That's 27 hours from now.

SpaceX is targeting Saturday, July 27 for a Falcon 9 launch of 23 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Liftoff is targeted for 12:21 a.m. ET, with backup opportunities available until 4:21 a.m. ET.

And here is their blogpost, dated 2024-07-25, announcing that the mishap report has been submitted to the FAA, and discussing some of the details.

During the first burn of Falcon 9’s second stage engine, a liquid oxygen leak developed within the insulation around the upper stage engine. The cause of the leak was identified as a crack in a sense line for a pressure sensor attached to the vehicle’s oxygen system. This line cracked due to fatigue caused by high loading from engine vibration and looseness in the clamp that normally constrains the line.

With 6x more propellant and 4x the power of today’s Dragon spacecraft, SpaceX was selected to design and develop the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle for a precise, controlled deorbit of the @Space_Station

Looks like there will be 30 draco engines on the back of that thing. Pretty Kerbal!

Edit:

Yuck. He could have just used some lame excuse like lower taxes or less business regulations or whatever and I would have just shrugged and said, eh I guess it makes sense what with the enormous facility they've built down there. But no, he had to make this about politics.

Infographic source: rykllan

https://x.com/_rykllan/status/1812678267826049310

• B1062, B1061, B1067, and 1063 are the leaders at 22, 21, and 20, and 19 flights, respectively.
• B1069, B1071, and B1073 are tied for 5th place at 16 flights each.

https://x.com/_rykllan/status/1812678271504388110

144 launches in 2024 is now looking unlikely, given the ongoing investigation into Falcon 9 the upper stage failure on the Starlink 9-3 mission.

During tonight’s Falcon 9 launch of Starlink from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, the second stage engine did not complete its second burn. As a result, the Starlink satellites were deployed into a lower than intended orbit. SpaceX has made contact with five of the satellites so far and is attempting to have them raise orbit using their ion thrusters.

There's also a tweet saying the same thing in fewer words.

This is the affected mission: Starlink 9-3 launch bulletin

Let's hope it was due to SpaceX pushing the envelope on their in-house Starlink missions in some way, though I have no specific guesses along those lines. Perhaps a manufacturing defect or an operational mistake are more likely to be the leading candidates for the cause.

Starlink Group 9-3 launch out of SLC-4E in California currently scheduled for 2024-07-12 02:35 UTC, or 2024-07-11 19:35 local time (PDT). Booster 1063-19 to land on Of Course I Still Love You.

• NextSpaceflight page
• SpaceX mission page

Webcasts:

• Space Affairs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6br6_Q6qjWU
• Spaceflight Now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVh4cpCNz5c
• NASASpaceflight:
• The Launch Pad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYY7KfWa_V8
• SpaceX: https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1811588867344203956
• The Space Devs:

SpaceX Starship page

Portions of this thread copied from a Starship Dev thread on r/SpaceX.

FAQ

1. When next launch? (IFT-5) Booster catch is now NET late November, per SpaceX.
2. When previous launch? (IFT-4)? Booster 11 and Ship 29 launched on 2024-06-06.
3. What was the result? Both booster and ship make it to landing burn and splashdown. Ship flaps took a beating on reentry, but remained in control of the vehicle.

Quick Links

RAPTOR ROOST | LAB CAM | SAPPHIRE CAM | SENTINEL CAM | ROVER CAM | ROVER 2.0 CAM | PLEX CAM | NSF STARBASE

Starship Dev 56 | IFT-4 launch thread | Starship Dev 55 | IFT-3 launch thread | Starship Dev 54 | Starship Dev 53 | Starship Dev 52

Official SpaceX Starship Update Video (2024-04-06)

Status

Road Closures - @bocaroad Mastodon bot

Up to date as of 2024-07-11

Vehicle Status

As of 2024-08-23

Follow Ring Watchers on Twitter and Discord for more.

Resources

• LabPadre Channel | NASASpaceFlight.com Channel
• NSF: Booster 7 + Ship X (likely 24) Updates Thread | Most Recent
• NSF: Boca Chica Production Updates Thread | Most recent
• NSF: Elon Starship tweet compilation | Most Recent
• SpaceX: Website Starship page | Starship Users Guide (2020, PDF)
• FAA: SpaceX Starship Project at the Boca Chica Launch Site
• FAA: Temporary Flight Restrictions NOTAM list
• FCC: Starship Orbital Demo detailed Exhibit - 0748-EX-ST-2021 application June 20 through December 20
• NASA: Starship Reentry Observation (Technical Report)
• Hwy 4 & Boca Chica Beach Closures (May not be available outside US)
• Production Progress Infographics by @RingWatchers
• Raptor 2 Tracker by @SpaceRhin0
• Acronym definitions by Decronym
• Everyday Astronaut: Starbase Tour with Elon Musk, Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
• Everyday Astronaut: 2022 Elon Musk Interviews, Starbase/Ship Updates | Launch Tower | Merlin Engine | Raptor Engine
• Everyday Astronaut 2024 Elon Musk Interviews: Starfactory tour | Pad tour and post-IFT-4 interview

Launch info

| Scheduled for (UTC) | 2024-07-08, 23:30 | |

|

| | Scheduled for (local) | 2024-07-08, 19:30 (EDT) | | Launch site | SLC-40, Cape Canaveral SFS, Florida | | Payload | Türksat 6A | | Booster | 1076-15 | | Landing site | Just Read the Instructions | | Customer | Türksat A.Ş. | | Mission success criteria | Successful delivery of payload to Geostationary Transfer Orbit |

Webcasts

| Stream | Link | |

|

| | Space Affairs | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoKYdf7HJx4 | | Spaceflight Now | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmgMDzg1eEk | | NASASpaceflight | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu0a8byXE_4 | | The Launch Pad | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj2BRK_hi5g | | SpaceX | https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1810453636637712442 | | The Space Devs | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Pj5xxCjBLk |

Stats

Sourced from NextSpaceflight and r/SpaceX:

☑️ 34th launch from SLC-40 this year

☑️ 5 days, 13:05:00 turnaround for this pad

☑️ 68th Falcon 9 launch this year, 354th overall

☑️ 69th SpaceX mission this year (nice!), 369th overall (excludes Starship hops)

☑️ 71st SpaceX launch this year, 382nd overall (includes Starship hops)

☑️ 86th landing on JRTI

☑️ 284th consecutive successful Falcon 9 launch (excluding Amos-6) (if successful)

☑️ 329th Falcon Family Booster landing, 339th Falcon recovery attempt

Mission and payload info

First communication geostationary satellite built in Turkey. (Some payloads are Canadian) Türksat 6A is a satellite that will provide data relay for civil and military communications to the Anatolian peninsula as well as most of the European continent, the Middle East, and the westernmost part of the Russian federation. The satellite is equipped with 16(+4) Ku-band and 2(+1) X-band transponders.

• NextSpaceflight mission page
• SpaceX mission webpage