Ship 25&Booster 9 WDR coming, next Booster tested & SpaceX's New tower almost DONE...

This week could be when we see Starship soar. We are now halfway through October, a month filled with promises from the FAA and SpaceX for the next Starship orbital attempt. There's even a new Marine Safety Information Bulletin, or an MSIB, notice to mariners, issued for possible Starship testing on the 17th of October of this year. MSIBs have previously been employed for conducting static fires of boosters and for a singular wet dress rehearsal which SpaceX has executed. Nevertheless, so far, no MSIBs have been issued for any of the static fires involving Booster 9. This suggests that SpaceX may be gearing up for a wet dress rehearsal as soon as October 17th. In fact, yesterday, Marvin started delivering the hot stage back for the B-9. The logical next step can only be Ship 25. We also had a long list of SpaceX road closures for this week from Monday all the way to Thursday. If SpaceX is going to do a WDR, there will be an evacuation notice for Boca Chica Village as it is inside the danger zone. While not as dramatic as a test firing, such wet dress rehearsals are essential to demonstrate the safe fueling of so much propellant at once. It is one of the biggest milestones remaining ahead of an orbital launch attempt that could take place in a month or two. A couple of years ago, a Starship prototype exploded when its tanks experienced too much pressure. Following a successful wet dress rehearsal, SpaceX's engineers will assess the data and if it all looks good, the plan will likely proceed toward the final major pre-flight test. In a slightly less feasible case, the road closure scheduled could be reserved for Ship 26. This prototype conducted a test last week. As normal, the next step can be a static fire test. However, S26 is not expected to fly, so it's hard to predict its journey. At the same time, Booster 11 has just been the next one to sit at the hot seat at Massey's. Meanwhile, Booster 11 has been placed on the hot seat at Massey's. Indeed, B11 moved to Massey's on the 12th of October. Previously, it was outfitted with CO2 tank mounts and 18 fire suppression vents during its stay in Megabay 1. These are a part of the upgraded fire suppression system that SpaceX devised after the issues encountered in the first flight. Next up, let's move over to SpaceX's activities in Florida. They're really giving us a run for their money as they're showing how fast you can build a cargo-slash-crew tower. Indeed, the final section of SLC40's new cargo and crew tower was delivered for installation. Now, we wait for the tower arm. This has definitely been built and is ready to be assembled. It's amazing to think that NASA paid over a billion dollars for an original crew tower to be modified for Ares only for SpaceX to show that you can build multiple larger towers for far less. In any case, this is one step closer to Starship in Florida. As we all should know, Musk, the head of SpaceX, has always placed the ultimate goal of launching Starship missions from Launch Complex 39A in Florida, possibly from a new pad that is yet to be established. In 2022, significant progress has been made toward this objective, notably with the nearly completed Starship launch tower next to the Falcon 9 mount at LC39A. Sadly, following concerns arising from the mishap during the first Starship flight, most Starship operations at the Florida facility have been temporarily halted. Why is that, you may ask? Well, currently, LC39A stands as the sole US site with the capability to launch crewed Dragon capsules. This is the only spacecraft currently available to transport astronauts to the International Space Station. That makes the launch pad a national asset rather than solely for experimental flights. If a Starship were to experience an incident at LC39A, NASA could lose its only access point to the International Space Station. When a Falcon 9 rocket exploded at LC40 in 2016 causing extensive damage that required a complete rebuild, SpaceX took 15 months to revive the launch pad. In other words, if a Starship launch fails and destroys the Falcon and Dragon facilities at Pad 39A, it would take around 12 to 18 months to get it back up and running. That's why SpaceX is actively addressing this concern and working on viable alternatives. The construction of an additional tower for Crew Dragon emphasizes SpaceX's dedication to establishing a strong and secure pathway for crewed missions, thereby minimizing risks to critical ISS access points. This also implies that as the crew elevator nears completion, SpaceX is likely to have a tendency to launch Starship in the near future. NASA will no longer have concerns about potential issues related to a giant new experimental rocket as Starship could potentially halt all SpaceX Dragon launches in one fell swoop, which was apparently one bridge too many for the agency. From all of these developments, we can anticipate the revival of activities related to Starship at the Florida site in the near future. In another related news to the launch pad, SpaceX launched its 50th mission from its East Coast pad last Thursday, hitting a milestone some only wish to get for their entire operation. Lifting off from SLC-40 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Starlink Group 6-21 made its way to the designated orbit and deployed the 22 Gen 2 Mini Starlink satellites. SpaceX has launched a vast majority of its Falcon 9 missions from SLC-40. In fact, over half of SpaceX launches have taken off from that old Titan 3 and 4 pad. Not to mention that 80% of the launches from the East Coast have taken off from SLC-40. Is it because the SLC-40 is set up differently to allow for so many launches? That is sort of true, as we don't actually know what SpaceX has done, but it's believed that it has made upgrades to the pad to allow for faster turnarounds. Some of these turnarounds from SLC-40 have been a matter of days, which is quite impressive. LC-39A has also been held up a few times this year with crewed and cargo Dragon flights. SpaceX has also launched three Falcon Heavies, with a fourth coming soon. These types of missions require much longer preparations ahead of the launch, which includes stress rehearsals and static fires by both SpaceX and NASA personnel. This sort of long downtime between missions would cripple a company trying to launch close to 100 missions in a year, but thankfully, SpaceX operates two pads at the same time from Florida. Sometimes that works in their favor, where they can prepare two launches at the same time, and sometimes SpaceX can even launch two missions just a few hours from each other. In short, SpaceX's dominance in space is growing stronger day by day. NASA, meanwhile, is considering cutting the budget of its two biggest space telescopes as it faces broader spending reductions for its astrophysics program. This sort of- In an October 13th presentation to the National Academy's Committee on Astronomy and Astrophysics, Mark Clampin, director of NASA's Astrophysics Division, said he was studying unspecified cuts in the operating budgets of the Chandra X-3 observatory and Hubble Space Telescope to preserve funding for other priorities in the division. The potential cuts, he said, are driven by the expectation that his division will not receive the full request of nearly $1.56 billion for fiscal year 2024 because of legislation passed in June that caps non-defense discretionary spending for 2024 at 2023 levels, with only a 1% increase for 2025. We're working with the expectation that FY24 budgets stay at the 23 levels, he said. That means that we have decided to reduce the budget for missions in extended operations, and that is Chandra and Hubble. Clampin declined to say how much the budget of those two observatories would be cut or specific impacts on them because of the cuts. He indicated that proposed cuts are still being studied, noting that he was able to make a positive adjustment for Chandra just in the last week. Chandra and Hubble are the two most expensive NASA astrophysics missions to operate after the James Webb Space Telescope. NASA requested $93.3 million for Hubble and $68.7 million for Chandra in its fiscal year of 2024 budget proposal, in line with past year's budgets. Combined, they represent a little more than 10% of the fiscal year of 2024 budget request for NASA astrophysics. They are also among the two oldest NASA missions, with Hubble launched in 1990 and Chandra in 1999. Clampin suggested that that was a reason for reducing their budgets. Chandra has a number of issues right now. It's becoming increasingly difficult to operate. He said insulation on the spacecraft's exterior is degrading, warming the spacecraft and making operations increasingly difficult. While Hubble doesn't have those issues, he said, it has been operating for a long time and it's a large piece of astrophysics budget. Clampin said he was planning too many senior reviews for Chandra and Hubble, likely in May of 2024 after the release of the fiscal year 2025 budget proposal.