Starship Flight 8: SpaceX moves and stacks Booster 15 overnight

Monday night into Tuesday morning, SpaceX teams down at its Starbase facility moved Booster 15 from the production site to its launch pad. The booster is now stacked on Pad A’s mount as it gets ready for its potential Starship Flight 8 launch date on Friday.

Pending regulatory approval, SpaceX plans to launch its Starship Flight 8 mission this coming Friday at 5:30 P.M. CT. The mission will be overall the same as Flight 7, which concluded early due to a leak in the Ship 33 engine compartment.

With the launch being only a few days away, SpaceX now needs to get the vehicle assembled, tested, and the pad cleared for launch. Last night, SpaceX made its first step in getting that process started by moving Booster 15 to the launch pad.

Alongside the transport of the booster, Booster 15’s hot staging ring was also moved to the pad to be attached prior to Ship 34’s stacking. In Starship’s current design, the hot staging ring is the only part designed to be thrown away, being jettisoned after staging and before the booster returns to the launch pad. In future changes to the rocket, this will be changed to make Starship the first 100% reusable rocket.

Starship Flight 8 will have a lot to prove with Ship 34’s Block 2 design. However, Booster 15 will have another chance to show that catching the booster is still the way forward with another successful attempt.

Ship 34 will be next to roll out to the launch pad. That could take place as soon as tonight. It has also already received its flight termination charges inside MegaBay 2. Once SpaceX has fully stacked the Starship rocket, a partial or full wet dress rehearsal could take place, although no additional road closures have been posted showing that as a possibility.

SpaceX will also still have to wait on a sign-off from the FAA on Flight 7’s mishap investigation. The company stated in its blog update that it has completed its internal investigation into what caused the early conclusion of that flight, but the FAA has yet to share that it has closed the mishap investigation.

It has happened in the past that SpaceX receives approval to launch by the FAA a day or less from the launch date and actually launched. However, SpaceX has backup launch dates for March 1 and 2 (Saturday and Sunday).