this post was submitted on 17 May 2024
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submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

SpaceX Starship page

Portions of this thread copied from a Starship Dev thread on r/SpaceX.

FAQ

  1. When next launch? (IFT-5) Booster catch NET late July, per Elon.
  2. When previous launch? (IFT-4)? Booster 11 and Ship 29 launched on 2024-06-06.
  3. What was the result? Both booster and ship make it to landing burn and splashdown. Ship flaps took a beating on reentry, but remained in control of the vehicle.

Quick Links

RAPTOR ROOST | LAB CAM | SAPPHIRE CAM | SENTINEL CAM | ROVER CAM | ROVER 2.0 CAM | PLEX CAM | NSF STARBASE

IFT-4 launch thread | Starship Dev 55 | IFT-3 launch thread | Starship Dev 54 | Starship Dev 53 | Starship Dev 52 | Starship Dev 51

Official SpaceX Starship Update Video (2024-04-06)


Status

Road Closures - @bocaroad Mastodon bot

Type Start (CDT) End (CDT) Status
Primary Date 2024-07-09 08:00 2024-07-09 20:00 Possible Closure.
Backup Date 2024-07-10 08:00 2024-07-10 20:00 Possible Closure.
Backup Date 2024-07-11 08:00 2024-07-11 20:00 Possible Closure.
Primary Day 2024-07-10 12:00 2024-07-11 00:00 "Clossure" Scheduled.
Alternative Day 2024-07-11 12:00 2024-07-12 00:00 Possible "Clossure".
Alternative Day 2024-07-12 08:00 2024-07-12 20:00 Possible "Clossure".

Up to date as of 2024-07-11

Vehicle Status

As of 2024-06-29

Follow Ring Watchers on Twitter and Discord for more.

Ship Location Status Comment
S26 Rocket Garden Resting Static fire Oct. 20. No fins or heat shield, multiple mysterious changes. Completed 3 cryo tests, latest on Oct 10. Rolls to Massey's May 8th, cryo test May 24th, static fired Jun 3rd, rolls to rocket garden Jun 12th.
S29 Indian Ocean Successful launch and soft water landing Spin prime Mar 11th, Static fire Mar 25th (6 engines) and 27th (1 engine), partial WDR May 16th, full WDR May 20th, full WDR May 28th, FTS installed May 30th, stacked on Jun 1st, launched on IFT-4 Jun 6th.
S30 Highbay Undergoing heatshield upgrade 2x cryo: Jan 3rd and Jan 5th. Engines installed ~Apr 9th. Static fired May 8th.
S31 Megabay 2 Pending engine install Cryo tested May 12th, suffers small electrical fire. Underwent repairs in the Highbay, rolls back to Massey's Jul 1. Cryo tested Jul 2nd and 3rd.
S32 Rocket Garden Resting Fully stacked, fore flaps installed but not aft flaps
S33-35 Abandoned Parts spotted, likely to be scrapped in preparation for Starship v2
S36-37 Build Site Parts spotted Starship v2 forward flap spotted
Booster Location Status Comment
B11 Gulf of Mexico Successful launch and soft water landing Completed 2 Cryo tests. Static fired Apr 5th, hot stage ring installed ~May 3rd, partial WDR May 16th, full WDR May 20th, full WDR May 28th, FTS installed May 30th, launched IFT-4 on Jun 6th.
B12 Pad A Pending static fire Cryo x2
B13 Megabay 1 Testing Cryo tests Apr 26th (methane tank) and Apr 29th (LOX tank)
B14 Megabay 1 Pending cryo Stacked Apr 26th
B14.1 Sanchez Resting Multiple catch simulation "slap tests" performed on Jun 26th and 27th.
B15 Build Site Assembly Potential aft end, common dome section, aft tank section, and forward dome spotted.
B16 Build Site Assembly Parts spotted
B17 Build Site Assembly Parts spotted

Resources

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

This thread is no longer being updated, and has been replaced by:

Starship Development Thread #57

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Starbase activities (2024-07-10):

Other:

  • Recent Starship Gazer videos on Tower B construction and S30 heat shield replacement.
  • SpaceX publicly responds to a NYT article on the affects of Starbase on piping plover populations. It is somewhat unusual to see an official SpaceX social media account used in this manner. Anyone else remember any similar examples?
[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-07-09):

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Starbase activities (2024-07-08):

Other:

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-07-07):

Other:

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Starbase activities (2024-07-06):

Other:

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Apologies for the delay. Starbase activities (2024-07-05):

Other:

  • Closeup of S30 tile removal process. "Simple tooling to make this fast and repeatable", is in the works, per Elon.
  • Flight 5 in 4 weeks, per Elon. This gives us a new NET date of Aug 2.
[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-07-04):

Other:

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Starbase activities (2024-07-03):

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-07-02):

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-07-01):

Other:

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-06-30):

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-06-29):

IFT-5:

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-06-28):

Other:

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-06-27):

