hardware for the next flight ready and waiting, and that it’s dealt with any issues like damage caused to the launch tower and the miles of complex fuel pipes, electrical wiring and mechanical systems needed to fuel the rocket up and get it flying into space. It’s a furious pace of development.

SpaceX’s post also notes that the next flight won’t merely be about replaying the previous mission. Instead the test will try to “expand the envelope on ship and booster capabilities and get closer to bringing reuse of the entire system online.” Reuse is a critical goal for the program, based on the company’s successes in reducing the cost of flying satellites to orbit achieved in its existing, much smaller, Falcon 9 rocket.

The biggest hurdles remaining are orbital refueling and safely bringing the upper stage into Mechazilla’s tender embrace. Mexico likely won’t allow reentry through their airspace until Starship has made a few safe landings elsewhere.

There’s much left to do but the results have been impressive.