Great footage of the water landing, that's 2 mins of my STEM update written if I can find out how much fuel remained. I presume what was burned was in the header tank i.e. the mains were empty so no mass was sloshing around making "balancing the broomstick" difficult.

NASA must be spitting feathers. Is there a date yet for Artemis 2 ?

Reference improving th3 tiles, especially in the flap area…

Much greater news - first Starship to Mars in around 3 years…

Per Ardua Ad Astra

NEWS: @elonmusk said tonight that SpaceX will be replacing Starship's heat shield with new heat shield tiles the are about 2x as strong as the ones that were on during flight 4.

SpaceX also wants to put an ablative secondary structure (protective layer) behind the tiles so that if a tile cracks or becomes loose it won't cook the rocket.

BREAKING: Elon Musk talks about Starship during his gaming stream on 𝕏

-Flight 5 in about a month, after replacing the heatshield on the ship with a new tile twice as strong.
-Ablative protection underneath will act as secondary heatshield layer.
-Starship to Mars in 3 years.

That's just incredible. Did NASA ever reach a one launch per month tempo, even in the 1960s? Let alone with major improvements.

And Starliner/CFT has suffered years of being rescheduled.

Some awesome news from the FAA regarding Starship

The Starship launch site at LC-39A will apparently have a separate catch tower away from the launch tower

Starship and SuperHeavy to have drone ship landing options similar to Falcon 9 and New Glenn

35 Raptors on SuperHeavy and 9 Raptors on Starship.

Source from the FAA:​​​​​​​ https://www.faa.gov/media/80626​​​​​​​

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....2b5668dbad.png


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....eb1a60255b.png

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....176f26cc06.png

Follow on to above.

🚨 Starship Environmental Impact Statement for LC39A

Some notable mentions from this document include:

Vehicle Design
-35 Engines On Superheavy and 9 Engines on Starship

Expected Launch Cadence
-Up to 44 launches per year from Starship at 39A with landings permitted both at the pad and on drone ships.

Pad Infrastructure
-A separate Catch Tower which is located further to the south from the existing Integration Tower.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....f40d2463f.jpeg
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*I think this may be to allow them to catch the Booster and Ship on separate towers. The alternative would be to catch the ship while the booster is on the pad. This may be to reduce risk of damage to the booster.

Natural Gas Pre-Treatment and Liquefaction System
- This is great because it means there will likely be a Natural gas pipeline feeding this location and will drastically reduce traffic to and from the launch site.
35 Engines on the Booster & 9 Engines on the Ship

Air Separation Plant
- Similar to the Natural Gas facility, they will also have the ability to produce Liquid Oxygen and Nitrogen on site.

Deluge System
- Up to 1 million Gallons of Water is expected to be used during launch operations. For perspective, this is nearly 2.5 times larger than the current deluge system at Starbase.

Nevertheless, I am very much missing John Insprucker to do that job - at least at very special (less routine) launches. :)

Oh, yes, John is quite the character, I like him too.

Yesterday, A peculiar structure was spotted by @RGVaerialphotos at the #SpaceX Massey test range.

This structure is indicative of a 35 engine Superheavy.

After some debate on S&T w/@zaskeller & @RyanHansenSpace, This is roughly the configuration that the jig shows.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...795534685.html
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The new 2X stronger heat shield tiles and the new secondary ablative layer are currently being applied to Starship 30 in preparation for test flight 5.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....a4edd89153.png

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....0ba8fdd8d3.png
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https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....0f2f8141da.png

Starbase Pad B Construction: Major Design Change Incoming?

Elon Musk:

Flight 5 in 4 weeks

Elon time. So 7 or 8 weeks then. 😁

Assembly started on second tower, last segment delivered on Friday.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....c2f110fdc.jpeg

Video.Booster 12 has completed a static fire test as #SpaceX prepare for flight 5.

Video.Starship Flight 5 preps: Ship 30 is in the air and being placed on the Static Fire stand for the roll to Masseys tomorrow.

Due to the replacement of a RVac engine, Ship 30 needs to Static Fire one more time.

http://nsf.live/starbase
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Starship 30 this afternoon being prepared for possible static fire testing tomorrow.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....aa01f6c1ee.png
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Slow motion view of Flight 5 Starship’s six Raptor engines during static fire

VideoFlight 5's Ship 30 is returning from Masseys to the Production Site. Its next roll should be to the launch site along with Booster 12 for integrated testing.

Elon Musk said today that Starship test flight 5 could launch as soon in late August or early September, depending on how quickly the FAA grants the modified launch license to allow the booster capture in the tower.