LC-39A

Both Booster 7 and Ship 24 were static fired for the first time this week as a second Starbase surge appeared to begin. Over in Florida, the completion of the orbital launch tower grows ever closer. 

Starship development across Starbase and Florida has continued at a pace over the past week with progress on present and future vehicles and the scrapping of past vehicles, as Ship 21 met its fate.

Booster 7 underwent a cryogenic proof test earlier in the week, Ship 24 sections were moved around the production site, and work on the launch tower sections in Florida continues.

Satellite imagery of SpaceX’s Launch Complex 39A revealed more work occurring at the Starship mount. Now, Elon has confirmed that construction on a Cape orbital pad has begun.

SpaceX launched their first non-NASA crewed mission, Inspiration4, to orbit using their Dragon spacecraft on Wednesday night. The crew members are not professional astronauts, but average citizens. They were not selected based on the strict requirements of previous astronauts, but instead for their ability to represent and inspire the world.

The long-awaited Inspiration4 mission will launch this week from the historic LC-39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The flight, paid for by Shift4 founder and CEO Jared Issacman, will carry Issacman along with 3 other civilians.

Over the months we have come to know Issacman, Hayley Arceneaux, Dr. Sian Proctor, and Chris Sembroski. This week a new era of spaceflight begins as these four take to the sky inside a SpaceX Dragon capsule as the company’s first commercial astronaut mission.

Date: Wednesday, September 15th, 8:02 p.m. EDT

In cases where there is an emergency on the pad and the crew needs to get out of there in a hurry. Companies have designed Emergency Egress Systems (EES) to do just that job. SpaceX and ULA each have them, and in the past, NASA has as well. It looks like Artemis, NASA’s mission to the moon, is in the early stages of having her’s built.

SpaceX successfully launched its latest Starlink mission today while setting a new record for reusing a Falcon 9 first stage booster. Starlink is SpaceX’s growing satellite internet service, and SpaceX uses these missions to deploy up to 60 of its own satellites into orbit as test beds for pushing booster re-flight records.