This thread probably, next thread perhaps less likely?

Starbase activities (2024-05-16):

• LR11000 crane is hooked up to remove a remaining portion of GSE-2 outer tank.
• Build site video tour: Parking garage construction continues, Starfactory cladding is nearly complete.
• S29 & B11 partial tanking test: NSF livestream. GSE venting (ship methane subcooler), B11 CO2 tank venting, LOX subcoolers venting, tower venting, (alternate angle), frost on ship and booster, depress vent, and road open. NSF timelapse.
• Cryo deliveries continue.
• Tower segment 2 of 5 preps for rollout from Brownsville to Starbase. Additional photos: Doherty, LabPadre, Gomez

Starbase activities (2024-06-13):

• Overnight, the 10 launch mount hold-down clamps which were removed are replaced. The first and second booster stabilization pins are reinstalled on the launch mount.
• Parts for the CC8800-1 crane continue to arrive. Aerial photo of assembly from a couple days ago.
• Chopsticks: Landing rail on the (anatomical) left chopstick (house right) is raised and lowered. The same chopstick later swings slightly. The sled on the other chopstick is fully extended.
• Tower B: Corner 1 of 4 is erected (wide shot, closeup 1, closeups 2, closeup 3). Corner 2 of 4 is erected not long after (closeup).
• The barge carrying the remaining tower hardware rounds Florida’s tip on route to Brownsville.

Other:

• FAA licence modification followup: “The FAA’s most recent license modification approval for Starship Flight 4 allows for multiple flights of the same vehicle configuration and mission profile. If SpaceX decides to change the mission profile or make other changes that affect the safety analyses, it will need to request a license modification.” It is unclear if a booster catch attempt would require a modification to the launch licence.
• Twitter thread from Benedikt summarizing the foundation for the new tower: Tweet 1, tweet 2, tweet 3, tweet 4, tweet 5, tweet 6, tweet 7, tweet 8, tweet 9, tweet 10, tweet 11, tweet 12, tweet 13, tweet 14. u/TwoLineElement’s corrections are noteworthy.

Starbase activities (2024-06-02):

• Jun 1st addendum: NSF timelapse of stacking, and ship transport stand rolls away from the OLM.
• Launch site: Excavator is lifted. Work on pad 2 is progressing (closeup of tower foundation rebar).
• Starship Gazer photo of the full stack, and closeup of missing tiles on ship.
• ‘GATEWAY TO MARS’ sign is loaded onto a trailer as ‘ƧRAOM⅄⊥AGAEW’.
• Build site: Ship lifting jig is loaded onto an SPMT and enters Highbay. Nighttime photo of Starfactory from cnunez.
• Recent RGV Aerial photo of entire build site.
• Starkitty sighted :)
• S26 still at Massey’s.
• New Ringwatchers diagram is posted. Parts spotted for S36, S37 (Starship v2), B16, and B17. Tweet with additional list of updates.

KSC

• Final tower segment and both right and left chopstick arms leave the Roberts Road site and arrive at the turning basin. Max Evans video.

Starbase activities (2024-06-09):

• Relatively quiet day.
• Overnight, B15’s A3 section enters Megabay.
• Some sort of security exercise occurs.
• Work on OLM and chopsticks continues.

IFT-5 info from Elon:

• Launch NET one month from now.
• S30 heat shield to be replaced with tiles which are twice as strong, and adding an secondary ablative protection.

Starbase activities (2024-06-16):

• Morning photos of the launch site from cnunez: photo 1, photo 2, photo 3, photo 4, photo 5
• Tower B: Wall panel installation continues. (alternate angle photo from Doherty)
• CC8800-1 crane assembly continues. Derrick is raised.
• LR11000 moves towards the old orbital tank farm.
• Peek inside Starfactory and Megabay 1.
• S30 tile removal continues.
• New Ringwatchers article on the B14.1 test tank.
• RGV Aerial spots a thrust ram which hints at a 5-10-20 arrangement of engines for a 35-engine booster. For context, the current boosters have 33 engines in a 3-10-20 arrangement. Render and analysis from mcrs987 (TheSpaceEngineer), along with speculation on landing burn engines and redundancy.
• Opinion: I think the 3-engine landing burn looks plausible with differential thrust, but I’m not sure if the 2-engine landing burn would work. You’d have to gimbal the engines to point through the center of mass, and land with the vehicle tilted a la SN5 and SN6. Could the chopsticks compensate for that?

