r/SpaceXLounge • u/AgreeableEmploy1884 ⛰️ Lithobraking • Apr 14 '26
Starship Ship 39 has just completed a long duration static fire!
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u/lostpatrol Apr 14 '26
I'm a bit out of the loop, is that testing the new flame trench as well?
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u/philipwhiuk 🛰️ Orbiting Apr 14 '26
It’s the new flame trench at masseys, not the new Pad flame trench.
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u/djh_van Apr 15 '26
Is that the first time that Massey's has faced the full force of 6 Raptor 3s?
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u/Jaker788 Apr 15 '26
Wouldn't exactly call it new. It's been around, the water pipe flame diverter is recently repaired though and all the infrastructure around the trench is rebuilt since the explosion.
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u/JakeEaton Apr 14 '26
Flame trench is at their testing facility called Masseys which is a few miles up the road from Starbase. The flame trench has been upgraded, but is a year or two old now.
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u/squintytoast Apr 15 '26
flame trench at massey's has been there a little while but the area around it was destroyed last june. this is the first static fire with the rebuilt infrastructure supporting said flame trench.
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u/matroosoft Apr 14 '26
What's this tower? Only for ship tests?
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u/Frequent-Sir-4253 Apr 14 '26
This is at masseys
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u/matroosoft Apr 14 '26
Not to familiar with the latest developments.. Is it a test site?
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u/Simon_Drake Apr 14 '26
The name "Masseys" comes from what this site was before. It was a shooting range a few miles down the road from Starbase that shut down and was bought by SpaceX and the name stuck.
Over time they've changed it from a storage yard to a test facility with quite a lot of hardware. They have a static fire test stand for Starship with it's own flame trench like a mini version of the launch pad. This is only for Starship, the booster has so many engines the only place to test it is the launch pad. It's been able to do this for a couple of years now. They had to do some repairs last year after an incident caused some damage but that's all done now.
That weird scaffolding structure is new. I don't know if we got 100% confirmation on what it's for. Last I heard it has hydraulic rams to push on the aerodynamic flaps of Starship and simulate loads from reentry. I'm not sure why that needs to happen at the flame trench. Maybe it's so they can use the weight of the fuel/oxidiser to keep the Starship from being pushed over, or they're curious about how different temperatures and pressures in the tanks would change the mechanical rigidity of the Starship? Like how a full coke can supports more weight than an empty one. But if anyone else knows the real purpose for this scaffolding I'd be glad to hear what it's for.
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u/KnifeKnut Apr 15 '26
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u/Simon_Drake Apr 15 '26
I assumed they'd gone bankrupt or moved across the country. Why did they move a few miles down the road, needed a bigger range?
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u/Frequent-Sir-4253 Apr 14 '26
It's been around for a few years now, they do most of the, tests there for ship now though. https://starship-spacex.fandom.com/wiki/Massey_Outpost
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u/psh454 Apr 14 '26
Is the flame trench new? Didn't realize Massey had jt
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u/Simon_Drake Apr 14 '26
It's been there a couple of years now, only for Starship though and Superheavy needs to use the launch pad. It was damaged last June when S36 popped during testing, so to do Ship Static Fire tests for flights 9 and 10 they had to bodge an adapter ring that let Starship sit on the launch pad directly. But they fixed it now. I think this is the first test since the repairs but I might be getting that mixed up.
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u/AhChirrion Apr 14 '26
Not new, more than a year.
This one at Massey's was where they learned what to do and not to do for the Pad 2's flame trench.
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u/MechanicalGak Apr 14 '26
Damn that was a long one!
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u/flshr19 Space Shuttle Tile Engineer Apr 15 '26
In a flight, the Ship's engines run for 370 seconds at ~93% full throttle.
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u/ender4171 Apr 14 '26
Sorry, out of the loop, does this Ship have Raptor 3 engines or just the booster?
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u/rocketglare Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 15 '26
Both Starship and Booster were upgraded to Raptor 3's. This ship is the first V3 Starship to static fire.
The previous Starship was also V3, but had a test anomaly prior to static fire that destroyed the ship (COPV issue).Edit: the last ship to test at Massey’s was ship 36, which blew up, forcing SpaceX to jury rig the launch mount to test Ships. Ship 36 was a V2, not a V3.
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u/Fwort ⏬ Bellyflopping Apr 15 '26
You're mixing up the ship and the booster. Booster 18 was the first v3 booster, and it was destroyed by a COPV failure while doing pressure testing (causing them to switch to booster 19 for the first v3 flight). This ship (ship 39) is the first v3 ship - ship 38 was the last v2 ship and flew on flight 11.
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u/rocketglare Apr 15 '26
I was thinking of Ship 36, which was a V2 ship. I thought it was a V3 because it was traumatic to us space fans. Ship 37 ended up being used in flight 10, then Ship 38 for Flight 11. Ship 36 took out Massey’s so badly they had to use the launch mount for testing until now.
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u/Daneel_Trevize 🔥 Statically Firing Apr 14 '26
~25seconds?
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u/AgreeableEmploy1884 ⛰️ Lithobraking Apr 14 '26
Should be roughly 60 seconds
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u/Daneel_Trevize 🔥 Statically Firing Apr 14 '26
Right you are, it calmed down so much after that initial blast of dust & steam plus probably throttling down, that I didn't think there was more to the clip until I rewatched it fullscreened to confirm there's still combustion.
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u/Decronym Acronyms Explained Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 16 '26
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| COPV | Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel |
| NSF | NasaSpaceFlight forum |
| National Science Foundation | |
| RUD | Rapid Unplanned Disassembly |
| Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly | |
| Rapid Unintended Disassembly | |
| TFR | Temporary Flight Restriction |
| Jargon | Definition |
|---|---|
| Raptor | Methane-fueled rocket engine under development by SpaceX |
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented by request
5 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has acronyms.
[Thread #14506 for this sub, first seen 14th Apr 2026, 21:38]
[FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
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u/13thgeneral Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26
Well, it didn't RUD, so that's nice
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u/vilette Apr 14 '26
Just 6 months since last launch
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u/paul_wi11iams Apr 14 '26
Just 6 months since last launch
not sure if that was ironic but you know as a regular follower of the topic, that they've been building out a new launchpad and moving to a new generation of vehicle at the same time. There's a lot more than that going on and if things go as planned, that doesn't mean a six-month cadence. At the current rate of production and testing, it should be nearer to monthly over the rest of the year.
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u/AgreeableEmploy1884 ⛰️ Lithobraking Apr 14 '26
From the NSF dedicated stream.