SpaceX has slowly but surely begun the process of building Starship’s first Florida launch pad – including preparations for the off-site assembly of a second skyscraper-sized ‘launch tower.’ This is not the first time. Back in late 2019, SpaceX began work on a Starship launch pad located at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) LC-39A pad,…
For the first time in more than half a year, SpaceX has stacked a new Starship prototype to its full height, hopefully marking the end of a period of relatively slow progress. That period began when Starship S20 was stacked to its full height in early August 2021. Until very recently, Ship 20 was said…
Almost five months after SpaceX began the process of filling and testing the first custom-built propellant storage system for Starship, the largest rocket ever built, the company has finally begun to fill the fuel half of the ‘tank farm’. SpaceX began delivering truckloads of liquid nitrogen (LN2) to the LN2 and liquid oxygen (LOx) sections of the…
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has presented the first significant update on the company’s Starship program since September 2019, offering a couple of new details about the status of the first orbital launch attempt of the largest and most powerful rocket ever built. Unfortunately, above all else, the promised update was primarily a rehash of the…
For the third time, SpaceX has installed Super Heavy Booster 4 (B4) on Starbase’s lone orbital launch mount, kicking off preparations for CEO Elon Musk’s upcoming presentation. In a decision that is difficult to logically explain, however, SpaceX chose to install Super Heavy on the ‘orbital launch mount’ with a crane instead of a complex…
While running behind schedule in classic fashion, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says he’ll present the first big Starship program update in two and a half years on Thursday, February 10th. Additionally, as an apparent centerpiece for the event and update, Musk says that SpaceX will perform the second-ever “full stack” fit test with a Starship upper stage…
SpaceX has begun testing Starbase’s rocket-catching arms with ballast to simulate the weight of Starship and Super Heavy. SpaceX started the process of proof testing those arms about a week ago, beginning with some basic calibration work. Together, the three arms and launch tower amount to a giant custom-built robot that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has…
SpaceX has taken Starbase’s rocket-catching launch tower ‘arms’ to new heights during the latest series of proof tests. That process began in earnest on January 4th, when SpaceX lifted, opened, and swung the tower’s building-sized arms for the first time. Four days later, SpaceX performed a variation on the first round of tests, again slowly lifting the…
Update: Shortly after publishing, SpaceX began a much more ambitious series of tests with the Starship launch tower’s two main arms, which are designed to lift and (one day) catch Starships and Super Heavy boosters. After lifting the arm carriage about 15m (~50 ft), several times higher than January 3rd’s far more conservative kickoff, SpaceX fired…
In its true last act of the year, SpaceX successfully fired up its first orbital-class Starship for the fourth time in approximately two months, placing the prototype one step closer to flight readiness. Starship S20 first left its roost in SpaceX’s Starbase factory in early August, briefly performing a fit test atop Super Heavy Booster…