SpaceX Starship - IFT-4 - Starbase TX - Pre-Launch Preparations Thread

[JB47394]

Ship 29 is preparing for a spin prime at the suborbital pad. Road closed. Launch area cleared. No overpressure notice.

 

[Electroman]

We are talking about IFT-4 already ?

 

[ecarfan]

We are talking about IFT-4 already ?

Hah! Love it that SpaceX is pushing forward with the vehicles for IFT-4.

Suborbital tank farm appears to be active. No prop loading is apparent, yet. Here is the livestream.

 

[ecarfan]

Frost line on the LOX tank but don’t see one yet on the methane.

 

[ecarfan]

Now it appears that the tank farm is depressurizing and there has not even been a spin prime test, let alone a static fire.

 

[JB47394]

Road's open. No spin prime, just a LOX load and unload.

 

[JB47394]

Ship 29 performed a spin prime test at 10:06 CDT.

 

[ecarfan]

Glad to see that test completed. I assume that by tomorrow midday the ship will be moved back to the production site. Or maybe it will go direct to Massey’s for a static fire.

 

[JB47394]

Glad to see that test completed. I assume that by tomorrow midday the ship will be moved back to the production site. Or maybe it will go direct to Massey’s for a static fire.

I think it'll be months before they're doing static fires at Massey's.

 

[ecarfan]

Sorry, you are correct, I forgot that the Massey’s static fire test stand is far from complete.

 

[JB47394]

They had the launch mount scaffolding back up in no time flat. I think it was down for about 12 hours.

 

[Buckminster]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1769599161228296273

 

[scaesare]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1769599161228296273

It may be helpful to supply some context when linking to X replies here, as otherwise this is somewhat meaningless...

Here's what Elon was responding to:

 

[Electroman]

It may be helpful to supply some context when linking to X replies here, as otherwise this is somewhat meaningless...

Here's what Elon was responding to:

View attachment 1029201

Huh? I can see the context from Buckminster's post. Here is a screen capture below. I am guessing for some reason the twitter urls are not translating to actual message for you because you do not have an X account?. And if not having a free X account is the reason, then that is your problem and there is no excuse for that.

 

[scaesare]

Huh? I can see the context from Buckminster's post. Here is a screen capture below. I am guessing for some reason the twitter urls are not translating to actual message for you because you do not have an X account?. And if not having a free X account is the reason, then that is your problem and there is no excuse for that.

View attachment 1029224

Hmm, I do, and am logged in.

This is what I see for what @Buckminster posted.

(and apologies if for whatever reason I'm the one not seeing context, when you are @Buckminster ...)

 

[JB47394]

(and apologies if for whatever reason I'm the one not seeing context, when you are @Buckminster ...)

I also see the context, and I don't have a Twitter account. I assume that TMC is obtaining the tweet image via some web site access method. Perhaps you were looking at only the text. The image can be slow to show up.

If Elon says "hopefully", we can forget it. I would consider early May to be a minor miracle. I'm assuming that IFT-3 still requires mishap investigations because of the departures from the parameters of the test program. If they hit mid-May, I'll be seriously psyched. A two-month turnaround already? They'd be able to get six flights this year, or get darned close, because they should be able to accelerate things flight by flight. They'd probably be down to a month interval by the end of the year.

Fifteen flights in 2025?

I guess my only caveat to the timing of IFT-4 would be that IFT-3 took so long that they might get IFT-4 launched with a smaller delay, but I wouldn't expect them to sustain that pace going forward.

 

[scaesare]

I also see the context, and I don't have a Twitter account. I assume that TMC is obtaining the tweet image via some web site access method. Perhaps you were looking at only the text. The image can be slow to show up.

Forgot to post by screenshot of what I see in the post above... and I've had a page up for several minutes and no new data arrives (maybe I'll dig thru my site settings...):

If Elon says "hopefully", we can forget it. I would consider early May to be a minor miracle. I'm assuming that IFT-3 still requires mishap investigations because of the departures from the parameters of the test program. If they hit mid-May, I'll be seriously psyched. A two-month turnaround already? They'd be able to get six flights this year, or get darned close, because they should be able to accelerate things flight by flight. They'd probably be down to a month interval by the end of the year.

Fifteen flights in 2025?

I guess my only caveat to the timing of IFT-4 would be that IFT-3 took so long that they might get IFT-4 launched with a smaller delay, but I wouldn't expect them to sustain that pace going forward.

Kinda feel like they are on overtime trying to work with the FAA for mishaps... late May would be awesome.

 

[ecarfan]

Forgot to post by screenshot of what I see in the post above

Thanks. I see the context tweet that @JB47394 and @Electroman refer to. Don’t know why you can’t. I’m not logged into X.

 

[scaesare]

Weird.

Nothing jumped out at me in my settings.

I do NOT have my C/Twitter account associated with my account here, but that seems to only be for login.

Dunno.

 

[Buckminster]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1769885044468801972