🚀 SpaceX News №48
Space greetings to everyone! Welcome to Rocket Hub. And this is the fresh SpaceX news digest. Today’s issue will cover:
- ULA snipers shooting at SpaceX rockets? What’s that about?
- The new Starship flight
- FAA license update
- Starbase is now a city
- Installation of SpaceX’s second launch mount
- And a Falcon 9 record.
New Starship Flight
On May 6, a new NOTMAR marine notice appeared. The corridor in the Gulf of Mexico will be closed from May 19 to 28; the previous window, May 13 to 23, was canceled. That’s why the official target for Flight 9 is now no earlier than May 19. By the way, the new vacuum Raptor for S35 has already been delivered to Starbase.
Recall what happened in the previous episode of the Starbase saga. On May 1, the second static-fire test took place. The fifth vacuum Raptor shut down prematurely, triggering the shutdown of the other engines; then a plume issued from one engine that looked like a mini-explosion. After that, Ship 35 was rolled back into Mega Bay 2.
It seems SpaceX got off with a quick repair. Three days after the anomalous burn, a transporter with a new vacuum Raptor was spotted: the engine had been rushed in from McGregor for replacement. Once installed, the ship will head back to Massey’s for another hot-fire test—scheduled “within the next week.”
Meanwhile, booster B14, which flew in Flight 7, is fully flight-ready. On April 3 it passed an eight-second burn of all 33 engines—the first time a Super Heavy has been reflown. Yes, another historic milestone at Starbase. Twenty-nine of those 33 Raptors are, let’s say, used. The first stage is already awaiting mating with Starship at the Mechazilla tower.
If the “check burn” proceeds without surprises and the stages can be mated within a week, then the window May 22–25 looks realistic. So the “end of May” target is quite achievable—provided the next seven to ten days bring no hiccups. Any failure in the test chain will push us back to the June window.
ULA Snipers vs. SpaceX
Yes, you read that right. Snipers. Perhaps someone in our audience knows the old inside joke about United Launch Alliance’s snipers, sworn enemies of SpaceX, always scheming to break something at Starbase.
It sounds like a joke—until a 2016 FAA memorandum surfaces, lifting the lid on just how absurd the situation was. It states in black and white: SpaceX handed over video and audio data to the FAA and FBI that, in the company’s view, might indicate sabotage. The Bureau looked into it and… let’s go through it in order. This letter only entered the public domain last week, after Ars Technica journalist-editor Eric Berger, who filed the request back in 2023, finally got a reply.
— What’s the deal here? Snipers? What are you even talking about? What kind of anarchy is happening in Florida?
— Relax, we’ll explain. On September 1, 2016, a Falcon 9 carrying the Israeli Amos-6 satellite was undergoing its routine hot-fire test at Cape Canaveral’s SLC-40. During prelaunch fueling, one of the high-pressure helium bottles in the second stage exploded—the entire rocket burned, the payload collapsed onto the test stand and also exploded.
In this phase the team checks out the vehicle before launch. Among the tests: fueling with propellant and oxidizer to verify systems; then the fuel is drained back out. In other words, neither the engines nor anything else critical was operating—the rocket was “at rest” on the stand. SpaceX was in a vulnerable position at the time, and this news stunned everyone from SpaceX itself to the launch customer and NASA officials in Washington. Back then, ULA was launching all the major scientific missions for NASA and the U.S. military. They were the big dog—and SpaceX was the puppy.
“I saw the first explosion,” said John Muratore, the mission’s launch director. “It came out of nowhere and was truly powerful.”
That “impossible” accident spawned hundreds of theories, but it was the idea of a “sniper on the competitor’s roof” that captivated Elon Musk. The basis was mysterious coincidences. During analysis, SpaceX spotted flashes roughly 60 meters up from the southwest—precisely where the ULA mission control building stood about a mile away. They even saw a “glint” on that roof, coinciding with the first explosion.
At Musk’s direction, engineers literally shot at similar high-pressure bottles in Texas to see if a bullet could trigger a comparable explosion. Meanwhile, Florida’s launch chief, Ricky Lim, tried to get on ULA’s roof… and (what do you know?) was denied.
On September 29, SpaceX handed over the materials to the FAA, then to the FBI. For two weeks, experts compared timings, ballistics, and the feasibility of a rooftop shot. The FAA memo concluded:
“The FBI informed us it found no evidence of sabotage or other criminal activity… For the purposes of this incident’s investigation, the FAA considers the matter closed.” — October 13, 2016
So ended a hypothesis worthy of a movie—if only it had been true.
