Not sure if this ship is a temporary addition or permanent addition to the fleet, some speculation from @SpaceOffshore :
The new GO Cosmos ship at Port Canaveral is on SpaceX payroll.
The company runs a near-identical ship - GO Beyond - on the West Coast. The requirement for this ship in Florida isn't immediately clear, with SpaceX-owned Bob and Doug (right of pic) currently sharing the role.
A stand-in temp role would certainly be possible if someone's maintenance was due however the ship was recently purchased by GO and renamed with a space theme which wouldn't track with a short-term charter to SpaceX.
A 4th SpaceX droneship is very much on the cards and has been hinted at, which would increase demand and probably require an additional support ship... although I'd have made a guess a 4th ASDS would go West in anticipation of SLC-6 and VSFB coming online. Possible this ship isn't staying in Florida.
Oh goody, another hit piece, let's tear it apart:
Most disturbing to one member of the entourage was the yellow smear on the soil in the same spot that a bird’s nest lay the day before. None of the nine nests recorded by the nonprofit Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program before the launch had survived intact.
These nests are really close to the launch pad, only ~0.3 miles or so. The Environmental Assessment already said anything within 0.6 miles of the launch pad will likely get killed or injured during launch, this effect is already taken into account when FAA granted the launch license.
The postage-stamp-size piece of private property they eyed was encircled primarily by government-owned state parks and federal wildlife refuge areas where nothing could be built. Still, residents lived in close-by Boca Chica Village and tourists routinely visited the state parks. Mr. Musk’s plan would require an evacuation of the parks and residential areas for every launch.
Well the Cape pads are also surrounded by Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and would require an evacuation of the refuge during launch, there's nothing special about this.
The image below this paragraph compares Starbase's 350 acres to Vandenberg's 99,604 acres and Cape's 159,800 acres, this is very deceptive, given Starbase only has two pads, while Vandenberg and Cape have a lot more launch pads.
Privately, Mr. Musk was already planning something much bigger, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Times. SpaceX was aiming to use this corner of Texas to launch a rocket like the world had never seen.
There's nothing private about this, Elon Musk spoke of building and flying bigger next generation rocket after Falcon from the new launch site, when he appeared in front of Texas House Appropriations committee in 2013:
Elon Musk: "But as we go to future rockets that are bigger than that, we would actually do the manufacturing at the launch site, or near the launch site, because otherwise the road transportation logistics become... Essentially you'd either have to put it on a big ship or build it near the launch site. The logical thing is to build it near the launch site. So that is something that would occur where ever this launch site occurs."
Texas Legislator: "And it needs to be at Boca Chica, so that would be great. We would love to see that happen. Very good. Thank you again for what you do."
After the Starship plans became public, F.A.A. officials told a local environmental group that they planned to conduct a new environmental impact assessment for the project. But the agency reversed itself and decided instead to modify the old one.
They didn't "decided to modify the old one", they decided to do an environment assessment (EA) based on old EIS first, if the assessment shows the environmental impact is not significant then they can go ahead using the EA to authorize launch. But if the EA shows the impact is significant, then they're fully prepared to ask for an EIS as the law requires.
Most fundamentally, the F.A.A. decided it could legally consider the environmental impact of the launchpad operations and its control center, but not the much larger rocket factory nearby. Fish and Wildlife officials objected, arguing that the impact from the entire SpaceX complex should be considered.
There's nothing wrong with FAA's decision here, none of their environment assessment for launch included assessment of environment impact of rocket factories, as their authority is limited to launch. Asking them to include the factory is absurd.
Fish and Wildlife officials were furious. In emails back and forth, they began to question if the F.A.A. was effectively conspiring with SpaceX to undermine their work in protecting the area.
I browsed through the emails, didn't see anything of the sort.
SpaceX was not only harming wildlife conservation areas, according to local environmental groups and Fish and Wildlife staff members, it was now broadly restricting access to them.
In the beginning of the article it literally says "Two hours later, once conditions were deemed safe, a team from SpaceX, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and a conservation group began canvassing the fragile migratory bird habitat surrounding the launch site.", so it doesn't seem that FWS has any trouble accessing the area.
Christopher Basaldú of Brownsville, an anthropologist, said that Mr. Musk’s space operations have threatened area habitat and cut off access to the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, which has long relied on the area.
The Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas "is not a federally recognized tribe,[4] nor a state-recognized tribe,[5] nor recognized by any other Tribal Nation." according to Wikipedia, it's just a non-profit organization.
Steel sheets, concrete chunks and shrapnel were hurled thousands of feet into the air then slammed into the bird habitat as well as onto the nearby state park and beach. One concrete piece was found 2,680 feet from the launch site — far outside the zone where the F.A.A. thought damage could occur.
It's not really that far outside the original debris impact area, remember 2,680 feet is only ~0.5 miles. Also remember anything inside ~0.6 miles will get killed by heat plumes anyway, so while in this case FAA needs to expand the debris impact area somewhat, it's not a big deal at all.
The noise was so loud that it exceeded the limits on one of the sound measurement equipment Fish and Wildlife was relying on — a device that maxes out at 143.8 decibels, a level considered “painful and dangerous.”
This is not measured by FWS, it's measured by someone from University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (email address ends with @utrgv.edu). In fact FWS disowned this data in another email in a previous email dump provided by NYT article: "Important note: The 144 db reading shown earlier is not confirmed and is not our data. Keep in mind there is a caveat with this data, as there's always a chance something went wrong with the calibration of the device or there was unexpected interference of some kind on the microphone, and we are notsound engineers."
In the same email, FWS says their own sound meter shows measurements that matches the predicted sound level from PEA: "Attached is the data from our sound meter, which was placed at 25.986023, -97.18476242; approximately 2 miles away from the orbital launch mount. The max reading was 114.9 dBA and the sound level was over 90 dBA for 1 minute and 18 seconds. Sound levels appear to take approximately 8 minutes and 20 seconds from beginning of the launch to get back to "normal" levels. I inserted a graph to visualize the data over a 20 minute period . The maximum of 114.9 dBA matches the sound levels expected from a Starship orbital launch in figures 3 and 4 of Appendix B of the PEA and at figure 13 of the final BCO for A-weighted sound ."
The F.A.A. generated a list of 63 corrective actions for SpaceX to address the problems from the April 2023 mishap, including installing a flame diverter. SpaceX agreed to them, and the agency ultimately gave the green light.
The corrective actions are generated by SpaceX and signed off by FAA, as it is customary.
Eric Berger reported SpaceX may have leased High Bay 1 of VAB at Florida, so they can use that.
They can also store unused vehicles outside, just put on some outdoor covers like those used for cars or airplanes.
As the citation indicates, the Supreme Court is currently reviewing that decision, and it will likely be mostly overturned in June.
Well....
Supreme Court strikes serious blow against the administrative state
TheSpaceEngineer, who does VFX for LabPadre and RGVaerialphotos, has a long twitter thread explaining why he thinks the B11 post-splashdown explosion image is real: https://x.com/mcrs987/status/1809685561344393657
Bunking? Debunking? What would you call this? I dunno, but this image is real, and here's a thread as to why;
Right so obviously there has been a TON of discussion on this image, when it is, if it's even real, where it's from, ect. Here's all the details I've noticed;
It doesn't prevent work from being done, because SpaceX themselves are equally if not more impacted by Starship, SLC-40 is very close to SLC-37 for example. If SpaceX themselves can workaround Starship's cadence, so can everyone else.
The blast danger area for Starship is actually pretty small, less than 2 miles in radius, it wouldn't extend to other pads. And the danger is only present when Starship is being fueled, which is about an hour for each launch, so the disruption is very small.
KSC is literally designed to launch superheavy launch vehicles, so launching Starship is entirely appropriate there, there's no other place on the east coast that is more appropriate for launching Starship. NASA once planned on launching 40 Shuttle flights per year from KSC, so the flight rate SpaceX is asking for a superheavy LV is not unprecedented.
I got some criticism when I last proposed sea launches for Starship, but I feel like some ULA and Blue Origin criticism is valid. IFT-4 was VERY loud, it was loud 6 miles away, both well in the range of south padre all the way to the Queen Isabela Causeway, and while not that bothersome, it would get annoying very fast with a lot of launches.
