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As a date for a potential IFT-2 approaches, Starbase is a hive of frantic activity!

Last night, the hot staging ring rolled out to Megabay-1 to be mated with Booster-9. This suggests that the load testing of the hot-staging test article at Masseys was a success.

Photo by Jack Beyer of nasaspaceflight.com taken last night



Photos by Mauricio this morning showing the hot-staging ring installed atop Booster-9





This morning, Booster-10 moved from the rocket garden to Megabay-1, where it's assumed its engines will be installed.

As construction of Megabay-2 and the Starfactory expansions continue, the giant tents appear to be emptied out and one of them is coming down.

Photo from LabPadre's Sentinel cam from last night showing the tents dark inside, which is unheard of since they go 24/7. Soon after this photo was taken, the end was torn off of the tent in the middle.



They seem to also be slowly clearing out the smaller Midbay and the possibility exists that it will be torn down as well. If that happens, the expectation is that another much larger Megabay-3 might be constructed to occupy that spot.

And the two large parabolic telemetry/comms/tracking dishes that SpaceX got used from NASA have been disassembled and trucked off to somewhere unknown. It isn't known if they will stay around Starbase, go to another SpaceX facility (Austin perhaps?) or be scrapped.

There's a road closure scheduled for Monday August 21 and it's anticipated that they might try again to get in a successful booster static fire, with all the engines this time.

SpaceX photo of the hot staging ring prior to its installation on Booster 9.



SpaceX photo of the ring after installation with a couple of SpaceX workers for scale

This evening after dark they conducted another big test of the Booster Bidet/"water cooled steel plate".

https://twitter.com/CosmicalChief/status...1438098781

It's expected that Booster-9 will roll back to the launch site tomorrow in preparation for a possible re-do of the 33 engine static fire on Monday.

The booster 9 rollout and the 33 engine static fire have been postponed for a few days due to an approaching tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico.

Meanwhile Tent-2 has been completely demolished and preparations are underway to demolish the Midbay. Starfactory's inexorable expansion continues. The second Megabay is nearing completion, except for its roof and assorted bridge cranes.

B9 rolled out today, hopefully for the last time before it flies in Integrated Flight Test 2 (IFT-2)

(SpaceX photos)

Emerging from the Megabay



Heading from the build area to the launch area (cars for scale) Note the regal new crown (the hot staging ring)



Taking its throne

SpaceX is redoing the 33 engine static fire in about 15 minutes - livestream will be here

(Aug 17, 2023 08:16 PM)Yazata Wrote: [ -> ]They seem to also be slowly clearing out the smaller Midbay and the possibility exists that it will be torn down as well. If that happens, the expectation is that another much larger Megabay-3 might be constructed to occupy that spot.

And last night at about 1:30AM local CDT time, Midbay came down spectacularly.

X clip by Zack Golden from Lab Padre's Rover-1 and Sentinel livestream cams

https://twitter.com/CSI_Starbase/status/...7719648666

This one, by Anthony Gomez of Rocket Ranch has sound

https://twitter.com/AnthonyFGomez/status...5846248790

Photo by Carlos Nunez

Mauricio's latest update video:

Starship was stacked today and Elon says this:

Starship is ready to launch, awaiting FAA license approval

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1699233677979390280

It might be a while coming, given the hostility of the ruling regime in Washington and their weaponization of all federal agencies. The democrats among the space-nuts say that worry is just conspiracy thinking, and this is one time I hope they are right.

(SpaceX drone shot.)

I'm starting to think that I might be right that even the FAA has been weaponized against perceived political enemies.

The FAA issued this statement.