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·
    1 year 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.

  • Ludu@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    8·
    1 year ago

    Have we seen any sign that B9 has been/is being modified with the additional hot-stage ring and the new FTS ? Right now, to me this seems to be the long pole, more than the OLM.

    • John_HaslerEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      Musk has said that he expected approval of a new FTS to be the long pole.

      • Ludu@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, there is approval. But I’m more talking about the retrofitting, which doesn’t even seem to have started.

  • pigeonberry@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8·
    1 year ago

    Starship Gazer @StarshipGazer 5:21 PM - Jul 20, 2023

    New Booster Hot Staging section spotted earlier today. - 7/20/23 - https://starshipgazer.com

    Image 1

    Image 2

    Image 3

    SpaceX made a prototype like this, with lots of vertical slits, and then scrapped it. It was suggested at the time that it might have been for hot staging. Well, that’s looking more likely. The current article has the outlines of the vertical slits but they haven’t been snipped out.

    • clothes@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      1 year ago

      Potentially basic question: does anyone know if this section is structural and needs to hold all the weight (plus various forces during flight) of the second stage? As in, there’s no hidden scaffolding in the center of the engines?

  • 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
    6·
    1 year ago

    Tweets from Elon Musk @elonmusk.

    7:51 PM - Jul 9, 2023: “3 more engines for the meaning of life.” Meaning 42 Raptor engines total for Super Heavy and Starship together. It’s with an upskirt photo of a Starship, though with 6 engines. I can’t quickly find an authoritative statement of the configuration, but since 2021, it seems that people have been stating 3 sea-level gimballing engines in the center, and 6 Rvacs (vacuum Raptors) inside the circumference (so one added between each existing pair of RVacs for a hex array). Everyday Astronaut tweeted a reply at 8:57 PM - Jul 9, 2023, “So 33 on booster, 9 on ship. Which will be the first 6 X Vac ship?”, so he seems to be thinking 6 RVacs.

    The Ringwatchers @Ringwatchers have a 10-tweet thread (via threadreaderapp) analyzing it. They see a Hydraulic Power Unit: they say that, since S26 on and B9 on have the electric Thrust Vector Control system, this has to be a picture of S25. The engine shielding has been removed – for inspections? for redesign? The COPVs have been removed too. There are other details, like the interior camera, the static firing stiffeners on the RVac (vacuum Raptor) engine bells to prevent damage from sea-level flow separation, et cetera.

    Two Elon tweets in sequence:

    • 12:35 AM - Jul 10, 2023 “Looks like we can increase Raptor thrust by ~20% to reach 9000 tons (20 million lbs) of force at sea level”
    • 12:43 AM - Jul 10, 2023 “And deliver over 200 tons of payload to a useful orbit with full & rapid reusability. 50 rockets flying every 3 days on average enables over a megaton of payload to orbit per year – enough to build a self-sustaining city on Mars.”

    Edit for the record: Zack Golden @CSI_Starbase tweet on Jul 9 this picture. It showed Starship’s config as mentioned above. But the 3 center gimballing sea-level engines are lined up with 3 of the 6 RVacs on the rim, which I think would slightly reduce their range of motion.

    Musk replied 10:29 PM - Jul 9, 2023

    Inner engine gimbal angle is limited in some directions, due to impacting outer engine nozzle, but probably ok

    • pigeonberry@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      Huh, the tweet seems to be visible even without a login? If not, the underlying image is https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F0zTpR6XwAAnVvl?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

      The tweet says

      Chris Bergin - NSF @NASASpaceflight 9:09 PM - Jul 11, 2023

      Say hello to S24.2 at Starbase. You’re interesting!

      Photo by Jack Beyer (@thejackbeyer) for NSF.

      I think the naming convention of Snumber.number or Bnumber.number is for a test tank or other test subassembly.

      One suggestion is that it’s a test of the lunar Human Landing System. S normally means it’s on Starship, and maybe the reinforced holes at the top of the tank are the landing thrusters, or the openings for the thrusters.

      There’s also the suggestion that it’s a hot staging ring, but it was objected elsewhere that that would be on top of a booster, not in a Starship.

