Good! SpaceX is about to launch Ship 24/B7 to orbit, Elon Musk confirmed...

SpaceX's Starship is close to liftoff. CEO Elon Musk recently confirmed that it's highly likely SpaceX will be ready to attempt its first orbital Starship launch in November of 2022, or possibly as early as late October. And after a series of successful tests for Ship 24 and Booster 7, this time, is Musk's milestone more reliable? Let's take a moment to analyze all the possibilities in today's episode of SpaceX Fans. SpaceX is determined to hold on to its lead in the private space industry. After literally coming from behind to overtake more prominent and experienced players, SpaceX is charging ahead by picking up launch contracts from private and government customers. However, much of the growth of the company is driven by the burning personal ambition of the visionary CEO Elon Musk. While his desire is to make space travel affordable and certainly not just for the uber-rich, Musk's more serious ambition is to put people on Mars and permanently live there. To achieve this, Musk is overseeing the development of the most powerful rocket ever, the Starship. But the monster hasn't reached orbit, and SpaceX had hoped to conduct the Starship orbital flight test as early as last summer. But delays that hindered development progress and regulatory approval steadily pushed back that timeline. But the positive aspect of all this is the valuable time that SpaceX had to speed through Starship development like it wanted to destroy as many rockets as possible, which to some extent, it did. Rather than spend 6 to 12 months fiddling with the same few prototypes without a single launch attempt, SpaceX churned out Starships and test articles and aggressively tested them. A few times, SpaceX pushed a little too hard and made avoidable mistakes, but most of the failures produced large amounts of data that were then used to improve future vehicles. The holy grail of that project was high-altitude Starship flight testing, which saw SpaceX finish, test, and launch a new Starship 5 times in 6 months, culminating in the first fully successful high-altitude Starship launch and landing in May of 2021. In comparison, SpaceX's orbital flight test preparations have almost been unrecognizable. While a good amount of progress has been made in the 16 months since SN15's successful launch and landing, it's clear that SpaceX has decided against taking significant risks. After spending more than 6 months slowly finishing and testing Super Heavy Booster 4 and Starship 20, which was to be the first orbital-class pair, SpaceX never even attempted a single Booster 4 static fire and unceremoniously retired both prototypes without attempting to fly either. Without info from Musk or SpaceX, we may never know why SpaceX stood down B4 and S20, or why the company appears to have revised its development approach to be a bit more conservative after clearly demonstrating the efficacy of moving fast and taking big risks. It's possible that winning a $3 billion contract that places Starship front and center in NASA's attempt to return astronauts to the moon has encouraged a more careful approach, a contract that SpaceX had won back in April of 2021. Even in its more cautious third phase, Starship development is still extraordinarily hardware-rich, moving quickly, and uncovering many problems on the ground in lieu of learning from flight tests. But that doesn't change the fact that the third phase of Starship development is proceeding more carefully than the first and second phases. Nonetheless, SpaceX appears to finally be getting closer to Starship's first orbital launch debut. According to Musk, the company could be ready for the first launch attempt as early as late October, but a November attempt is highly likely because he believes that SpaceX will have two pairs of orbital-class Starships and Super Heavy boosters, which include B7 and S24 and B8 and S25, ready for orbital flight by then, potentially enabling a rapid return to flight after the first attempt. Musk is also excited about Super Heavy Booster 9, which has many design changes and a thrust section that will fully isolate all 33 Raptors from each other, which is crucial for preventing the failure of one engine from damaging the others. Meanwhile, as Musk forecasted, Super Heavy Booster 8 rolled to the launch pad on September 19th, and will likely be proof-tested in the near future while Booster 7 is upgraded back at the factory. Though, encouraging as that may be, history has shown that reality, particularly when it involves Starship's orbital launch debut, can be quite a bit different than the pictures Elon Musk paints. Back in September of 2021, for example, Musk predicted that SpaceX would conduct the first Super Heavy static fire at Starbase's orbital launch pad later that month. In reality, that crucial test occurred 11 months later, on August 9th of 2022, and used an entirely different booster. That is to say that significant progress has been made in the last few months, but SpaceX has a huge amount of work left, almost all of which lies in uncharted terrain. Starship 24, which completed its first six-engine static fire earlier this month, is currently undergoing strange modifications that seem to imply that the upper stage is not living up to SpaceX's expectations. It's unclear if additional testing will be required. Meanwhile, Super Heavy B7 was taken back to the factory for additional work after a successful seven-raptor static fire. Once it returns to the pad, the sequencing isn't clear, but SpaceX will need to complete the first full Super Heavy wet dress rehearsal, which involves fully loading the booster with thousands of tons of flammable propellant, and the first full 33-raptor static fire. It remains to be seen if SpaceX will continue its conservative approach, which is the testing of one, three, and seven engines over six weeks, or jump straight from seven to 33-engine testing. It's also unclear where Ship 24 fits into that picture. SpaceX will eventually need to, or should, conduct a full wet dress rehearsal of the fully stacked Starship, and may even want to attempt a 33-engine static fire with that fully-fueled two-stage vehicle to truly test the rocket under the same conditions it will launch under. Will SpaceX fully stack B7 and S24 as soon as the booster returns to the pad, risking a potentially flight-worthy Starship during the riskiest Super Heavy tests yet? SpaceX's prior year of activity suggests that the company will choose caution and conduct wet dress rehearsals and 33-engine static fires before and after stacking, potentially doubling the amount of testing required. One or several more tests will also be required if SpaceX decides to gradually build up to 33 engines, which is the approach that all Booster 7 activity to date suggests SpaceX will take. Either way, it will be a major challenge for SpaceX to have a fully-stacked Starship ready to launch by the end of November. If any significant problems were to arise during any of the several unprecedented aforementioned tests, Musk's predicted schedule will likely become impossible. As a wildcard, the Federal Aviation Administration has yet to issue SpaceX a license or experimental permit for orbital Starship launches, either of which is contingent upon dozens of mitigations. But that's not to say that it's impossible for an orbital Starship launch attempt to occur in November, but factoring the many issues Booster 7 and Ship 24 have experienced during much simpler tests, it's becoming increasingly implausible that SpaceX will be ready to launch the pair before the end of 2022. And there you have it! Please don't forget to share your ideas in the comments section down below, because your support is our motivation to continue creating more quality content. And for that, we thank you so much and we hope to see you again next time.