FAQ
- When (first) orbital flight? First integrated flight test occurred April 20, 2023. “The vehicle cleared the pad and beach as Starship climbed to an apogee of ~39 km over the Gulf of Mexico – the highest of any Starship to-date. The vehicle experienced multiple engines out during the flight test, lost altitude, and began to tumble. The flight termination system was commanded on both the booster and ship.”
- Where can I find streams of the launch? SpaceX Full Livestream. NASASpaceFlight Channel. Lab Padre Channel. Everyday Astronaut Channel.
- What’s happening next? SpaceX has assessed damage to Stage 0 and is implementing fixes and changes including a water deluge/pad protection/“shower head” system. No major repairs to key structures appear to be necessary.
- When is the next flight test? Just after flight, Elon stated they “Learned a lot for next test launch in a few months.” On April 29, he reiterated this estimate in a Twitter Spaces Q&A (summarized here), saying “I’m glad to report that the pad damage is actually quite small,” should “be repaired quickly,” and “From a pad standpoint, we are probably ready to launch in 6 to 8 weeks.” Requalifying the flight termination system (FTS) and the FAA post-incident review will likely require the longest time to complete. Musk reiterated the timeline on May 26, stating “Major launchpad upgrades should be complete in about a month, then another month of rocket testing on pad, then flight 2 of Starship.”
- Why no flame diverter/flame trench below the OLM? Musk tweeted on April 21: “3 months ago, we started building a massive water-cooled, steel plate to go under the launch mount. Wasn’t ready in time & we wrongly thought, based on static fire data, that Fondag would make it through 1 launch.” Regarding a trench, note that the Starship on the OLM sits 2.5x higher off the ground than the Saturn V sat above the base of its flame trench, and the OLM has 6 exits vs. 2 on the Saturn V trench.
Quick Links
RAPTOR ROOST | LAB CAM | SAPPHIRE CAM | SENTINEL CAM | ROVER CAM | ROVER 2.0 CAM | PLEX CAM | NSF STARBASE
Relevant Reddit threads (though these likely won’t be accessible during the blackout).
Starship Dev 46 | Starship Dev 45 | Starship Dev 44 | Starship Dev 43 | Starship Thread List
Official Starship Update | r/SpaceX Update Thread
Status
Road Closures
No road closures currently scheduled
No transportation delays currently scheduled
Up to date as of 2023-07-09
Resources
- LabPadre Channel | NASASpaceFlight.com Channel
- NSF: Booster 7 + Ship X (likely 24) Updates Thread | Most Recent
- NSF: Boca Chica Production Updates Thread | Most recent
- NSF: Elon Starship tweet compilation | Most Recent
- SpaceX: Website Starship page | Starship Users Guide (2020, PDF)
- FAA: SpaceX Starship Project at the Boca Chica Launch Site
- FAA: Temporary Flight Restrictions NOTAM list
- FCC: Starship Orbital Demo detailed Exhibit - 0748-EX-ST-2021 application June 20 through December 20
- NASA: Starship Reentry Observation (Technical Report)
- Hwy 4 & Boca Chica Beach Closures (May not be available outside US)
- Production Progress Infographics by @RingWatchers
- Raptor 2 Tracker by @SpaceRhin0
- Acronym definitions by Decronym
- Everyday Astronaut: Starbase Tour with Elon Musk, Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
- Everyday Astronaut: 2022 Elon Musk Interviews, Starbase/Ship Updates | Launch Tower | Merlin Engine | Raptor Engine
I’ll attempt to keep this post current with links and major updates, but would be greatly helped by information supplied by the community. I hope this can be an alternate place to discuss Starship development. While the Starship Development Threads on Reddit are not party threads, Lemmy is still small enough that I don’t imagine that strict moderation will be needed in the short term.
Reddit is nothing without moderators like threelon , and Reddit has done less than nothing with their first party apps to help moderators. To treat the lifeblood of your community with such contempt is a fast way to poison the entire well. If the spacex sub lost it’s volunteer mods it would have been crypto bro hell 3 years ago.
And? Reddit doesn’t give a shit about that. The blackout does nothing to shareholders. Giving away API for free does. They’re going to address one of those issues and it isn’t going to be apologizing or conceding to whiners who can’t conceive of a life without a weird special app for Reddit.
We’re talking about apps used by moderators to do their work. The mods say that the tools provided by Reddit are inadequate.
I understand that, but it does not make my point any less relevant. These morons running around pretending they’re hurting Reddit by not using the native app think they depend on mods and ads. They don’t. They’ll make more by orders of magnitude from profitizing the API. It’s the smart business move, but fucking Reddit communists have no idea how businesses actually operate so they think they’re relevant.
And in what way, exactly, are the mod tools “inadequate”? Every sub I’ve ever been to has been horrendously over moderated, and has driven off massive percentages of new users. If you can’t figure out how to properly use Reddit without a third-party app, you’re a fucking retard.