YazataMay 8, 2026 06:41 AM (This post was last modified: May 8, 2026 06:47 AM by Yazata.)
The new flame trench really seems to concentrate and direct acoustic energy! La Padre's live-stream truck was a long ways away out at the road and it was knocked sideways and all of its windows except the windshield were blown in by significant overpressure!
It's worrying, because parts of the tank farm and the air separation unit will be in line with and even closer to the second Pad 1 flame trench when it is completed.
They stacked Ship 39 atop Booster 19 last night and today they tried to conduct a wet-dress-rehearsal in which they conduct a countdown to about the 2 minute mark to test all of their equipment and procedures prior to actual flight.
Unfortunately something wasn't right that caused them to abort the process before fuel loading began.
Meanwhile, here's a video render that illustrates what the Starbase dream is all about:
YazataMay 11, 2026 09:45 PM (This post was last modified: May 11, 2026 10:10 PM by Yazata.)
Today they conducted a very successful launch rehearsal. More than 5,000 metric tons of propellant were loaded onto the ship and booster in the short span of about 30 minutes. Detanking performed just as well. Given that it was the first full test of the new pad and tank farm, it was impressive how well it seems to have gone.
(Sep 16, 2025 08:01 PM)Yazata Wrote: And the ever-vigilant space-nuts note that this huge barge was launched by LAD Services of Morgan City LA (a major supplier for the offshore oil industry) just before Elon made his cryptic post above. ('You'll Thank Me Later' is another spaceship name from an Ian Banks sci-fi novel.) This barge is 100' by 300', long enough to accomodate Superheavy boosters lying on their side. It was built for McDonough Marine, the same company that SpaceX contracts with to provide its other marine assets like the Falcon 9 landing barges.
Quote:The booster’s primary test objective will be executing a successful launch, ascent, stage separation, boostback burn, and landing burn at an offshore landing point in the Gulf of America. As this is the first flight test of a significantly redesigned vehicle, the booster will not attempt a return to the launch site for catch.
The Starship upper stage will target multiple in-space and reentry objectives, including the deployment of 22 Starlink simulators, similar in size to next-generation Starlink satellites. The last two satellites deployed will scan Starship’s heat shield and transmit imagery down to operators to test methods of analyzing Starship’s heat shield readiness for return to launch site on future missions. Several tiles on Starship have been painted white to simulate missing tiles and serve as imaging targets in the test. The Starlink simulators will be on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship. A relight of a single Raptor engine while in space is also planned.
For Starship entry, a single heat shield tile has been intentionally removed to measure the aerodynamic load differences on adjacent tiles when there is a tile missing. Finally, the ship will perform experimental actions tested on previous flight tests, including a maneuver to intentionally stress the structural limits of the vehicle’s rear flaps and a dynamic banking maneuver to mimic the trajectory that future missions returning to Starbase will fly.
Remember the rumors that SpaceX was buying 212 square miles of Louisiana bayou swampland from Exxon?
Quote:Rumors are swirling in the Lafayette Louisiana area, entirely unconfirmed at this point, suggest that SpaceX might have bought, or is in the process of buying, 136,000 acres (212 square miles!!) of undeveloped bayou land along the coast of the Gulf of America, currently used primarily by hunters and populated by the occasional alligator.
Quote:It’s no secret that we intend to launch Starship a lot, targeting thousands of flights per year. That cadence will require the ability to launch from many different locations, so we are constantly exploring to find viable sites to expand Starship operations in the future, both domestically and internationally.
May 7, 2026 10:43 PM
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