That has nothing to do with Blue Origin or ULA though, that's for local residents to complain about.
things like debris and vibrations from the launch affecting other launchpads is a real problem
Starship's blast danger area at Boca Chica is less than 2 miles in radius, it wouldn't extend to any of the other launch pads.
Starships have to be carried by very public roads and then put on a barge to move them to the launchpad. This is a lot of work
They transport Falcon 9 on public roads all the time. In fact Starship's transportation need should eventually be minimal comparing to Falcon 9, since Starship return to launch site while Falcon 9 has to be transported between port and refurbishment facility and launch pad constantly.
I think there should be more focus on artificial islands or offshore oilrigs for launches
That's for the future, SpaceX needs Starship launch pad right now.
Note that NASA saved $26M by selecting SpaceX as launch provider:
Despite the budget pressures, NASA was able to save money with COSI’s launch. The agency’s fiscal year 2025 budget projected spending $26 million less on the mission in fiscal years 2025 through 2027 than the projections in its 2024 budget proposal. “This budget reflects savings due to a reduced launch vehicle estimate from the launch services provider, which resulted in an overall decrease to the LCC,” or lifecycle cost, the proposal stated. The proposal, released in March, did not identify SpaceX as the launch provider.
Source: https://spacenews.com/spacex-wins-nasa-contract-to-launch-gamma-ray-astronomy-mission/
The news here is the # of launches they're requesting for SLC-37:
But SpaceX may have even more ambitious plans for a second launch pad right next door: Space Launch Complex (SLC)-37 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS). At a series of public meetings held in March, the public was invited to comment on plans to launch Starship from SLC-37 up to 76 times per year. That would mean SpaceX aims to launch its next-gen rocket up to 120 times per year within a six-mile area on the Florida coast.
SpaceX already proposed a Starship Mars landing in 2029 in their Mars Sample Return study.
My guess is they'll start sending Starship towards Mars starting in 2026. Just look at the factory they're building at Boca Chica, they don't need 100 new Starship per year just for Starlink or HLS, the factory is already sized for a large Mars campaign.
This is fairly easy to solve, just put a cluster of HLS landing thrusters on Starship and use them instead of Raptor. Could just use HLS Starship itself if you don't care about cosine loss.
They can still extend ISS beyond 2030 if needed, the deorbit vehicle can be put into storage on the ground for a few years after 2030.
Would require dozens/hundreds of EVAs to completely salvage - too much time/effort.
I wonder if Jared Isaacman would offer to do this for free, then buy a Starship ride to bring the modules down to be donated to museums.
It doesn't have to be completely salvaged, just the major western modules would do.
The article is BS, because EIS is not meant to be used to deconflict the range, it's meant to evaluate the environmental impact. Also Blue Origin's facilities are outside the danger area anyways.
The complaint is BS, EIS is not meant for this. If Blue Origin wants government investment in infrastructure or deconflict with SpaceX launches, they should talk to NASA and USAF who run the range, that has literally nothing to do with EIS.
Besides, the blast danger area at Boca Chica is less than 2 miles in radius, the SpaceX personnel only zone's radius is only about 4 miles. At the cape, Blue Origin's LC-36 is 10 miles away from LC-39A, their Cape factory is 7.8 miles away from LC-39A, they're all far outside the danger area.
Flame Trench
Note that this is Tim's word, Elon didn't actually say "Flame Trench"
Given Elon did say the tower 2 will get taller to accommodate new Starship, it's likely the launch mount will still be elevated, which doesn't fit a flame trench design well, so I'd say it's more likely they'll use a flame diverter.
Blue Origin's factory is 8 miles from pad 39A, and LC36 is 10 miles from pad 39A.
If this is true, what are they complaining about? At Boca Chica, Port Isabel is only 6 miles away from the launch pad, and they're not evacuated or otherwise restricted during launch.
LOL, you do realize NASA just awarded SpaceX a study contract for using Starship for MSR? It included a demo landing on Mars in 2029.
No it does not. Because the same twit who claimed this also claims Starship is just for launching Starlink and Mars is just marketing BS , why should I take such idiot seriously?
No, I don't know where the full document referenced by this user is.
Link to the full document which is obtained via FOIA request by this user, who I believe goes by the handle Heart-Key on reddit.
On X, here's the unrolled thread: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1809685561344393657.html
Starship Development Thread #56
spacex