And today, the Cameron County Judge set the election on the incorporation of Starbase as a Texas municipality for Saturday May 3. If approved (it will be) Starbase will be the first new municipality in Cameron County since Los Indios in 1995.
YazataFeb 14, 2025 07:52 AM (This post was last modified: Feb 14, 2025 10:19 PM by Yazata.)
This looks like an office building, but it's actually the second Orbital Launch Mount intended for Pad B, finishing construction at the Sanchez work site. It's constructed out of large quantities of thick armor steel plate all welded together, strong enough to support a fully-fueled, fully-stacked Starship that weighs many thousands of tons. Like Elon's existing water-cooled steel plate, it will include a powerful water deluge.
Unlike the current Pad A, it won't take the full-force of the rocket blast which instead will be directed down through the hole in the center into a Cape Canaveral style flame deflecter trench. The OLM will sit atop the trench in a much more conventional launch pad setup than was built at Pad A.
This new OLM is extremely heavy and moving it by SPMT to the launch area will be a big job and a sight to behold.
The Brownsville Herald has published artist's renders of SpaceX's new Rio West mixed use shopping/entertainment/residential complex on the north side of the Rio Grande west of the build site, outside the evacuation zone for launches. It's already under construction.
It will primarily be for SpaceX employees/Starbase residents, but I assume that it will be open to the general public too. SpaceX has to realize that they have a Cape Canaveral style tourist attraction on their hands.
Rio West will include:
•Restaurants and bars
•Retail shops
•Entertainment venues
•Arcade & gaming center
•Virtual reality experiences
•Outdoor recreation spaces
•Observation deck for Space X launches
Rumors are swirling on the internet that Flight 8 is planned for February 26. (Next wednesday!) It still isn't confirmed though.
I'm a little skeptical despite some credible people saying it, since I haven't yet seen the flurry of preflight activity that I'd expect to see if a Starship launch was only six days away. Like always, the launch area is a hive of frantic activity, but most of it seems to be devoted to bringing Pad B online.
YazataFeb 21, 2025 08:40 PM (This post was last modified: Feb 21, 2025 10:49 PM by Yazata.)
And today there are more rumors on the internet that SpaceX is planning to static fire Booster 14 in about a month. This is the Flight 7 booster that was successfully caught. The talk is that SpaceX hopes to refly it on Flight 9, marking the first Superheavy booster reflight!
Rumored to be the S35/B14 combination.
And SpaceX has applied to the FCC for temporary radio authorization for what sounds like a Ship catch attempt on Flight 9 as well!
Feb 14, 2025 04:26 AM
(This post was last modified: Feb 14, 2025 05:00 AM by Yazata.)
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