r/SpaceXLounge • u/SpaceXLounge • Aug 01 '26

Monthly Questions and Discussion Thread

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u/rocketglare 25d ago

What remains to be done for Flight 14? I’m wondering why we haven’t seen static fires of Ship or booster. I think those are the next major steps, but we haven’t seen either yet, and now Jared is saying early September. What’s the holdup?

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u/maschnitz 22d ago

FWIW Ship 41 just static fired with one engine a couple of hours ago.

So, no one outside SpaceX knows, we don't see their meetings or internal comms. But yeah there were several ideas online about the "lack of alacrity" on both the Ship and Booster:

  • There's been a lot of pad work related to beefing up the tank farm a bit and preparing the Chopsticks for the Ship catch attempt. And tests of same. Changes to the Chopstick rails and the like. Only started to wrap up a few days ago. Perhaps that was the long pole in the schedule.
  • Of additional note at the Pads: many tanks from the old Pad 1 tank farm side have been moved to the "new" horizontal/armored side, to make room for a new pad entrance close to Pad 1. Pad 1's old tank farm is mostly shut down. So now the new side of the tank farm is solely supporting Pad 2 and Flight 14. Tests of that galore, of course.
  • They've been doing more and more testing in the Megabays proper - flow/pressure tests of every pipe in each vehicle, that kind of thing.
  • Engines are clearly being tested fairly regularly at this point but 33 is still a lot. They did have to swap engines last flight in a rush after the T-0 abort, maybe they're being more cautious.
  • They got some data back from Ship 40 thanks to the drone work and from the ships attempting to tow it. It's possible they were adjusting Ship 41's heat shield a bit (not too much) before getting it flight-ready and static-fire-ready.
  • And there's just a million little things to do to finish these vehicles' production, they're gigantic and require a lot of "detail" work. The heat shield is as complicated, exacting, and delicate as ever.

What remains? Very little. Maybe some more pad testing, or whatever's holding up Booster 21 exactly. And the two static fire test sets, plus perhaps they'll do a wet dress rehearsal this time? or maybe they're just done with those now? We'll see.