Other: Highlights from StarBase update with Kathy Lueders

  • 3 months to completion of Starfactory
  • Working with TXDOT on expanding HWY 4 to a 4 lane road eventually
  • Starbase commercial retail Space on hold.
  • Staff residency over 50% local to Brownsville with ~400 staff living on site.
  • Permanent Orbital Fuel Depot for Moon + Mars missions
  • SpaceX monitoring sound levels for Port Isabel + SPI + Brownsville during testing.
  • Texas Parks & Wildlife Environmental mitigation teams in place before and after launches.
  • Monthly emergency management meetings with Cameron County and local hospitals for catastrophe scenarios.
[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Starbase activities (2024-06-26):

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Starbase activities (2024-06-25):

Other:

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-06-24):

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-06-23):

Other:

  • "The best appendix is no appendix": Lars Blackmore (SpaceX principal landing engineer) belatedly expresses his pleasure at the success of IFT-4. Tweet 1, tweet 2, tweet 3.
  • Elon replies to Tim Dodd, and highlights upcoming changes with Raptor 3. Integrated regenerative cooling channels throughout the engine eliminates the need for engine shielding and reduces the required fire suppression system.
[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-06-22):

Other:

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Starbase activities (2024-06-21):

Other:

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-06-20):

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-06-19):

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-06-18):

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-06-17):

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-06-16):

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-06-14):

Starbase activities (2024-06-15):

IFT-5

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Starbase activities (2024-06-13):

Other:

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-06-12):

IFT-4/IFT-5:

  • No mishap investigation: "The FAA assessed the operations of the SpaceX Starship Flight 4 mission. All flight events for both Starship and Super Heavy appear to have occurred within the scope of planned and authorized activities."
[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-06-11):

KSC: Zack highlights notable points in the environmental impact statement for LC-39A, and posts additional thoughts.

  • 35 booster engines, 9 ship engines
  • Up to 44 launches per year with both pad and drone ship landings
  • Separate catch and launch towers
  • Liquid methane, LOX, and LN2 produced on site.
  • 3.8 megalitre water deluge planned, 2.5x larger than current Starbase deluge.
[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-06-10):

IFT-4:

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-06-09):

IFT-5 info from Elon:

  • Launch NET one month from now.
  • S30 heat shield to be replaced with tiles which are twice as strong, and adding an secondary ablative protection.
[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-06-08):

KSC:

Other:

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Starbase activities (2024-06-07):

KSC:

Other:

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Starbase activities (2024-06-06):

IFT-4:

KSC:

Other:

I need to get some sleep, and you probably should too :)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Starbase activities (2024-06-05):

KSC:

  • Second chopstick is loaded onto barge, joining the first chopstick, the chopsticks carriage, and the two tower segments.

IFT-4:

Other:

  • New Ringwatchers article summarizing the history of S29 and B11.
  • Elon and Tim Dodd (EverydayAstronaut) are spotted on LabPadre Rover Cam (bottom left):

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-06-04):

KSC:

IFT-4:

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Can't wait for Thursday, it's going to be great!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Same! Super excited to see re-entry again. Hopefully the ship survives further than last time.

What are your expectations? Do you think the ship and booster could make it all the way to splashdown this time?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I will set my expectations pretty low as usual haha, so that I'm at worst satisfied with the outcome, and at best, pleasantly surprised.

So, I'm thinking the ship is not going to make it to splashdown. If Flight 4 is a repeat of Flight 3 minus the tumbling and with the ship going a bit farther into the reentry, then it's already progress. For the booster, from the SpaceX article they published some time ago, it seems that the issue requires a redesign, and that the fix applied on Booster 11 is only partial. I wouldn't be surprised if it still RUDs during the landing burn, but who knows?

What I'm more interested about is the flight rate, which is not so great at the moment.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Flight rate hasn't been too bad. They've reduced the time between each flight to under three months now. If they keep this cadence up, they'll do at least two more flights this year, doubling last year's cadence.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

No sure that's already pretty great. It's just that given their objectives and their fly-break-fix methodology, they really need to crank up those numbers!

(And also, I'm a bit impatient haha.)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

And also, I'm a bit impatient

Haha, same. IFT-5 is now NET July, so even if it slips to August, that would still be an improvement in their flight cadence.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-06-02):

KSC

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Starbase activities (2024-06-01):

KSC:

IFT-4:

Other:

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-05-31):

KSC:

  • Empty barge heading to KSC, likely for the two remaining tower segments.
[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-05-30):

Elon tweet on heat shield tiles: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1796049014938357932

Unless we make the heat shield relatively heavy, as is the case with our Dragon capsule, where reliability is paramount, we will only discover the weak points by flying.

Right now, we are not resilient to loss of a single tile in most places, as the secondary containment material will probably not survive.

I will explain the problem in more depth with @Erdayastronaut next week. This is a thorny issue indeed, given that vast resources have been applied to solve it, thus far to no avail.

Tim Dodd confirms Starbase tour to be filmed before IFT-4.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Starbase activities (2024-05-29):

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

Starbase activities (2024-05-28):

Other:

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