eee chop yub nub

ah toe meet toe pee-chee keene

g’noop dock fling oh ah

sponsored by taxpayers.

Eh, only kinda. NASA have agreed to purchase Starship launch services for the Artemis program, but they aren’t funding each test individually.

Every blown up Starship is that many billions just, poof

That’s money that SpaceX have to pay though, not NASA. The Starship contract for Artemis is fixed-price, not cost-plus. Whether SpaceX blow up one Starship or ten during the testing phase, NASA pay the same amount for the operational flights.

Why is the article thumbnail clearly an unrelated Falcon 9 launch from LC-39A in Florida?

Unclear how the ground systems are doing.

We won’t know for sure until sunrise, but it seems like a fair bit of the infrastructure surrounding the test stand at Massey’s may have gotten torched by the fireball.

Starbase activities (2025-06-18):

• Jun 17th cryo delivery tally. (ViX)
• Build site: A continuous flight auger drill arrives in the ring yard, staging near Starfactory in preparation for drilling for the Gigabay foundations. (ViX)
• Potential sighting of the flight termination system installation crew entering Megabay 1, presumably for B16. (ViX)
• Launch site: Following installation at Pad 2, the fourth water cooled manifold is disconnected from the LR11000 crane. (ViX)
• Bonus gulls. (ViX)
• Massey’s: Road is closed, and tank farm spools up. (LabPadre, Starship Gazer, Beyer)
• Cryo load begins on S36. (LabPadre)
• S36 experiences a rapid unscheduled disassembly. (LabPadre 1, LabPadre 2, Starship Gazer 1, Starship Gazer 2, D Wise (slow motion), NSF 1, NSF 2, Golden, Pike (drone), Hardcore Electric, Andrew C, NSF full livestream)
• Fire department arrives. (NSF)
• “Starship preparing for the tenth flight test experienced a major anomaly while on a test stand at Starbase. A safety clear area around the site was maintained throughout the operation and all personnel are safe and accounted for.” (SpaceX)
• Scot Manley analysis. “you can see the separation of the forward tank and escaping methane appears to generate an impulse that crushes the top of the lower tank leading to propellent mixing and ignition” (Manley)
• Zack Golden’s shares his thoughts. (Golden 1, Golden 2, Golden 3, Golden 4, Golden 5, Golden 6, Golden 7)
• Ryan Hansen shares his thoughts, and speculates that one of the composite overwrap pressure vessels could be the culprit. (Hansen 1, Hansen 2)

Flight 10:

• Starship Flt-10 appears on the FAA Operations Plan Advisory with a NET date of Jun 29th, likely somewhat moot following the day’s events. (FAA, archive)

Amazing!

I know, right? Did the artist forget that snakes aren’t mammals?

[email protected] :)

Stage 1 landing confirmed!

Edit: M-vac shutdown.

MECO, stage separation, M-vac ignition, and fairing separation.

Liftoff!

NSF are live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAjAUVL455E

Propellant loading is underway.

Starbase activities (2025-06-17):

• Jun 16th cryo delivery tally. (ViX)
• Launch site: At Pad 2, the fourth water cooled manifold is installed on the launch mount (ViX)
• Build site: A raptor engine enters Megabay 2. (ViX)
• Massey’s: SpaceX share engine bay video of the previous day’s static fire of S36. (SpaceX)
• An additional water spray system has been added to the top of the Massey’s flame bucket. (Killip)
• Some flexing of the false ceiling is visible. (Anderson)
• R546 is identified as one of the engines on S36. (Ringwatchers)

Flight 8:

• Potential leaked image of ship engine RUD. (Dawson81702)

Florida:

• Harry Stranger shares a recent satellite photo of LC-39A (and LC-38B). (Stranger, UmbraSpace)

But you did not like getting your toxic ass called out there, did you.

Given that votes on Lemmy are pseudo-anonymous, publicly calling someone out for how they vote comes with a certain amount of aggressive or combative connotation. However, I recognize that “pseudo-anonymous” is not “actually anonymous”, and I respect your freedom to do so.

Best wishes with the move!

FYI, these sorts of posts are probably better suited for [email protected] and [email protected]. Might want to post there as well.

i wanted to know what the beef was about

It arose as the result of an attempted community consolidation which went… poorly: https://sh.itjust.works/post/34897944

Not sure the best way to handle the situation at this point.

[email protected]?

deleted by creator

Well now I’m curious…

Before that, they downvoted every comment of mine but have stopped since.

Ah, thanks for the reminder.

That was my first thought as well, but Sal thinks it would not be the best fit for the instance, since it’s more of a humour community than a science community.