But it is duck season.

Starbase activities (2025-10-16):

• Build site: S39 nosecone and payload section is lifted clear of the Pez installation jig and moved to the right hand side of Megabay 2. The jig is moved towards Starfactory. (LabPadre, ViX)
• The LR1300 crane boom is finally raised. (cnunez)
• Launch site: Overnight, the final remaining flexible hose for the Pad 2 methane booster quick disconnect is installed. (ViX)
• The first boom section of the SpaceX LR11000 crane returns to the launch site. (ViX)
• Pad 1 chopsticks descend. (ViX)

Flight 11:

• SpaceX post an upskirt video of liftoff.
• SpaceX post a video of the ship landing burn.

McGregor:

• Venting from the mystery structure overnight. (Anderson)
• R3.39 leaves the test area. (Rhin0, Swartz)

Florida:

• Several Leibherr crane weights are inbound. (Bergeron)

Huh… TIL.

this Canadian website

Slrpnk.net is hosted in Portugal. Your point still stands, though.

Considering the month

October?

I don’t understand why people complain about high calorie food. Just eat less of it. It will last longer, and be cheaper in the long run.

a tunnel in Las Vegas

No that’s the Loop. No one has built a hyperloop yet, beyond a few short test tracks.

Happy cake day!

I posed a similar question to one of my physics professors. His answer was that an idealized version of the experiment would not compare an accelerating spaceship with the Earth, but would compare an accelerating spaceship with an “infinite plane (or slab) of uniform mass density”.

Nominal launch and booster landing.

Starbase activities (2025-10-15):

• Build site: Assembly of the LR1300 crane continues, though there appears to be an issue preventing the boom from raising. (ViX)
• Launch site: Cover sections for Pad 2 are delivered, likely for the deluge manifold and the top edge of the launch mount. (ViX)
• The Pad 1 launch mount work platform moves from the Starhopper parking lot to Sanchez, possibly for scrapping. (ViX)
• Counterweights for the LR11000 crane return to the launch site. (ViX)
• The Pad 1 ship quick disconnect arm swings out and the chopsticks rise, presumably to allow for crane access to the launch mount. (ViX)

Flight 11:

• SpaceX post a video of the booster landing burn and hover, but not splashdown.
• Beyer posts a video including booster splashdown and rapid scheduled disassembly.
• Ship heatshield performed “much better” than Flight 10. (niccruzpatane, Elon)
• “Lot of progress on heat shield design, but this is something we will need to iterate on for a long time.” (Hague, Elon)

McGregor (2025-10-14 and 2025-10-15):

• R3.3 arrives and leaves. R3.17, R3.37, and R3.38 leave. (Rhin0)
• R3.3 appears to be missing large parts of the valve assemblies and also has a new engine bell.

I feel good about Vast and Axiom beating the ISS deorbit deadline.

Vast yes, Axiom maybe. I’d give Voyager/Nanoracks a “maybe” as well.

I still think there’s a decent chance that there will be a gap in continuous 30-year streak of crewed U.S. spaceflight. Not that it matters in the long-term, but I suspect it’s a streak which China won’t cede to any other country if they can help it.

How so?

Of course, of the five block ships which flew, only the last three made it to reentry, and only the last two made it to reentry with attitude control. Hopefully they were able to get sufficient data from S37 and S38 (and maybe S35).

I’d bet that SpaceX would be happy to sell them more Falcon 9 launches if Amazon’s hand were forced again…

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1978234445170725351

Due to unfavorable weather, now targeting Wednesday, October 15 for Falcon 9’s launch of @SemperCitiusSDA’s second Tranche 1 data transport mission from pad 4E in California

Starbase activities (2025-10-14):

• GIF of tanker offload area every hour from 01:00 to 14:00. (ViX)
• No more cryo delivery tallies from ViX for a little while.
• Build site: B18 forward section (FX:3) moves from Starfactory to Megabay 1. (LabPadre, ViX, Golden)
• B18 F2:4 section moves from Starfactory to Megabay 1. (ViX)
• A crane is delivered to build a crane to build the tower cranes which will build themselves and the Gigabay which will build ships and boosters. (ViX 1, ViX 2)
• S39 is visible in the Megabay 2 doorway. (Gisler)
• A beam for Gigabay is spotted inbound at Indiana Avenue. (Sorensen)
• Launch site: The decommissioning of Pad 1 begins. Residual water in the deluge tanks is emptied, the CO2 tanks for the booster fire suppression system are emptied, and the booster quick disconnect and tower are purged. (ViX 1, ViX 2, Golden, Killip)
• Pad 2 cladding is nearly complete. (Gisler)

