Wait, what?! Woah that's unexpected. I thought they still had at least one spin prime to do and was thinking the fire might be next week at best.

The single most powerful rocket blast in human history. Truly a sight to behold. "Success Is Far From Certain, But Excitement Is Guaranteed" indeed.

NSF indicates they will stream the static fire tomorrow on their YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kG4AbAcia0

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When it absolutely, positively has to be on the moon overnight.

Here's hoping they don't melt their launch pad!

Didn't they have somebody else announcing things not that long ago?

Weird. wonder what happened to them to change it up.

Serious, does anyone know when it's supposed to launch? Last I heard was November last year, lots of conflicting dates being thrown around

Edit: downvoted for asking a genuine question? Stay classy reddit

Nobody knows when it's going to launch. If the static fire test goes well, they might try to launch next month, but most likely something will go wrong which will cause delays. Hopefully they launch it this year.

IIRC, Shotwell now oversees Starship R&D in addition to the rest of the business. So maybe (speculation incoming) this is her emphasising that Starship is "real" now — i.e. something people should start building payloads for, etc.

Looking way more forward to this than the superbowl, and I'm from Philadelphia...

Elon's latest public statement is sometime next month. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1621998434289942529

If Shotwell said it I'll set my clock on her word. Elon is on record saying his timelines are aspirational streams of consciousness and not vetted.

I fuckin love that Shotwell is the source for this and not Musk. She is the most critical element in SpaceX's success. Without her, SpaceX would have never left the mariachi party, and it is absolutely appropriate and fitting that she is the source for the news regarding the test. She really deserves so much more attention and admiration than she gets. Hate to sound like a fanboy but she's more than earned it. Absolute rock star in building and running a complicated business.

Well it’s nice that people from Philadelphia get to know what it’s like to have something to look forward to.

They can spin prime and fire on the same day.

Pray for no errors or hardware failures. Even though that’s a form of excelling.

Their last Super Bowl trip was just before the first Falcon Heavy launch. Destined to always be overshadowed by SpaceX!

Pad can take it it’s got diverters I’m more worried about things that are meant for air flow for cooling. Assuming test is time limited.

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While that may sort of true don’t under estimate others heart either. And I’m not talking about Elon either.

Very fair and true. There are some of the world's most brilliant people doing that work, history making stuff. I wouldn't want to diminish their effort. At the enterprise level, in terms of how tf do you build a space company when at the time there weren't too many examples and virtually no examples of non-major-contractor launch providers, especially with an indigenous system. The fact that she took them through that totally unknown terrain, giving the rest of the brilliant minds the runway they needed to create something wholly new, that deserves a lot more public attention than perhaps she gets.

But again, I agree with you. It takes a village of geniuses.

I guess I tuned out waiting on EPA regulation but that was all resolved?

From the FAA, they got a mitigated Findings Of No Significant Impact, meaning they were given a checklist of like 70 items they had to complete in order to proceed. That was in the middle of last year, and they've been working on that behind the scenes. Most of it was pretty basic stuff.

33 engines!!??? I surely hope this disaster will be streamed live somewhere??

Ill take that trade. Lets cross our fingers for another superbowl visit in a few years or so before the first of the Mars missions then.

I’m a space brainlet, but there’s something about “welding” and “rockets“ that makes me kinda nervous.

nasaspaceflight (not part of nasa) has permanent streams of starbase operations, and cape operations. I am sure lap padre will also livestream it.

Keep in mind that falcon heavy uses 27 engines at the same time (+1 on the upper stage).

Heat isn't really the primary concern here. The big risk is vibration. The sound waves from 33 engines firing at once are enough compressive force to literally break apart steel.

I saw on one of the space blogs (that I'm too lazy to find) that they brought massive bags of super-strong concrete (refractory cement?) for the pad after the last damage, and those bags disappeared so it was assumed the new cement had been used, but they were later spotted elsewhere at the facility, so there was some conjecture that they may have used standard cement again and doing this knowing it is a sacrificial pad. So don't be too surprised, or too concerned if the pad is damaged - the fancy cement is on site.

