SpaceX Starship page

FAQ

  1. 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.”
  2. Where can I find streams of the launch? SpaceX Full Livestream. NASASpaceFlight Channel. Lab Padre Channel. Everyday Astronaut Channel.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.”
  5. 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.

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Quick Links

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

Starship Dev 46 | Starship Dev 45 | Starship Dev 44 | Starship Dev 43

Official Starship Update | r/SpaceX Update Thread

Status

Road Closures

Type Start (UTC) End (UTC) Status
Primary 2023-08-04 13:00:00 2023-08-05 01:00:00 Possible
Alternative 2023-08-06 13:00:00 2023-08-07 01:00:00 Possible
Alternative 2023-08-07 13:00:00 2023-08-08 01:00:00 Possible

Up to date as of 2023-08-04

Vehicle Status

As of July 28th 2023

Follow Ring Watchers on Twitter and Discord for more.

Ship Location Status Comment
S15 Rocket Garden Scrapped
S20 Rocket Garden Retired
S24 Gulf of Mexico Destroyed Destroyed on during Flight Test 1
S25 Launch Site Testing Spin Prime and Static Fire
S26 Rocket Garden Resting No fins or heat shield, plus other changes.
S27 Rocket Garden Scrapped Common dome imploded
S28 Rocket Garden Pending Raptor install Previously tested at Masseys
S29 High Bay 1 Under construction
S30 Build Site Under construction
S31 Build Site Parts under construction Assorted parts spotted through S34.

 

Booster Location Status Comment
Pre-B7 & B8 Scrapped or Retired B4 is in the Rocket Garden, the rest are scrapped.
B7 Gulf of Mexico Destroyed Destroyed April 20th in Flight Test 1
B9 Mega bay Pending raptor swap and hot-stage ring install Static fire (August 5th)
B10 Masseys Testing Cryo testing
B11 Rocket Garden Resting
B12 Megabay Raceways installed
B13 Build Site Parts under construction
B14 Build Site Parts under construction
B15 Build Site Parts under construction

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Resources

  • pigeonberry@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9·
    2 years ago

    There’s a new (lord I hate the new name) thread from The Ringwatchers @Ringwatchers about the Hot Stage Load Head et al. Someone did an unroll and it’s here. I haven’t time at the moment to go over it in detail. It looks like two ring sections will be above and below, and they will be reinforced because they are irrelevant to the hot stage sieve. The Hot Stage Load Head has been reinforced in several ways; there are pictures. The assembly will go into the can crusher.

  • threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.worksOPMEnglish
    7·
    1 year ago

    Static fire!

    Announcements on the webcast:

    • Test duration 2.74 seconds, with 4 engines shutting down prematurely.
    • Vehicle and pad look good. Preparing for propellant offload.
    • LettuceTurnipTheBeet@lemm.eeEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      Plate seems to have survived this very well. Didn’t see any bits flying up either, and white cloud seems good, so very positive overall.

      But 4 engines shut off and I think John mentioned they were aiming for 5 seconds, so I bet they’ll go for another run in the next few days.

    • xvlc@feddit.deEnglish
      4·
      1 year ago

      If I remember correctly, they can launch with up to three engines missing. I guess the early shutdown of the fourth engine after ~2.74s triggered an abort of the static fire, which was supposed to last for 5 seconds?

  • pigeonberry@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    2 years ago

    More stuff relating to the hot staging system.

    TheSpaceEngineer @mcrs987 provided a tweet Xpulsion:

    Quick rendition of this new ring, it evidently has less material but has more space that could be used to incorporate stringers with the forward section of the booster

    they could also do internal stringers and ribs inside the ring, similar to the ship aft skirt

    Image 1

    Image 2

    They also provided an Xuding. I gather that the piece had been marked that:

    so…that ‘B12 Hot Stage Load Head’ piece came back out of tent 2

    THATS A LOT OF STRINGERS

    Image

    Someone asked, “why are they different from the stringers above? did they put stringers on stringers?”. TheSpaceEngineer replied, “yes”, with a zoom in on the middle, where they really did put larger stringers on top of existing stringers.

    • John_Hasler@lemmy.oneEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      A way to make it quite stiff would be to sandwich stringers between an inner and outer ring.

  • LettuceTurnipTheBeet@lemm.eeEnglish
    5·
    1 year ago

    New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:

    Starbase Live-

    1:12am- S25 starts rolling

    1:20am- Turns on to Hwy 4

    2:08am- Turns on to to Remidos

    2:19am- Arrives at the rocket garden

    7:32am- Sheriff at road block

    7:52am- FireX test

    8:07:20- Deluge test/system prime

    8:09am- Pope stack starts venting

    8:15:33- Igniter test

    8:29am- Grid fin tests

    8:50am- NSF going live

    9:42am- Booster venting it’s ambient pressure

    10:35am- Sub coolers are off. Working a problem in the OTF?

