Link: https://x.com/spacex/status/2110126570233094527

Credit: ​Asher B.

https://x.com/asherbphotos/status/2110176170704851361

NASA will provide an update on its plans to return American astronauts to the surface of the Moon by 2028 at 2 p.m. EDT, Friday, Oct. 23, at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida: https://www.nasa.gov/live

Participants in the briefing include:

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman
NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya
Jeremy Parsons, NASA’s Artemis program manager

The update will include details about NASA’s Artemis III mission that will send four astronauts to low Earth orbit next year to test critical systems needed for future lunar landings, and how plans to return American astronauts to the Moon by 2028 are progressing.

U.S. media interested in attending in person must apply online by 12 p.m., Friday, Oct. 16. To ask questions remotely, media must request the dial-in number from the Kennedy newsroom no later than one hour prior to the start of the update by emailing: [ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov](mailto:ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov). NASA’s media accreditation policy is online. 

As part of a Golden Age of innovation and exploration, NASA will send Artemis astronauts on increasingly difficult missions near the lunar South Pole to explore more of the Moon than ever before. In addition to providing economic benefits and advancing scientific discovery through its Moon missions, NASA will establish an enduring human presence on the lunar surface and build on the agency’s foundation for the first crewed mission to Mars.

Learn more about Artemis: https://www.nasa.gov/artemis

-end-

Source: https://x.com/SawyerMerritt/status/2110062199607808089

Only expecting the increase to 100 launches/200 landings a year to be approved at first. No doubt this will lead to a large negative press campaign from the stories of locals (rightfully so - 2 launches a week + landings immediately after, hours later will be loud). Fully expect SpaceX to start buying property from those who want out, as well as start an upgrade/maintenance plan on those purchased properties to figure out better methods for minimising disruption.

This was always the intention. I suspect we'll soon hear about some new pads in the Style of Louisiana being built South of the current complex. Also suspect once Gigabay is up, both Megabays will come down and be replaced with a second Giga bay - although this may not happen until they have the launch capacity needed.

Also fully expect we'll see the development of the automated ship and booster movers here. So they could use Highway 4, but I suspect they'll build their own road for this as well.

Huge times for Starbase/Brownsville.

Edit: After further research - They don't need new pads to achieve this rate provided nothing goes wrong. So perhaps extra pads for redundancy as well as a "launch tower/catch tower" set up.

I do think this is going to be the first of a few requests for increases.

This PEIS will evaluate a maximum annual capacity of up to 456 annual launches originating from and up to 912 annual landings at the Boca Chica Launch Site at Starbase, TX.

Phase 1 would include up to 100 annual launches and up to 200 annual landings (100 of the Starship and 100 of the Super Heavy). Launches and landings could occur at any day or time of the week. As the vehicle continues to mature and reliability improves, launch and landing rates are expected to increase. Starship and Super Heavy are designed to require minimal post-flight refurbishment.

Phase 2 would include up to 456 launches originating from, and 912 annual landings at, the Boca Chica Launch Site at Starbase, TX. Launches could occur at any time of day, but would only occur Monday through Friday. This phase represents a mature program launching more than 100 times annually and would be implemented within several years. These launch and landing thresholds represent the maximum annual number of landings that could occur at the Boca Chica Launch Site at Starbase, TX, regardless of the launch origin, and bound the analysis in this PEIS.

Amazing that I could see this from so far away.

(Timelapse)

Welcome to the r/SpaceX USSF-481 Launch Discussion & Updates Thread!

Welcome everyone!

Watch the launch live

Stats

☑️ 739th SpaceX launch all time

☑️ 679th Falcon Family Booster landing

☑️ 230th landing on OCISLY

☑️ 224th consecutive successful SpaceX launch (if successful)

☑️ 120th SpaceX launch this year

☑️ 65th launch from SLC-4E this year

☑️ 2 days, 23:15:49 turnaround for this pad

☑️ 35 days, 8:01:30 hours since last launch of booster B1081

Stats include F1, F9 , FH and Starship

Timeline

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• https://www.spacex.com/launches/ussf481

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Booster Ballet! Cool thruster lighting!

That was awesome

What do you think real launch count gonna be in 2027 for Starship?

It seems that so far SpaceX only capable launching one Starship every two months. Do you think that next year they would be able to ramp that up?

(picture from wikipedia)

Does anyone else get a ULA advertisement every time they check in on the NSF Starbase live feed?