That’s a lot of engines. I hope it lights up with no problems

Funny, I get more alarmed by light aircraft. It's like... I can see from the outside that it's just a bunch of sheet metal stuck together with rivets. It's not even particularly neat, either — there are gaps and uneven overlaps and stuff. And we're going to get into that thing and fly it up into the sky? Ummm... okay, I guess! 😬

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They did indeed use the special new concrete mixture that’s much more resistant. It’ll still get damaged obviously but not near as much.

Throw muller into the mix. Merlin doesn’t exist without him.

Up voting and commenting for NSF!

I am in a weird spot with Starship. I hope it works and recognize the revolution it will bring.

On the other side, I really think this is going to be a lot harder than Elon let on and even small but likely issues are going to significantly set it back. I truly hope I am wrong but it's pretty crazy what they are doing.

In other news Elon probably needs to stop communicating unrealistic time lines.

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'One good test is worth a thousand expert opinions' - Werhner von Braun. So, let'er rip!

Take a step back, and think about the context here. The most powerful rocket of all time, which is also fully reusable, is about to test fire all of its engines tomorrow in a full launch configuration. You are criticizing timelines? This would have been like yelling at Ford for not making the Model T sooner.

Your information is still correct. Planned launch for last November.

People are most definitely already designing payloads for it. Starship is very, very real in the aerospace industry where people actually understand the implications, even though the public is focused on Elon time bad

I am so tired of Elon Stan's. Yeah Elon was calling for the first launch back in August to occur in "1 to 2 months" so he was off a bit. And my point is it IS the most powerful rocket of all time, we should probably expect issues and delays.

I would love for this thing to fly without issue.

Well if you're getting ad hominem about it, people have been proselytizing the same rhetoric since 2005 for SpaceX and it's infuriating. Obviously the timeline estimates have been way off. It's the damn actions that matter.

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I feel like this is different because of the scale. I really do hope it works. It's incredible. I am just tempering my expectations due to the complexity and it's weird that seems to be a hot take.

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You can't just call anyone that enters into a argument with you an Elon Stan that is arguably more pathetic than some guy stanning for elon. We all dislike stans lel.

I’d too hope Shotwell can make a correct guess of “the big test” happening, which is scheduled for tomorrow, the very day before it happens...

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Its so nice having Gwynne with defacto control of the company. Now these press releases actually carry some authority.

>Elon probably needs to stop communicating unrealistic time lines.

No. Definitely not.

You really don't have to like Musk. But his aggressive timelines are one of the main reasons for SpaceX success.

It gives management a defined goal to work towards to. Without that, the pace would be much slower.

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She doesn't have full control of the company.

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She is simply the head of the starship program. She tends to be moved into position during the transition from R&D to application. It’s not her first rodeo.

A successful static fire needs all pre burners and turbines working. A spin prime is just a test of those components. No real need to wait it out if you are confident with your engine start parameters. They’ve done the spin prime and static fire quite a few times both on vehicle and at mcgregor. Now it’s time to light the candle.

She doesn't have full control. She is the Chief Operating Officer.

Elon still is Chief Technology Officer and CEO, he owns SpaceX. At the end of the day she answers directly to Musk.

"I'm a wet bag now, let's light this candle!"

There was confusion once a while back. This time it moved and a lot of it is missing, presumed as used. They were 2 different events

And SpaceX is far from alone is missing targets. ULA is behind on Vulcan, Blue Origin is way behind on New Glenn and BE-4, Boeing is exceedingly late on Starliner service.

It's almost like rockets are hard or something and one hiccup in hardware development puts everything back.