    10:39am- Workers head to pad/ Roadblock still in place

    10:42am- Ship puck shucker headed back to Masseys

    11:00am- Workers at the generator by the Lox sub coolers

    11:04am- Pope stack firing back up

    11:32am- Workers starting to leave pad

    11:35am- All 3 vehicles leave. Pad clear again

    11:44am- Lox subcoolers going again

    12:15pm- OLM vent

    12:53pm- Frost forming on the methane sub coolers

    1:01pm- Waterfall mode on the OLM vent. We’re getting close to fueling

    1:03pm- OLM vent stopped. Prop load should be underway. Around 90 minutes to test possibly

    1:06pm- Engine chill underway

    1:08pm- New engine cavity purge vents going

    1:09pm- Frost forming quickly

    1:10pm- Lox chill pit active

    1:18pm- Methane frost line forming

    2:02pm- Drone

    2:05pm- OLM vent. Loading complete

    2:08pm- FireX / Deluge / Fire (Lots of steam)

    2:10:30- Deluge stops

    2:12pm- Depress vent

    2:41pm- Pad looks good but they are going to need some new fencing

    3:17pm- Engine compartment and Deluge plate purge

    3:47pm- Another purge from the new engine compartment vents

    3:53pm- Big depress vent (That should be it)

    4:55pm- OLM vent

    5:00pm- Road open

    6:16pm- OLM vent finally ends

    7:59pm- 3 SPMT’s headed to launch site with counterweights and connectors. B9 coming back?

    8:04:32pm- SPMT down! Looked like a hydraulic failure? Front went up, back all the way down and to the left where the weight was. They got it leveled back out and going pretty quick though.

    9:22pm- Workers return to pad

    9:28pm- 3 workers kneel down to look at one spot on the plate

    9:48pm- After checking the rest of the pad, they came back for a second look at the one spot

    10:15pm- Workers headed up the stairs to check the inside of the OLM

    10:21pm- Exit the OLM and drive away

    10:52pm- Lift goes back up at OLM (New door)

    (This gets synced)

  • pigeonberry@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    2 years ago

    Bigger deluge test. WARNING: LOUD!

    NASASpaceflight: SpaceX Starship Full-Pressure Deluge Test (YouTube). That has &t=2425s in there to start just before the test. That’s video timestamp 40:25, wall clock at upper left 1:09:50. (Tweet)

    RGV Aerial Photography (but at ground level) (YouTube). I like this because it’s 3 different views, some zoomed in, some distant. (Tweet)

    Andrew C - Rocket Future @TheRocketFuture tweet. A lot like the first. I tried to attach the video but Lemmy wouldn’t take it.

    SpaceX tweeted a couple of things. Picture from ground level and close: Full-pressure test of Starship flame deflector (Twitter). Video, up a bit, just outside the legs, slow motion (Twitter). You can see right down the bidet’s butthole. This is the clearest shot showing that the intent is not to spray cold water on hot metal, but that it all looks angled to the sides.

    (((Geoff))) @DeffGeff (Twitter) sped up the video to normal speed.

    Video posted by He Who Musk Not Be Named, up and further away.

    Marcus House @MarcusHouse 7:02 PM - Jul 28, 2023 (tweet) noted about the SpaceX image, “If you look closely, you can see that much of the water is shooting out in the exact pattern needed for the 33 engines. It is a real thing of beauty.”

    Oh, and Zack Golden @CSI_Starbase tweeted 1:26 PM CDT - Jul 28, 2023,

    Wow! This full pressure test of the flame diverter system was pretty incredible! Crazy there is still an additional water tank missing from this.

    I can’t wait to see this during the first Static Fire test. Would not be surprised to see that as early as next week!

      • few@sh.itjust.worksMEnglish
        2·
        2 years ago

        My take is that the ring may not survive. Stage separation may damage it beyond reuse. Having it be detachable means they can swap it out. It would be a shame to scrap a complete booster just because the top end got a little bent.

  • LettuceTurnipTheBeet@lemm.eeEnglish
    4·
    2 years ago

    New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:

    Starbase live-

    5:59am- Sheriff at road block

    6:05:45- FireX tested

    6:27am- Chopsticks rising

    7:25am- Extremely loud vent

    8:28am- OLM vent

    9:43am- OLM vent stops. Loading should be starting

    9:49am- Engine chill pipe frosty and condensation under booster

    9:53am- Frost line on lox tank

    10:02am- OLM vent back. Propellant load could be finished

    10:09am- FireX seems to start but just trickles.

    10:12am- FireX

    10:13am- Spin prime. Video

    10:16am- Depress vent

    11:00am- Frost free

    12:25pm- OLM vent starting up again

    12:46pm- Frost line on the lox tank. Looks they are going for it again

    1:07pm- Big OLM vent

    1:13pm- Vent stopped again

    1:32pm- Depress vent?

    1:47pm- Frost receding

    2:12pm- Cables being attached on the can crusher.

    2:14pm- New vents around the aft skirt tested

    2:35pm- Another long depress vent

    3:47pm- Road opened

    4:45pm- SQD extends

    5:20pm- OLM vents

    5:30:20pm- Another test of the new vents

    5:43pm- OLM vent ends

    10:26pm- S28 starts rolling at Masseys

    10:58pm- Turns on to Hwy 4

    (This gets synced)