StarshipTracking

Following every step of the Starship journey from Starbase, Texas 🌎🚀
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[StarshipTracking @TrackingTheSB]

🚀 The time is now! 🚀

After countless hours of work, planning, and refining, Starship Tracking is excited to finally unveil the brand-new website!

🔗 Explore the new website here: https://t.co/WrgK91JI3R

Designed to bring the action covered by Starship Tracking all that much closer to you.

From the launch sites to the vehicles themselves, the goal has always been the same: make it easier to follow the incredible things happening with Starship.

Thank you to everyone who has followed along, supported our journey, and helped make this possible. There’s so much more to come.

The future is being built with Starship.

Welcome to the new Starship Tracking Website.

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© Starship Tracking | 2026
Not affiliated with or endorsed by SpaceX

[StarshipTracking @TrackingTheSB]

Ship 43 has entered Highway 4 and is headed to the production site

Follow Our Journey: https://t.co/UqJI1NQiUk

📸@NASASpaceflight | Starbase Live | https://t.co/PX4wBcpee0

#Tracking ⁠#Starship #Starbase #SpaceX

[StarshipTracking @TrackingTheSB]

Starbase This Week (2026-10-25) | Written by @KangasSpaceroo
Wow, what a week. Pad 1 construction continues full speed ahead. Flight 15’s vehicles continue to progress towards a flight No Earlier Than Nov. 8, with future vehicles not far behind. AND WE FINALLY GOT AN HLS UPDATE. Welcome to this week’s Starbase This Week.

Flight 15

Starting off the week, preparations for Flight 15 were well underway at Pad 2.

Late on the 18th, the dancefloor service structure was removed from Pad 2 following checkouts and any repairs post Flight 14. Following the removal of the dancefloor and over the course of 48 hours, a total of four deluge tests occurred at the pad, all four being full deluge tests including the top plate. Additionally, the booster quick disconnects performed a purge in preparation for a vehicle’s arrival.

On the 24th, Booster 22, the booster assigned for Flight 15, would be rolled and lifted onto Pad 2. Later on the 24th, a detonation suppression system test was performed on the pad. Then early on the 25th, Booster 22 would light all 33 Raptor 3.1s, Raptor 3.1?, more on that in a minute, and performed a roughly 15 second static fire.

Initial views and duration appear to have indicated that the static fire was a success which paves the way for Flight 15 in at least two weeks. Booster 22 may be removed from Pad 2 and be rolled back for any final inspections ahead of flight, or SpaceX may choose to leave the booster at the pad.

Its flight partner, Ship 42 is still in Megabay 2 awaiting a rollout to Masseys to perform its own static fire. Ship 42 is currently set to rollout to Masseys as early as 10:00 PM (22:00 CDT) on Oct. 25.

Speaking of Ship 42, we finally have confirmation from SpaceX on why engines were removed and swapped. On Oct. 23, SpaceX announced that an upgraded Raptor 3, potentially called Raptor 3.1 or Raptor 3B like how Merlin is called Merlin 1D now, would be debuting on Flight 15. This new engine has supposedly better reliability and higher thrust compared to the Raptor 3 which has been flown on all V3 flights to date.

We also received an update from Elon this week regarding the catch status of both Ship and Booster on Flight 15. SpaceX will attempt to catch both vehicles at Pad 2. The so-called “Holy Grail of Rocketry” is almost upon us.

Pad 1

Over at Pad 1, construction is still full speed ahead with the conversion of the old pad design which had launched Flights 1 through 11 to the new design that has been built at Pad 2 and LC-39A in Florida. This week the four legs which hold the OLM itself to the pad were installed over the course of a couple of days.

Production Site

Over at the production site, vehicle construction continues. On the booster side, Booster 24 received its entire forward section this week, beginning with the F2:4 on Oct. 20, and being followed by the HS-FX:3 on Oct. 22, and the F3:4 on Oct. 24. Assuming the FWD section is stacked on the AFT section in the next couple of days, B24’s construction will be the second fastest booster construction, only being outpaced a couple of days by B19.

Moving over to the ships, Ship 44 received its AX:4 section which completes major body assembly of the vehicle, barring AFT flap install. Ship 44 continues the trend of the previous ships with major body assembly taking around a month from when the N:3 section rolls from Starfactory to when the AX:4 section rolls out and is stacked.