Flight 11:

• SpaceX post photos of launch and drone video of ship final descent and splashdown.
• Upon analyzing the ship landing video, Zack Golden notes minor damage around flap hinge covers, and is of the opinion that the LOX tank was punctured. (Golden 1, Golden 2)

Flight 12:

• “The first [Raptor 3] flight engines are already in production and are about to start acceptance testing for Flight 12” (Dan Huot, SpaceX livestream)

Flight 13+:

• First ship catch NET “springtime”. (Thiss_Youu, Elon)

Florida:

• Harry Stranger posts high resolution satellite photos of the Space Coast, including LC-39A and SLC-37. The existing pad structures at SLC-37 have been almost entirely removed. Full resolution on soaratlas.

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1977933439065039125

Successful deployment of all KF-03 satellites confirmed

Starbase activities (2025-10-13):

• Oct 12th cryo delivery tally. (ViX)
• Build site: S39 nosecone and payload section moves from Starfactory to Megabay 2. Docking hardware for on orbit refilling is visible, as are new orange covers for composite overwrap pressure vessels (COPVs). (LabPadre, ViX 1, ViX 2, ViX 3, ViX 4, ViX 5, Killip, Golden)
• Low-flying range safety helicopter. (ViX)
• A shot of the protective steel on the booster v3 forward dome is shared during the Flight 11 launch webcast. (Killip)
• Launch site:
• 08:54: Funnel cloud: (ViX)
• 09:15: NSF stakeout stream.
• 12:03: Oct 13th pre-launch cryo delivery tally. (ViX)
• 13:15: Booster and ship transport stands move from the launch site to the roadblock. (ViX, NSF)
• 13:49: Chopsticks open and rise. (ViX)
• 15:25: NSF launch stream.
• 16:15: Tank farm spools up. (ViX)
• 16:41: LabPadre livestream.
• 17:15: Tower and launch mount venting. (ViX)
• 17:19: Go for propellant load. (SpaceX)
• 17:36: Ship propellant load is underway. (SpaceX)
• 17:42: Booster propellant load is underway. (SpaceX)
• 17:44: Frost on ship. (LabPadre, NSF)
• 17:52: Frost on booster. (ViX, NSF)
• 18:06: Elon photobomb. (Foust, SawyerMerritt)
• 18:23: Flight 11 happens.
• Chopsticks descend, ship quick disconnect arm swings in. (NSF, ViX)
• Pad 2 bunker cladding is nearly complete. (Gisler)
• Beach and road closures for Oct 14th and 15th are removed. (starbase.texas.gov, archive)

Flight 11:

• Launch. (McDowell, NSF, LabPadre, ViX, Starship Gazer, SpaceX)
• MECO, hotstaging, and boostback. (McDowell, SpaceX)
• Hotstage jettison. (Golden)
• Booster landing (SpaceX, NSF)
• SECO and nominal insertion. (SpaceX)
• Tracking shot of SECO with an 80 mm refractor telescope. (astroferg)
• Payload deploy. (SpaceX, ViX)
• In-space Raptor relight. (SpaceX)
• (Sub)-orbital parameters: -1 x 192 km ± 3 km in the perigee value. Raptor restart raised perigee to ~ +52 km, but the vehicle was already past apogee, at 145 km on the way down. (McDowell)
• Reentry. (SpaceX)
• Dynamic banking manoeuvre. (SpaceX, NSF, Killip, Golden (timelapse))
• Landing burn and splashdown. (NSF, ViX, SpaceX)

Florida:

• Vapourisers are pending rollout to LC-39A. (Bergeron)
• Fully automated heatshield tile “bakery” can currently produce 1k tiles per day, will scale to 7k tiles per day, or approximately 10 ships per month. (SpaceX)

Stage 1 landing confirmed!