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Joined 3 years ago
Cake day: June 10th, 2023
  • threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.worksOPMtoSpaceX@sh.itjust.works•Starship Development Thread October 2026English
    3·
    1 day ago

    Interesting questions. I don’t think we’ve yet seen any hardware that would suggest they have started building dedicated tanker ships yet. S42 (Flight 15) is definitely the pez dispenser variant (door slot is visible), and S43 must be as well, as Flight 16 has been referred to as “Starlink 30-1” in some documents.

    They should be able to perform propellant transfer tests with the current ships simply by loading fewer (or no) Starlink satellites, leaving more residual propellant.

    I think the limiting factors for starting propellant transfer tests will be how quickly they can launch two ships back-to-back, and how long a ship can remain in orbit. I recall that they mentioned that the batteries on ships limit their operational life time to a few hours, and that this was one of the factors which led to their decision to bring S41 back after two orbits rather than six. They need to either extend this (solar panels seem the obvious solution) to exceed the turnaround time of Pad 2 at Starbase Texas, or wait until LC-39A in Florida comes online, which seems like it could be imminent.

    Which do you think is more likely for propellant transfer tests? Back-to-back launches from the same pad, or one launch from each?

  • threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.worksOPMtoSpaceX@sh.itjust.works•Starship Development Thread October 2026English
    4·
    4 days ago

    2026-10-01:

    • Flight 15 and 16: “What boxes still need to be checked before Starship starts flying in Florida?” “We, uh, intend to do, um, at least one more launch from Starbase before our next launch out of the Cape.” (Julianna Scheiman, director, NASA Science and Dragon Programs, SpaceX)
    • “What is the status of 39A to support Starship?” “We’re through the main construction, beginning to step into acceptance testing and operational testing prior to activation.” (Julianna Scheiman)
    • Artemis III: “[What] is the plan to launch Starship from Florida for Artemis III? Would [Pad 39A] be preferred or might it go out of Texas?” “The primary mission with that you’re thinking of is Artemis III is from 39A, and we’ll be supporting propellant refilling flights from both [Texas and Florida], to my understanding.” (Julianna Scheiman)
    • Starbase/McGregor/Florida/Louisiana: No Starship development activities reported.

    Were all the cameras trained on the Falcon triple-header today?

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