Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

Elon has this to say about the Starship heatshield tiles (highlighting by me):

"The biggest remaining problem is making a reusable orbital return heat shield, which has never been done before... This will take a few kicks at the can to solve and requires building an entirely new supply chain for low-cost, high-volume and yet high-reliability heat shield tiles, but it can be done. Right now, we are not resilient to loss of a single tile in most places, as the secondary containment material will probably not survive."

It's entirely my own speculation, but I get the feeling that data from Flight-3 indicated that reentry heating was more intense than they expected. Where they might have figured that if they lost a tile, the steel skin and insulating material under the tile gave them safety margin, the flight results indicate no margin.

And news that will thrill all rocket-nuts:

Elon has announced that he will be doing another video tour of Starbase with Tim Dodd next week!

Hopefully Tim will get good video views inside the new factory and inside the vertical assembly bays. And hopefully he will have the opportunity to ask Elon lots of questions.

Flight 4 of Starship has slid from Wednesday June 5 to Thursday June 6. (Pending FAA approval etc.)

https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/...p-flight-4

The new static-fire test stand at Masseys was just used for the first time with what appeared to be a full 6-engine SF by ship 26, the finless/tileless "silver bullet"

https://x.com/CSI_Starbase/status/1797746602515251455

The Flight 4 license is out

https://drs.faa.gov/browse/excelExternal...pened=true

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1798099582473429352



And unlike previous licenses, this one includes several mission objectives that SpaceX is unsure that this flight can accomplish and that investigating them is the reason for flying the mission. The FAA is acknowledging the possibility that they won't be completed, and saying that failure to complete them won't trigger a mishap investigation (provided that life and property aren't placed at risk). I think that this is a very positive development that test flights are no longer being treated like airliner crashes. Some degree of failure is expected when engineering experiments are pushing the boundaries of the state-of-the-art.

Just like SpaceX, the FAA Commercial Spaceflight procedures are evolving in response to real world experience.



Chartered ship Go America has arrived at Port of Brownsville to support booster soft landing attempt out in the Gulf of Mexico

(nasaspaceflight.com photo)



nsNS

Animated render by Ryan Hansen Space of what we hope will happen in about a day and a half.

TFRs!! (Temporary Flight Restrictions)

Main date:

https://tfr.faa.gov/save_pages/detail_4_3381.html

Backup dates:

https://tfr.faa.gov/save_pages/detail_4_3387.html

https://tfr.faa.gov/save_pages/detail_4_3386.html

Approaching Flight 4 at 7 AM CDT on Thursday morning. (5 AM PDT, 8 AM EDT)

Photographers were busily setting up cameras this afternoon in the designated media area. The camera gear will have to be remotely operated, since the media area is right across the road from the launch site and well within the evacuation zone. In previous launches (especially the concrete apocalypse in the first) potentially deadly debris landed in the media area.

I'm still pleased to see preference in getting press credentials going to the alternative space media like Tim Dodd/Cosmic Perspective, NASASpaceflight.com, WAI, LabPadre/SpaceFlightNow etc. I still haven't seen any satellite trucks from the likes of CNN. I'm inclined to see Elon's hand in that.

Elon is at Starbase and has been seen talking to Tim Dodd, so the promised Starbase tour and Q & A is happening

https://x.com/spacesudoer/status/1798527001374187980

Lab and Spaceflight Now commentary stream



Tim's channel is here (it doesn't want to embed)

https://www.youtube.com/live/8VESowgMbjA

SpaceX will have a stream on X - link and other information here

https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/...p-flight-4

A NASA WB-57 photographic tracking plane is headed down to watch from high altitude

https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/NASA927

Launch now targeting 7:50 AM CDT

Go for propellant load

T - 45 min

T - 25 min - fuel load underway

Not working any issues

T - 12 min

No issues