RCgothic

270 flights without a failure would only prove LOC risk to a 63% confidence level. To be 95% sure you have a craft capable of 1/270 LOC you need 810 flights. And is being 95% sure enough? 1/270 is a 99.62% success rate. To be 99.62% sure you have a craft capable of a 99.62% success rate, that's 1510 flights.

I think all this talk of starship LES is pointless. It's not going to have one.

A new thrust puck has appeared. First sighting of SN8 or 9?

Wow, this'll help make Starlink more economical to launch!

Jokes:

If SpaceX aren't already more expert at designing and building cryogenic tanks to withstand flight pressure and flight loads whilst minimising mass than the leading gas plant suppliers then I'll buy a hat and eat it. This is a core capability for a rocket company. As @Ultimate Steve points out, anyone can design a tank to hold pressure. Designing it light enough to fit on a vehicle is the hard part. Designing it light enough to be load-bearing rocket is hardest of all.

Pop! Not a big explosion. A small failure, possibly around a port or something.

Also it's SN7 first to the test site!

That's not really fair. Space X have saved a lot of time and money in design and procurement doing static fires to validate engines rather than doing it in paperwork. It's therefore a good process. But when you've validated the engines with three entire missions and all associated tests, there's maybe diminishing returns. What Elon said is "If you think a decision/design is bad and you don't speak up, you're in trouble. If you've raised an issue with me and we go ahead, I will take responsibility if there's a problem." That's not really the same thing as "anything Musk says goes" either.

Rollout and testing delayed again: I know they've been getting a lot done that isn't SN5, but I'm curious what specifically is the hold up.

It's not volume, but could be 2x attach points.

Ok, this is the first confirmation that actually they can't fit 3 smallsats in addition to 60 Starlinks. F9 payload to LEO reusable remains 15.8t. The smallsats didn't push that limit, 2 Starlinks had to get dropped.

RVac, ~380s.

What Elon is saying is that the following tank mass factors roughly balance for a given mass of propellant: CH4 is less dense compared to RP1 and so the CH4 tanks have to be bigger and weigh more. A higher proportion of the propellant is LOX, which is more dense and so the larger CH4 tank is a smaller proportion of the tanks as a whole (so the extra mass is not as much as you might think). No insulation is required on the common intertank bulkhead because CH4 remains liquid closer to LOX temperatures, unlike RP1. This saves mass. The tank is colder filled with CH4 than with RP1, and this actually boosts the material strength of the tank. So the tank can be made thinner, saving mass. The four factors roughly balance. This means we could build an upper stage with similar tank mass fraction to F9US, except with 22s more ISP and twice as much thrust. The F9US is already a beast of a stage! It can give 8km/s to a 7.3t payload! For reference Centaur, the benchmark HYDROLOX stage, can't even give 7km/s to half as much payload (Centaur weighs half as much as F9US dry). A hypothetical single-Raptor powered upper stage with a similar tank fraction and TWR to F9US as Elon has just suggested is possible, would give 9km/s to 12.5 tonnes! Space X really is leaving the rest of the industry for dead in upper stage technology.

We're up to #30 for Raptors:

Speaking of Raptors, sounds very like a full duration fire! But SN5 rollout is delayed again: And SN7 looks to officially be a test tank!

Scott points out a few cool features of this video:

DM-2 is doing well, mission extension is GO:

Pretty!

I was hoping for some dimensions.

How big is the extended Falcon Heavy fairing? Trying to find some details but coming up empty-handed.

I love being able to post Elon in the Artemis thread. Also SpaceX will kill it with cost per kg.

Space colonisation is risky. If SpaceX straight up said "this will kill one in every hundred crews" there would still be volunteers. That's not too minimise the risk. But perfect safety isn't a thing. I absolutely believe Starship can be made with a safer record than shuttle, even without abort modes. It has more margin in hand.