Starbase activities (2024-06-14):

• Jun 13th addendum: B15 LOX barrel arrives outside the Megabay.
• Build site video tour: Work on B15 LOX barrel. Unusual water fountain/deluge test.
• S30 tile removal continues. Starship Gazer video.
• Tower B: Overnight, three wall section panels are staged near the tower corners which were erected the previous day.
• The first crossbeam is added between the tower corner sections.
• The first wall panel is installed and reinstalled a short while later.
• Continuous flight auger (right) continues work nearby.
• CC8800-1 crane assembly continues. All three main winches are installed.
• Massey’s: B14.1 “hat” is removed.

Starbase activities (2024-06-15):

• Tower B: Overnight, corners 3 and 4 are erected. Starship Gazer photo 1, photo 2.
• CC8800-1 hook block arrives.
• RGV Aerial posts photos of Pad A aftermath, Massey’s flame trench, S30 scaffolding, Pad B construction, and a six-year side-by-side comparison of the build site.
• Starkitty sighted :)

IFT-5

• Booster catch NET late July, per Elon.

Starbase activities (2024-06-12):

• Overnight road delay for “booster transport to Massey’s” turns out to be “S26 transport from Massey’s” (ViX, NSF). Local Sheriff tweets after transport occurs.
• Another LOX barrel for B15 arrives at the Megabay.
• S30 heat shield removal continues. (Full Starship Gazer livestream)
• More tower corner pieces arrive.
• Parts for the CC8800-1 crane continue to arrive: Boom sections, other parts (crawler tracks?), cab section. The LR11000 rolls over to move crawler tracks.
• Tank farm plumbing repairs and replacements continue.

IFT-4/IFT-5:

• No mishap investigation: “The FAA assessed the operations of the SpaceX Starship Flight 4 mission. All flight events for both Starship and Super Heavy appear to have occurred within the scope of planned and authorized activities.”

Starbase activities (2024-06-11):

• Jun 10th addendum: Crane begins removing OLM clamps.
• Elon replies to Tim Dodd with info on how the orbital launch tower held up: “No major damage”
• Pad 2: Overnight, the continuous flight auger drill is reerected.
• Parts for the CC8800-1 crane continue to arrive: A steady stream of 30+ trucks labelled “Sarens” arrive at the launch site (trucks 31 and 32). The current LR11000 crane slews and begins laying mats on which to build the CC8800-1 crane. Zack posts an… article? on Starbase crane logistics.
• Build site: S30 heat shield removal begins.
• Starkitty is sighted :)
• Massey’s: S26 is lifted from test stand to onto transport.
• Road delay for “booster” transport to Massey’s seems to have been rescheduled for Jun 12th 00:00 to 03:00.

KSC: Zack highlights notable points in the environmental impact statement for LC-39A, and posts additional thoughts.

• 35 booster engines, 9 ship engines
• Up to 44 launches per year with both pad and drone ship landings
• Separate catch and launch towers
• Liquid methane, LOX, and LN2 produced on site.
• 3.8 megalitre water deluge planned, 2.5x larger than current Starbase deluge.

Starbase activities (2024-05-31):

• Build site video tour: Fairly quiet.
• S29 aft flaps are extended. Chopsticks open.
• S29 moves between the chopsticks (which close and rise), and the LR11000 is laid horizontal. Closeups of the pad from Starship Gazer, NSF, Ramirez, and Doherty.
• Disassembly begins on the “GATEWAY TO MARS” sign. Starship Gazer closeup.
• Great photo of tower sections at Sanchez from RGV Aerial. We can clearly see four full-height sections and three 2/3-height sections.

KSC:

• Empty barge heading to KSC, likely for the two remaining tower segments.

