3 more crew dragon trips added, but significantly this extends F9 operations through to 2031 I think.

Dragon lives on. At $79M per seat.

SpaceX is committing to running Falcon 9 for NASA human spaceflight missions for 5 more years. Pentagon NSSL missions appear to be safe for a while longer as well. All other missions are not looking great. https://t.co/jbXdX0bJEu

— Jack Kuhr (@JackKuhr) September 18, 2026

A little bit of history

Lady Bird Johnson is presented with a NASA helmet by Dr. Wernher von Braun, an actual rocket scientist, in Huntsville, Alabama in 1964. Wernher is wearing a Resistol Open Road hat that had been given to him by Lyndon B. Johnson several months before. It's such a random Texas… pic.twitter.com/fZTERFRash

— Traces of Texas (@TracesofTexas) September 19, 2026

Quote:

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Lady Bird Johnson is presented with a NASA helmet by Dr. Wernher von Braun, an actual rocket scientist, in Huntsville, Alabama in 1964. Wernher is wearing a Resistol Open Road hat that had been given to him by Lyndon B. Johnson several months before. It's such a random Texas moment.

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nortex97 said:

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3 more crew dragon trips added, but significantly this extends F9 operations through to 2031 I think.

Dragon lives on. At $79M per seat.

SpaceX is committing to running Falcon 9 for NASA human spaceflight missions for 5 more years. Pentagon NSSL missions appear to be safe for a while longer as well. All other missions are not looking great. https://t.co/jbXdX0bJEu

— Jack Kuhr (@JackKuhr) September 18, 2026

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I guess NASA wasn't too keen on Starliner

Here's an interesting bit of history.

This is a photo of the RB-57F in Rhein-Main Germany around 1966. It flew surveillance missions along the East German border.


The ground crew there working on that plane is the 7407th. My dad is in the front, 4th from the right. He was an aircraft electronics and autopilot specialist.

Here's the history of the aircraft:
- Originally built as an RB-57D.
- Rebuilt as an RB-57F.
- Assigned to the 7407th Support Squadron at Rhein-Main in 1966.
- Later redesignated WB-57F.
- Eventually became NASA N926NA.
- It is one of the three WB-57Fs still flying, based at Ellington Field in Houston.

My dad has passed away, but he never realized he lived about 30 minutes away from the aircraft he worked on back in '66.

SpaceX related because this aircraft probably also flew to Starbase TX to video Starship launches.

Here’s a video about capturing a brand new supernova and thousands of galaxies in one shot.

The comparison to the last time I captured this area is crazy 😵‍💫

Prints available linked in my bio for just two more days. pic.twitter.com/yvGsyrkTHM

— Andrew McCarthy (@AJamesMcCarthy) September 19, 2026

Well, this song got a lot better

NEWS: The FAA has restricted airspace around SpaceX’s McGregor test site near Waco, Texas, ahead of Tesla’s October 1 Roadster reveal.

The no-fly zone reaches about 10,000 feet and runs through October 2. pic.twitter.com/o2ArHCiqr4

— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) September 19, 2026

TexAgs91 said:

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NEWS: The FAA has restricted airspace around SpaceX’s McGregor test site near Waco, Texas, ahead of Tesla’s October 1 Roadster reveal.

The no-fly zone reaches about 10,000 feet and runs through October 2. pic.twitter.com/o2ArHCiqr4

— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) September 19, 2026

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Looks like we are finally about to get those flying cars we were promised by 1980s cartoons…

Folks around ATX-SAT might find this of interest. Of course TSLA/SPCX have a lot of operations in this area. I-10 has been a disaster for...well a long time.

Boring Company is working on a simple, precursor Hyperloop tunnel between Austin and San Antonio (>200 mph).

Due to traffic congestion, that journey can currently take up to 2.5 hours. @BoringCompany can reduce that to a consistent <30 mins.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 20, 2026

Said it on another thread with regard to TBC, but a functional high speed Hyperloop that goes into service before California HSR would be one of the best things that could happen in this country.

BREAKING: The U.S. Space Force is exploring a standby fleet of ready-to-launch satellites that could be sent to orbit rapidly if American spacecraft are destroyed or disabled during a conflict, SpaceNews reports.

The concept would keep replacement satellites on the ground in… pic.twitter.com/RYJI1S4dOU

— Outer Space Today (@outerspacetoday) September 22, 2026

will25u said:

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BREAKING: The U.S. Space Force is exploring a standby fleet of ready-to-launch satellites that could be sent to orbit rapidly if American spacecraft are destroyed or disabled during a conflict, SpaceNews reports.

The concept would keep replacement satellites on the ground in… pic.twitter.com/RYJI1S4dOU

— Outer Space Today (@outerspacetoday) September 22, 2026

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Time to construct some new silos in Nebraska and Kansas that are able to hold a Falcon 9 rocket.

TacRS has been in the works for a while, not sure how this is breaking news.

Jared Isaacman does not appear to be screwing around with NASA’s return to the Moon. This article may make some heads explode in Europe. https://t.co/FlGydQBgUy

— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) September 22, 2026

I'm glad he's looking at this the right way. This is a big race with major implications.

BREAKING: SpaceX won a court fight to expand Starbase in Texas.

Judge Fernando Rodriguez denied the Center for Biological Diversity's bid to stop the deal, ruling the groups likely have no standing to sue.

The plan trades 712 acres of federal refuge land for 692 acres SpaceX… pic.twitter.com/BlL25jNGEh

— Muskonomy (@muskonomy) September 22, 2026

Good CBD is a bunch of hacks who are mostly super libs.