Speaking of ship construction timelines, Ship 45’s N:3 section rolled to Megabay 2 on Oct. 23 beginning the major assembly of this vehicle. Over the course of the next three to four weeks we’ll see this vehicle rise.

Lastly for our ships, Ship 46’s nosecone was stacked onto the PL:3 section on Oct. 21, which completes major work inside Starfactory. We’ll likely see this vehicle roll out of Starfactory over to Megabay 2 once Ship 45 completes construction.

Masseys

Lastly at Starbase, Masseys saw some action this week.

Ship 43.1, our lovely nosecone test tank, performed another test this week. Last week as you may remember, Ship 43.1 experienced some crumpling as a result of testing. It appears as if the crumple was indeed expected as teams have since repaired the crumple and tested again.

Also at Masseys, Ship 43, conducted two cryo tests on Oct. 23, with both appearing to go smoothly. A road closure has since been scheduled for Oct. 25, where it’ll roll back to the Production Site and Ship 42 will roll out to Masseys.

HLS Update

We finally got one, an HLS update. The HLS update was announced on Oct. 18 to occur on Oct. 23, and we got a lot of information from it.

Starting off, Cabin 1 is in construction. Cabin 1 is the first build of the HLS cabin which will presumably first fly on the uncrewed HLS lander mission, tentatively set for sometime in 2027. Built at Starbase, Cabin 1 is looking pretty far along in construction. Window cutouts that confirm the latest renderings of Starship HLS have been cut and reinforced, but are still lacking windows, and what appears to be a sleeping area has been shown.

Moving off to the next critical piece of HLS hardware is the propellant transfer demo, where we received confirmation that the propellant transfer demo ship is in construction. This flight is also currently set for sometime in 2027.

Over at Florida, LC-39A is in final testing ahead of receiving its first vehicle for flight which is currently set to be Flight 16. The presumed vehicle pairing for Flight 16 will be Booster 23 and Ship 43 as they are the next in line for flight after Booster 22 and Ship 42. Reuse may play a factor in the timeline but not likely to affect the pairings soon.

Lastly, we received the concept of operations for Artemis IV whether that be with Blue Origin’s Blue Moon MK2 or Starship HLS. As we are Starship Tracking, we’ll cover the HLS concept of operations in this Starbase This Week, but we encourage you to check out NASA’s update about both concepts.

Starting off for Artemis IV, Starship will first launch the depot ship followed by multiple propellant transfers. Starship HLS will launch next and be refilled by the depot ship before moving to a higher orbit. The depot will receive one last round of propellant transfer before joining HLS in a higher orbit and transferring the final bit of fuel needed for Artemis IV.

Orion will launch aboard SLS into a high-Earth orbit where HLS will dock with it. HLS will then push the entire stack to the Moon, entering a low-Lunar orbit similar to Apollo.

At the moon, two crew members will board HLS and undock from Orion before descending to the Lunar surface. Following surface operations, HLS will lift off and dock with Orion. Crew, samples, and other science will transfer back to Orion where it will push itself back to Earth.

Well that’s all for this week’s Starbase This Week. Do you think both Booster 22 and Ship 42 will be caught on Flight 15?

For real-time updates, join us in the Discord: https://t.co/hgUICqZizc

To explore our maps yourself and track every movement, check out our Figma, now at both Starbase and Cape Canaveral:

Starbase: https://t.co/Yuwq34mpYi

Cape Canaveral: https://t.co/DW4ww1cR5I

#SpaceX #Starbase #Starship

[MattZ @wvmattz]

Multi-angle replay of Booster 22's static fire test, this morning, from some of our robotic cameras! Beautiful. Let's goooo!!! We're still live with our dedicated stream for a bit longer: https://t.co/vp4IdF0vcL

@NASASpaceflight

[StarshipTracking @TrackingTheSB]

Ship 43 is conducting a cryogenic proof test at Massey's currently.

Follow Our Journey: https://t.co/UqJI1NQiUk

📸NSF | Starbase Live | https://t.co/PX4wBcpee0

#Tracking ⁠#Starship #Starbase #SpaceX

[StarshipTracking @TrackingTheSB]

The SpaceX LR11000 has been lowered at the launch site, likely in preparation from upcoming testing.

