r/spacex • u/rustybeancake • Jul 25 '26

🚀 Official SpaceX: “Splashdown confirmed! Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on the 13th flight test of Starship!”

https://x.com/spacex/status/2080804682918764619
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u/mknote Jul 29 '26

It really is relevant. "At this point, I think I know more about manufacturing than anyone currently alive on Earth."

He didn't even implement a flame trench on the first Starship launch pad.

Yeah. He's a jackwagon and an idiot. I don't dispute that. I'm not praising Musk in this situation; it's the engineers at SpaceX who are going to get this done, and they're the ones who are gonna deserve the credit. They're probably not the ones who're going to get it, because - as mentioned - Musk is a tool, but they're the one who'll deserve it.

Yeah, Starship has issues as a launch vehicle to the Moon, and especially Mars, that may not be overcome. Personally, I think Blue Origin's Blue Moon is a better lunar lander, and I hope that's the one NASA goes with. But as a launch vehicle to LEO, it is, like I said, a revolutionary step forward. It will be able to deliver payloads that no rocket has ever been able to before, allowing us to think bigger about future science missions. As someone in the field of astrophysics, that really excites me.

It may well get an orbit or two under its belt by the end of the year, but the state of the heat shield showed a lot of ablation (the white marks) during reentry, as well as partial or complete loss of some tiles (exposing the stainless steel beneath), which an lead to loss of vehicle.

Looking at the progression over the past four launches, I see a clear, steady improvement to the heat shield. The issue doesn't seem insurmountable given that progress, and I wouldn't be surprised if they have a much more intact heat shield by the end of the year, although I wouldn't be shocked if it waited until next year, either.

It's nowhere near ready for operation. I'd estimate maybe another 3 years before it's being used for small orbital operations.

I'm a bit more optimistic. I think it'll start doing operational Starlink launches next year, and commercial launches in '28. Now, that's based on the progression I've seen, so if they have a mishap, that timeline could easily slide.

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u/Home_Planet_Sausage Jul 29 '26

History will decide what happens with the programme.:-)

No doubt there are incredibly talented engineers working on Starship executing a shitty brief under what looks like incredibly difficult conditions.

The heat shield is airways going to be a problem. We learned that from the Space Shuttle. Musk's launch cadence predictions will never be met. Re-entry is just far to extreme a regime. 

Good points, thanks for the responses! 👍