      Another suggestion is that it’s a “Frankenbarrel”, combining two tests.

  • pigeonberry@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    1 year ago

    Chris Bergin - NSF @NASASpaceflight 1:24 PM - Jul 17, 2023

    WOW! OLM Water Deluge System conducts its first full test! That was super impressive. No more rock tornados, I’d say!

    http://nsf.live/starbase

    I wonder whether the MP4 will attach here? … edit: Nope, it seems not. See https://imgur.com/a/CQwvvl0 . Audio, but don’t turn it up.

    Edit 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgTqqGaU-Bg is a closer view from Starship Gazer @StarshipGazer, but with some unrelated chopstick stuff at the end apparently.

    Edit 3: DRAT! I hang out in this thread, not the main group, and didn’t see that @llamacoffee had posted “[Chris Bergin - NSF] WOW! OLM Water Deluge System conducts its first full test! That was super impressive. No more rock tornados, I’d say!” here.

    • LettuceTurnipTheBeet@lemm.eeEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      Wow! Didn’t expect them to test so soon!

      Wonder what the next steps are, for some reason I expected this to be more violent.

      • pigeonberry@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        Well, Zack Golden did reply that he thinks they’re holding back, so maybe you’ll get your wish for more violence.

    • pigeonberry@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      Zack Golden @CSI_Starbase added on 2:09 PM - Jul 17, 2023:

      Interesting things to note about this test:

      1. In the near future this will have an even higher volume of water
      1. The system appears to be in the process of being expanded and might eventually have double the amount of high pressure gas tanks feeding it.

      On point 1, someone asserted (based on “Individuals on various discord servers”) that it was only the center manifold.

      Zack had a later tweet, 3:37 PM - Jul 17, 2023:

      The purpose of the water system is purely to keep the steel plates from melting.

      Without the water, the plates would be disintegrated, but the actual foundation would still survive as long as the booster cleared the pad fast enough.

      The upgraded foundation is the key to success here. Had the original foundation been constructed the way it is now, the pad would not have failed during the first launch attempt while using Fondag on the blast surface

      IMHO it’s impossible for that type of failure to occur again.

      He clarified in a later reply, “As I said, the water is not preventing mechanical forces from being transmitted through the plates and into the foundation. That’s not it’s job. It’s purely for thermal protection.”

    • John_HaslerEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I think this test was done without the plates that close the top of the connection to the center section. If I’m correct the next test will look quite different.

  • pigeonberry@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    1 year ago

    Checking The Other Place: chatter there about the massive cryogenic release yesterday.

    “the PA mentioned a valve issue”

    It’s LOX according to the guys who were sent in to try and close the valve and just happened to stop in front of Rover 2 to make their plan…

    They were talking about whether to go in from the front (Hwy 4) or go around through the back.

    It was Lox tank 1820. The big boy and they’d have to Spin That Valve

    Then at the end it was, we’re going to punch thru, stay together, and if the monitor goes off, get out…

    with someone’s long explanation:

    Short periods of around an hour in highly elevated oxygen levels at atmospheric pressure is not particularly toxic. You may feel slightly dizzy, and feel dryness in your throat making you cough. You don’t want to stay too many sustained hours in it, as basically the natural antioxidants in your body will deplete and the oxygen will oxidise you, possibly leading to long term tissue damage. Especially the eyes, namely lens and retina.

    What you don’t want to be anywhere near whilst working in this environment is an ignition source. If something sparks up or becomes hot, such as an insecure light connection, or grease in a valve spindle, Everything instantly ignites. Living tissue, Everything, including most metals will burn intensely once the heat gets going.

    The Apollo 1 deaths of astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee, who perished during a flash fire caused by an electrical spark in pure oxygen levels inside the crew capsule during a launch rehearsal made NASA redesign the whole system.

    So several gather that there was only one big valve whose failure caused a complete dump, and they find a bit surprising to have a single point of failure.

    • John_HaslerEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      There evidently is a manual shutoff but an attempt to reach it was aborted.

  • 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)