Correct. Amos-6 did not have an FAA investigation and the lost payload was paid for by the transport insurance rather than the launch insurance.

Oops, thanks!

My daily summary from the Starship Dev thread on Lemmy

2026-07-22:

• Pad 2: Overnight, B20 rolls out to Pad 2 and is placed on the launch mount. (NSF, ViX, TrackingTheSB 1, TrackingTheSB 2, Evans, colleenadastra, Pike, Gisler 1, Gisler 2, Zhang 1, Zhang 2)
• B20 testing. (NSF full livestream)
• Road is closed. (ViX 1, ViX 2, TrackingTheSB)
• Frost on LOX tank. (TrackingTheSB, NSF, Pike)
• Frost on methane tank. (TrackingTheSB)
• Full LOX load, small methane load, possible spin prime, possibly not. (NSF, ViX, Golden)
• Depress vent. (TrackingTheSB)
• Timelapses. (NSF, Pike, Priel)
• "Additional preflight testing on Super Heavy complete." (SpaceX)
• Cryo deliveries. (ViX)
• S40 rolls out to Pad 2. (NSF, ViX 1, ViX 2, colleenadastra 1, colleenadastra 2, Evans, Zhang)
• S40 is stacked on B20. (StarshipGazer, NSF, CeaserG33, wvmattz, RGV Aerial, cnunez 1, cnunez 2, cnunez 3, colleenadastra)
• Production site: Tile installation on S42 has begun. (Blobifie)
• B22's methane header tank and its A6:4 section enter Megabay 1. (Blobifie)
• Massey's: B21 rolls back to the production site. (NSF, ViX, colleenadastra)
• Flight 13: Beach closures are posted for Jul 23rd and 24th, both 12:00 to 21:00. (starbase.texas.gov, archive)
• McGregor: Addendum from previous day. R3.169 is delivered to the testing area, and R3.131 (removed from B20 E6 position) leaves the testing area. (SpaceRhin0)
• R3.131 is moved towards the hangar. (SpaceRhin0)
• R3.179 heads towards the testing area. (SpaceRhin0)
• Florida: At SLC-37, the load spreader is being attached to the LR13000 crane in preparation for the lifting tower module 9 of 9. (Bergeron)

What is PGO?

See you next week.

damn thas fast work

According to ECMWF For the 23rd, theres no appreciable wind shear with sea level winds SE at 11 kts rising and gradually veering to easterly at 39kts at FL980. What the weather watch will be is thunderstorms in the locality.

We've been getting some peeks at Ship 42.

Ship 42 is visible inside Megabay 2 and you can see that its already having leeward tiles installed.
Ship 42's Leeward tiles are similar to S41's but with a thicker line of tiles.

With 33 engines, if one quits after launch, that's almost exactly a 3% power drop. I believe the other 32 good engines can each sustain a 3% power increase, or, keep the same power but run for longer due to the 3% drop in fuel consumption. The mission is successful. With say 5 engines, if one goes out soon after launch, the 20% power loss means you won't get to orbit. Running the engines for longer is still possible, but gravity is overwhelming the much larger power loss. Pushing the other 4 engines each 25% harder, nah, they don't have that much margin. There's more to this than "more is less reliable". SpaceX are copying the Merlin engine strategy - make it robust and cheap and reusable. The cheapness comes from the advanced manufacturing techniques, as Musk does with Tesla cars too. The bigger Merlin/Raptor cost savings of course is from reusability. The throwaway Artemis II launch cost $4.1B, this is not sustainable.

During flight, it's actually mostly done just with gravity/thrust.

The clamps on the rim of the interstage would release or break if Starship was determined to separate from the Booster. Because the clamps are sized for their job.

They're basically there to prevent the Ship from shifting around unduly while being fueled on the pad.

SpaceX presses the Ship Quick Disconnect so hard into the Ship that the stack leans a few inches in response. You can see it in the right shots. The clamps are there to* attach the Booster to the Ship while it leans.

Rain is an issue if it extends up to freezing temperatures. The issue is ice crystals building up static change and discharging along the ionised exhaust plume.

clamps on the top of the interstage on superheavy. These clamps correspond to attach points on the base of starship, where they grab onto the steel ring that has the cutouts for the RVacs

Care to share with the class?

Nvmd I found an answer in another post here on Reddit

So how exactly does starship connect and lock on to the booster? Seeing the live stream it appears to lower down and sit on top with very little joining the two sections

Free deluge /s

At least one engine seems to have been taken to McGregor and then reinstalled on the booster.

Out of curiosity, would rain alone be an issue, provided it's not windy?

That’s generally not true. Water hammer and similar effects are much more benign on basic fluid piping than they are on turbo machinery with complex static and dynamic seals.

I agree it's been a long wait but when you zoom out they are moving incredibly quickly given what they are building.

If this launch goes well then things start to get interesting again quickly. Deploying Starlinks to orbit, booster and ship catches.

Its also worth watching the Critical Path video. You really see into their thinking and the scale of what is being built.

They did, yep. Some removed engines were spotted in McGregor. Not sure if they swapped them out for new ones.

thats pretty quick. i know everyone expected monday but didnt they have to roll it back to the assembly site and change a few engines and then roll it back again? crew putting in OT forsure

Adam Cuker was on the NSF countdown to launch livestream at about 5:35 pm EDT (T-25:11:00 on the NSF clock). Worth watching but to paraphrase the main issue is that Tropical Storm Bertha will be passing near Texas by launch time and could be causing various issues with either wind, windshear, or lightning, although it's a little too early to tell. He said even if that happens there could be openings during the 90 minute window.

The other issue mainly for onsite viewers and ground cameras is likely cloud cover at launch time meaning most likely staging would not be visible to people on the ground just from onboard views. He said if they postpone to Friday the weather should be much better and with much better visibility.

After watching my fair share of static fires on the old OLM and suborbital pads, I’m still more worried about them screwing up the pad!

This is the way.