Follow Our Journey: https://t.co/UqJI1NQiUk

📸NSF | Starbase Live | https://t.co/PX4wBcpee0

#Tracking ⁠#Starship #Starbase #SpaceX

[StarshipTracking @TrackingTheSB]

Ship 43 has left Megabay 2

Track Starbase Here: https://t.co/1mhe9Lqyzv
Join Our Discord Here: https://t.co/TRiUzEzgm9

📸@NASASpaceflight | Starbase Live | https://t.co/PX4wBcpee0

#Tracking #Starship #Starbase #SpaceX

[Erik Fraser @efraser77]

Tonight is brought to you by the letter M for Massey's and the number 43.

S43 is on a cryo stand, likely to head out to Massey's tonight, but before it gets there, the S43.1 test tank underwent another round of testing.

🎥: https://t.co/U5mmqMAp4x | @NASASpaceflight

[StarshipTracking @TrackingTheSB]

Starbase This Week (2026-10-18) | Written by @Space_Mr_Banana
There's a saying that Starbase never sleeps, and that remains true despite SpaceX taking their time preparing for the upcoming flight next month. Working on both the Launch pad and reinstalling all of Ship 40’s engines, it has not been quiet. Welcome to this week's Starbase This Week.

Production Site

After its transport from the port to the production site, finally making its trip full circle, Ship 40 had the Ship aft horizontal transport hardware attached and was subsequently lifted up rather slowly until it finally once again sat in a vertical position.

It was then moved into Megabay 2 and placed onto one of the workstands in the building. What SpaceX plans now is unknown but it's likely they will strip the heatshield in places for further inspections alongside taking close looks at the rest of the vehicle.

We still do not know what the eventual fate of Ship 40 will be, whether it is put on display or Scrapped.

Also inside of Megabay 2, Ship 42 has finally got engines again ahead of its Static fire campaign for flight 15.

If you remember a couple of weeks ago, S42 had all engines removed after flight 14, we don't know exactly why they did this but it was possibly due to engine issues experience on flight 12 and 14, or it was simply that they needed to test Ship again without engines as they did send it out to Masseys on the Cryo stand.

The newer Ship 44 also made good progress in the last week, with SpaceX rolling out its transfer tubes from Starfactory to join with the rest of the vehicle already stacked in the bay.

Moving over to Megabay 1, Booster 24 received both its final aft section (AX:2) and its landing tank. So with the lower half of the booster now complete, making up the Liquid Oxygen (LOX) tank, the next steps are to start the stacking of the Methane (CH4) tank and finally to mate the two halves, completing the full height of the vehicle.

While stacking vehicles for the upcoming flights SpaceX is also continuing work on the Gigabay, which will give a huge increase to the possible rate of production at the site as teams will be able to fully utilise their capabilities with the extra space the new building will provide.

As of this week, the first of two bridge cranes has been lifted and installed in the bay, these are capable of lifting up to 420 tonnes, each one covering one of the two aisles in Gigabay.

Starbase PEIS and Launch Site

Increasing the rate of production is all well and good, but it doesn't matter unless SpaceX is actually able to and allowed to launch however many more vehicles.

Right now, SpaceX is limited to 25 launches per year from Starbase, but a new programmatic environmental impact statement which SpaceX and the FAA are in the works on, increases that number all the way up to 456 in two phases.

The first phase increases from 25 to 100, also allowing 200 landings of Ships and Boosters combined. Phase two increases the allowed cadence from 100 to the final 456 launches per year from the site, which means a whopping 912 landings.

It was also noted that this will take several years to implement as Starship matures, but just imagine, we’ll get an average of 1.5 ish flights per day if they are able to hit that cadence.

To help improve the cadence before we get this PEIS, SpaceX has been working on upgrading pad 1 to support Starship block 3.

This week saw teams lifting the center flame bucket part into the trench alongside also beginning to install the launch mount legs, bringing the pad one step closer to being able to support a launch again. The last flight from the pad was flight 11.

Over at Pad 2 SpaceX has been in full prep mode for Flight 15, where we are expecting to see hopefully both a Booster and a Ship catch.

Teams have been preparing for this outcome by testing the chopsticks a lot.

Over multiple days we have seen the chopsticks perform various tests raising to the top of the tower and conducting movements we might see during a catch attempt.

Massey’s

Now there's been a bit of an HLS update but before we get into that…

Over at Massey’s, SpaceX’s test site at Starbase, teams were working on two vehicles primarily; Booster 23 which completed only one cryogenic proof test — where they load Liquid Nitrogen and Oxygen onto the vehicle — before rolling back to the production site, and S43.1, a Ship nosecone + headertanks test article.