Starbase activities (2024-06-01):

• S29 press plate is removed, and S29 is stacked on B11. Timelapse from ViX, photos from Starship Gazer, Mary, LabPadre, Doherty, cnunez, Ramirez 1 (raptor closeup), Ramirez 2.
• A couple tiles fell still off, but the vast majority are “OK”.
• Workers test ship quick disconnect arm a couple of times.
• RGV Aerial spotted activity near Massey’s on the Mexican side. Does SpaceX own any land there?

KSC:

• Chopsticks carriage and tower segment (#5) roll to the turning basin and are pending loading onto barge.

IFT-4:

• IFT-4 slips to Jun 6th.
• Elon: “The main goal of this mission is to get much deeper into the atmosphere during reentry, ideally through max heating.”

Other:

• The @SpmtTracker account disappeared. Anyone know what happened?

Apologies for the delay. Starbase activities (2024-07-05):

• July 4th addendum: Tower section #1 moves, likely to clear space for lowering of the CC8800-1 crane.
• Previous day’s cryo delivery tally
• Pad B: A corner “foot” is removed and reinstalled on the tower base. Another removal and reinstallation later in the day. NSF alternate angle photo.
• CC8800-1 crane is lowered. The LTR 1220 crane retracts not long after.
• July 6th road delay (00:00 to 03:00) is posted for transportation operations “from Massey’s to Production Pad”.

Other:

• Closeup of S30 tile removal process. “Simple tooling to make this fast and repeatable”, is in the works, per Elon.
• Flight 5 in 4 weeks, per Elon. This gives us a new NET date of Aug 2.

Starbase activities (2024-06-10):

• Overnight, three concrete pumps begin concrete pour for new tower. (morning photo)
• Tower feet arrive (ViX, NSF).
• T-piece removed from orbital tank farm.
• Massey’s S26 moves towards crane, likely ahead of transfer to transport stand and return to build site.
• Parts for the CC8800-1 crane begin to arrive: 3 truckloads of counterweights arrive, followed shortly by a fourth, fifth, and sixth load.
• New raptor tracking diagram from Ringwatchers (tweet with updates).

IFT-4:

• Infrasound data from LabPadre, filtered and unfiltered.
• Elon replies to Marcus House with info on S29’s other three flaps: “Left flap also got very hot, but was less damaged. Rear flaps seemed to be ok, based on their control authority, but probably lost some tiles.”

Starbase activities (2024-07-04):

• July 3rd addendum: S31 completes another cryo test (minimal loading on each tank). NSF timelapse comparison.
• Previous day’s cryo delivery tally
• LR11000: Overnight, the crane rolls away from the location of the old tank farm. In the afternoon, it is lowered to horizontal.
• Pad B: Tower section #1 is on the move.

Other:

• SpaceX posts an IFT-4 recap and flight 5 teaser video. Final shot indicates booster RTLS on flight 5.

Starbase activities (2024-06-21):

• Overnight, a load spreader moves from build site to launch complex.
• GMK 7550 is erected and seems to be prepping for a lift, possibly the aforementioned load spreader.
• Massey’s: Crane and B14.1 movement is noted. B14.1 moves from Massey’s (ViX, (NSF) to the launch complex (ViX, NSF, LabPadre).
• B14.1 may be used in an upcoming catch test. Simulation and speculation by Ryan Hansen.
• CC8800-1 crane assembly continues.
• Tower B: More wall sections installed.
• Scrapping of GSEC-4 continues: Sections are cut and removed until none remain. Next to be removed is GSEC-3, another outer shell. (reference map)
• S30 tile replacement over the past few days: Video, photos, and more photos.
• Road closures for “non-flight testing activities” are posted for Jun 25th, 26th, and 27th, all 08:00 to 20:00.

Other:

• Alexphysics13 thread on IFT-5 communications permit: Tweet 1, Tweet 2, Tweet 3, Tweet 4, Tweet 5, Tweet 6, Tweet 7, Tweet 8, Tweet 9.

Second wet dress rehearsal with S29 and B11 in-progress now. NSF are live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt2X_568sxc