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

|Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |BE-4|Blue Engine 4 methalox rocket engine, developed by Blue Origin (2018), 2400kN| |CST|(Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules| | |Central Standard Time (UTC-6)| |FAA|Federal Aviation Administration| |NSF|NasaSpaceFlight forum| | |National Science Foundation| |SLS|Space Launch System heavy-lift| |ULA|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)|

|Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |Starliner|Boeing commercial crew capsule CST-100| |Starlink|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation| |methalox|Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer|

^(7 acronyms in this thread; )^(the most compressed thread commented on today)^( has 16 acronyms.)
^([Thread #8532 for this sub, first seen 9th Feb 2023, 08:13]) ^[FAQ] ^([Full list]) ^[Contact] ^([Source code])

Do you think they’ll make it?

I guess the logic is pretty tight: Concrete will probably be scoured, but they're going to spend some time installing the deluge system anyway, so why not do both that and the concrete repairs at the same time?

Also not expecting more than about 4 seconds of blast. There's always the risk that the concrete will fly up and cause a really bad problem.

Careful, though. The army of folks with chips on their shoulders have it in for SpaceX regardless of who's doing what. The folks who will hold a party the moment anything goes wrong, even if it fundamentally means a delay for space exploration in general and NASA in particular.

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If anyone is interested, Grady at Practical Engineering (YT) has a really good video about refractory concrete.

This wasn't a press release.

Yes, I'm happy to be corrected about Shotwell, but I share the same impression as an outsider watching the past few years.

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lol when did space become so polarized. There are the same such people rooting for SLS to fail because "insert reason"

I'm with this guy. People need to be more realistic about starship, where it is in development, and the high likelihood there are going to be teething pains and developmental delays due to unforeseen technical issues arising.

Ah but you're not converting from Elon time to real time

Now do something about Starlink and your waning support for Ukraine's continued defense against a brutal invader. Your company, like your owner, is becoming a bigger joke everyday that goes by.

Slacktivists who care more about ideology than technological advancements.

Bear in mind that even if Starship didnt fly until 2027 it would still be the fastest developed super heavy lift rocket, and the first to be reusable.

If it works, it will leave the Moon just a ticket away.

Lets have patience, the reward will be worth it.

Ahhh yes, the most successful space company by a large margin, who launches more payload into space than the rest of the world combined, who are testing the biggest rocket ever created which happens to be fully reusable, is becoming a bigger joke everyday.

Critical thinking, my guy.

Their starlink support isn't waning whatsoever by the way, they're just not allowing ukraine to put starlink on weaponized drones. They can still use it the exact same way they've been for the whole invasion.

SpaceX has more experience than anyone else in lighting dozens of rocket engines at once. They've never had a Falcon Heavy failure in 5 years of operation.

It's not the number of engines that's the concern, it's the sheer power. This is the most powerful rocket ever made. It produces as much thrust as two Saturn Vs. The danger here is that something on the ground gets damaged by the sheer magnitude of this thing. And failure here is very possible.

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Saturn 5 took from 1960 to 1967 from start of real work to the first launch (amazing what 5% of the federal budget can do for you). Since Starship work was announced as starting in 2016, it seems it's not the fastest developed any more.

Successful full-duration static fire. Elon indicates they "turned off 1 engine just before start & 1 stopped itself, so 31 engines fired overall. But still enough engines to reach orbit!" https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1623793909959901184?s=20

You have no idea what you are talking about. SpaceX is looking to restrict Ukraine from using their terminals in guidance systems. THAT IS IT. They are restricting NOTHING ELSE.

If the US government likes use of the terminals in guidance systems then they can give SpaceX the OK to keep allowing that. It seems actually likely the US doesn't like it as NATO has been very careful about giving Ukraine weapons that allow them to attack Russia in its own territory.

Ukraine and NATO have different but very similar goals in this war. NATO's goals win out as they are the sole reason Ukraine is still able to fight. This sucks for Ukraine so they are being very creative in using what they do have to achieve their own goals.

Heres hoping for a successful run of it! Wish i could see it in person but still cool

Happened a few hours ago and was successful! Well, mostly. 31/33 engines, and it went the full planned duration. I slept through it alas. I also hope to one day see a launch live.