Booster 23’s rollback having only done one is an anomaly as all previous boosters (apart from BN3 in 2021) have conducted at least two. It's unknown what the cause for this early end to the initial cryo testing is, but it's possible that SpaceX found some issue, or got everything they wanted.

Ship 43.1 is in a similar situation, only it is slightly more unfortunate as we have seen some visible damage in the form of buckling around the nosecone tip. It's likely that this occurred during a test on the 14th October. The one glint of potential good news is that SpaceX had a host of sensors around where it buckled which means that this is likely exactly what they expected to happen, suggesting that it was intentional — although that is unconfirmed.

With that bombshell (although thankfully not that catastrophic) This weeks Starbase this Week has come to an end.

When do you think Flight 15 will launch after SpaceX finally static fires both vehicles?

And how long until Pad 1 is complete?

For real-time updates, join us in the Discord: https://t.co/hgUICqZQoK

To explore our maps yourself and track every movement, check out our Figma, now at both Starbase and Cape Canaveral:

Starbase: https://t.co/Yuwq34mXNQ
Cape Canaveral: https://t.co/DW4ww1doVg

#SpaceX #Starbase #Starship

[StarshipTracking @TrackingTheSB]

Booster 23 has entered HWY 4 and is headed back to the production site

Track Starbase Here: https://t.co/1mhe9Lqyzv
Join Our Discord Here: https://t.co/TRiUzEzgm9

📸@NASASpaceflight | Starbase Live | https://t.co/PX4wBcpee0

#Tracking ⁠#Starship #Starbase #SpaceX

[StarshipTracking @TrackingTheSB]

Since August 16th, 2024, Starship Tracking has continued to grow, and none of it would be possible without the people behind the scenes.

To every team member who has contributed their time, effort, and dedication to this project: thank you. Every update, every improvement, and every milestone has taken work, and the commitment you've shown has helped shape Starship Tracking into what it is today.

A project like this is never built by one person alone. It takes a team working together and putting in the effort to bring a vision to life. I'm incredibly grateful to everyone who has been a part of this journey and helped us get to where we are today.

As we continue to grow and take on new challenges, I'm excited for what's ahead and what we'll accomplish together.

Every team member we have helps the Starship Tracking journey for free so that everyone can simply track what Starship has to offer all in one place.

View our team members here: https://t.co/8PkqRyJRXT

- Ring | Starship Tracking Founder

[StarshipTracking @TrackingTheSB]

So... flying cars yeah?

[StarshipTracking @TrackingTheSB]

Booster 24's LOX landing tank took a bit of a detour to get to Megabay 1 for installation just now.

The SIXTH Block 3 Super Heavy only has a few more sections left!

Track Starbase Here: https://t.co/H4dbT3BRuz
Join Our Discord Here: https://t.co/hgUICqZQoK

📸@NASASpaceflight | Starbase Live | https://t.co/CAVBNbNjq1

#Tracking ⁠#Starship #Starbase #SpaceX

[SpaceX @SpaceX]

The first Starship to return to its launch site, Ship 40's journey took it across air, space, and sea. Now that it is vertical alongside three other Starships in a Megabay at Starbase, it will provide first-of-its-kind data on a flown Starship heatshield, Raptor engines, avionics, and more.

[StarshipTracking @TrackingTheSB]

Booster 23 has entered Highway 4 and is heading to Massey's ahead of cryogenic proof testing.

Track Starbase Here: https://t.co/H4dbT3BRuz
Join Our Discord Here: https://t.co/hgUICqZQoK

📸@NASASpaceflight | Starbase Live | https://t.co/CAVBNbNjq1

#Tracking ⁠#Starship #Starbase #SpaceX

[Jerry Pike @JerryPikePhoto]

Ship 40 on the move

[Erik Fraser @efraser77]

Ship 40 is slowly making its way along Highway 4 now, it should be reaching Massey's soon. @NASASpaceflight will be live the whole way to Starbase!

https://t.co/xD6H5gLrve

[Daniel B @DanielB19536970]

SHIP 40 RETURNS
@NASASpaceflight

[Erik Fraser @efraser77]

The @NASASpaceflight field team is the best! Gage, Jerry, Ceaser, and Dan have worked all day and are still out there tonight to give us this amazing closeup view of Ship 40's journey home. Coverage is still going at https://t.co/xD6H5gLrve

[Colleen @colleenadastra]

The end of an epic journey for S40, now back at the Starbase, Texas production site. @NASASpaceflight