Maybe started with "ecology and biology" in mine but haven't been champions of that in a long time.

OnlyForNow said:

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Good CBD is a bunch of hacks who are mostly super libs.

Maybe started with "ecology and biology" in mine but haven't been champions of that in a long time.

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Elon needs to get a CBD crappy ford pacer or pinto car with their logo on it and shoot it off into space and then blow it up in space…. They are there just to cause problems, probably a bunch of fruit cakes anyway

Some interesting info on the solar influences on the Starlink constellation.
I assume this is a significant impact on the length of service of Starlink satellites:



from

https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=23&month=09&year=2026

As an experiment, we decided to use the Starlink megaconstellation as a giant sensor for air pressure and drag. Here's how it works: Every day, the US Space Force publishes fresh orbital elements (also known as "TLEs") for every object in Earth orbit. Buried in each TLE is a drag term. We download the daily drag terms for thousands of Starlinks and convert them into one easy-to-understand number: The sink rate.

.......

Using this new data stream, we can watch the atmosphere breathe. The envelope of air around our planet expands and contracts in response to solar activity. Big geomagnetic storms puff up the atmosphere and cause sharp spikes in the sink rate.

Stacking Starship ahead of Flight 14 pic.twitter.com/jLsgN2jj6d

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 23, 2026

then executed a rerendezvous with the subsat on Sep 10 and a recapture on Sep 13. This analysis is based on USSF GP data. USSF also cataloged an additional object 24J on about Sep 10, but with no orbit data; I think this was a mistake and is a duplicate of object 24H.

— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) September 23, 2026

Space jellyfish alert!

Starship Flight 14 from STARBASE in Starbase on September 28, 2026 at 7:15 AM CDT could produce a space jellyfish. This occurs when a rocket and its expanding exhaust plumes are illuminated by the sun and observers are in local darkness.

The rocket will… pic.twitter.com/1RO7sXgOaG

— Space Jellyfish Alerts (@spacejellyalert) September 23, 2026

The rocket will enter sunlight 00m20s after launch.

See a detailed prediction for your location: http://jellyfish.johnkrausphotos.com

Information as of 2026-09-23 19:27 UTC

Trying to quicken the pace it seems.

This is super provisional!

Starship Flight 15 - NET October 19
Starship Flight 16 (Starlink 30-1) - KSC 39A - NET October 30.

You can bet those dates will slip, but it shows some of SpaceX's forward planning. pic.twitter.com/aB7KihBsH8

— NSF - NASASpaceflight.com (@NASASpaceflight) September 24, 2026

BREAKING: Wells Fargo forecasts nearly 47 million Starlink subscribers by 2028.

Users are projected to grow from 17 million at the end of 2026 to 46.7 million in 2028, while revenue could surge from $19.1 billion to $51.5 billion. pic.twitter.com/ilD1wp9m8y

— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) September 24, 2026

will25u said:

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BREAKING: Wells Fargo forecasts nearly 47 million Starlink subscribers by 2028.

Users are projected to grow from 17 million at the end of 2026 to 46.7 million in 2028, while revenue could surge from $19.1 billion to $51.5 billion. pic.twitter.com/ilD1wp9m8y

— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) September 24, 2026

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That's somewhere between $3.5 - 4 billion every month in subscriptions.

And that's just from Wells Fargo signing up their bank customers without them knowing

will25u said:

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Trying to quicken the pace it seems.

This is super provisional!

Starship Flight 15 - NET October 19
Starship Flight 16 (Starlink 30-1) - KSC 39A - NET October 30.

You can bet those dates will slip, but it shows some of SpaceX's forward planning. pic.twitter.com/aB7KihBsH8

— NSF - NASASpaceflight.com (@NASASpaceflight) September 24, 2026

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I've heard rumors that flight 15 could serve as an orbital fuel depot while flight 16 docks with it and transfers fuel. So that's interesting that they're showing provisional dates for both.

ETA: wait, what's this about KSC 39A? Not sure what it would have to do with starship launches at this time.

Launch rehearsal complete ahead of Starship Flight 14 pic.twitter.com/h5LBYyBqi4

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 24, 2026

Let's launch tomorrow.

TexAgs91 said:

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will25u said:

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Trying to quicken the pace it seems.

This is super provisional!

Starship Flight 15 - NET October 19
Starship Flight 16 (Starlink 30-1) - KSC 39A - NET October 30.

You can bet those dates will slip, but it shows some of SpaceX's forward planning. pic.twitter.com/aB7KihBsH8

— NSF - NASASpaceflight.com (@NASASpaceflight) September 24, 2026

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I've heard rumors that flight 15 could serve as an orbital fuel depot while flight 16 docks with it and transfers fuel. So that's interesting that they're showing provisional dates for both.

ETA: wait, what's this about KSC 39A? Not sure what it would have to do with starship launches at this time.

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They are pretty much finished building the tower there and have been testing the deluge systems and other equipment. They have brought a stand to Starbase that I assume will be used to transport a booster and ship back to KSC to start launching from there.

They should just fly them over

Thursday afternoon

Killing time

Boca Chica is a pretty nice beach.

ABATTBQ11 said:

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They should just fly them over

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No way they will fly them over half the US and the populated space coast to land there until they have proven out their re entry and catch safety multiple times.

I just booked our favorite condo for a couple of nights starting Sunday.

Maybe we will get lucky and squeeze in a launch while we're there. I kinda think it will get pushed past Monday.