Citation :
This will be the last flight of a Block 2 Starship and Booster, the Starship 38 and Booster 15-2
B15-2 will feature 24 out of 33 engine that have already flown on a previous flight.
S38 is to repeat the same test objectives as the previous flight, deploying 8 Starlink mass simulators, then relighting a single raptor center engine shortly before re-entry.
This mission will also feature much more of the "crunch wrap" gap filler that was tested on previous flights, with several TPS areas missing on the shield, along with several TPS tiles on the leeward side of the ship, potentially testing block 3 tile attachments or some such. There will be no metallic tile testing, as they proved insufficient in the previous flight.
Ship will also test dynamic banking maneuver and subsonic guidance algorithms to gather more data for a future Starship return from orbit to Starbase.
After this flight, there will be a several month wait until Block 3 Ship and Booster flight in early 2026 from the new Pad 2 in Starbase, Texas
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