The real culprit was an overzealous fueling procedure. SpaceX had aimed to minimize fueling time. That day, the high-pressure helium bottles—housed inside the oxygen tank—were filled too quickly, heating the aluminum liner past its limits and deforming it. Oxygen pooled between the liner and shell, and under high pressure, ignited and caused the rupture. The key point: it was a fueling method error, not external interference.
The accident occurred just as SpaceX was persuading NASA to approve the “load-and-go” scheme—boarding crew in Dragon before fueling. In other words, quick fuel and fly. Little wonder Musk suspected enemy agents. But two years of testing revised bottles and procedures paid off: by August 2018, NASA conditionally approved the method, now routine for ISS missions flown by a private company.
By the way, on launch counts: in 2025 SpaceX flew 53 missions. ULA… one. Back in 2016, the ratio was nearly reversed: 15 ULA launches to five SpaceX.
Indeed, the line between healthy paranoia and conspiracy is thin. And while SpaceX now churns out missions at record pace in 2025, the chief lesson of Amos-6 is simple: engineering problems are solved with engineering methods, not by hunting down enemy agents.
FAA Issues License
On May 6, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration published its final document modifying SpaceX’s license: instead of five Starship launches per year, up to 25 flights and landings from Starbase in Boca Chica are now permitted. Additionally, for the next five years SpaceX will not be required to conduct adhoc investigations for rocket loss; the company will be free from submitting such reports to the FAA.
But not everyone is happy. Local environmental groups call the FAA’s decision “reckless”: they fear closed beaches, disturbed turtles and fish, and even greater traffic.
As of now, the FAA has not granted a specific clearance for Flight 9. The reason is simple: an investigation into the Flight 8 failure—the second consecutive loss of a second stage—is still underway.
Starbase Is Now a City
On May 3, 218 residents of Boca Chica voted on incorporating Starbase as a separate city; 212 voted “yes,” 6 “no.”
For now, the new city’s population barely exceeds two hundred—and nearly all are SpaceX employees and their families. The mayor, elected unanimously, is Robert Peden, former Super Heavy test lead; two colleagues, Jordan Bass and Jenna Petrželka—also unopposed—joined the city council.
Why is Musk keen on city status? Count the perks: now the Starbase mayor’s office—effectively SpaceX itself—can close highways and the public beach during launches without county approval. The city can manage water, roads, fire, and medical services where once SpaceX had to petition county or state. And don’t forget tax flexibility: Starbase can set its own property tax rates and funnel them into infrastructure that benefits the company. A corporate city, indeed. The official Starbase account has already promised an Ad Astra school, a shopping center, and a “community of the future” for those “building humanity’s future in space.”
Installation of SpaceX’s Second Launch Mount
SpaceX moved a 1,200-ton launch mount for Pad B—or how they hauled a giant maw to the future second Mechazilla tower.
On the night of May 5–6, on County Road 4, another SpaceX spectacle unfolded: three transporter rigs carried the new mount (OLM-B) to the pad.
The convoy left the industrial zone around midnight, a day ahead of its scheduled road-closure window—outpacing the internal schedule by nearly 24 hours. On a narrow stretch, one transporter sank into a pothole; operators raised the platform hydraulically, equalized suspension pressure, and after a couple of minutes continued. The episode went live on NASASpaceflight.
On board was the now-meme’d sign “Stack me”: a plea to install the mount under the tower as quickly as possible.
OLM-B will serve Pad B—the second pad under construction in Boca Chica since summer 2024. The previous mount fared horribly on Starship’s maiden flight. Yes, it was jury-rigged with a water-cooling plate, but that was more a stopgap measure than a solution.
What’s different from Pad A?
The company dug a trench and is installing a water-cooled upper slab instead of Pad A’s concrete “armored plate”—a design to reduce abrasive erosion and cut turnaround time. Now the entire mount is liquid-cooled.
The big intrigue is how it’s fastened. If the mount is “replaceable,” it can be rolled back to the shop after a series of launches for inspection—without crippling the pad. A fully mobile version seems unlikely given the weight and loads. Although the “replaceable version” is the favored theory among space enthusiasts, SpaceX is keeping quiet. We’ll know more later. If builders keep up the pace, hot-fire tests on this tower could happen before the end of summer.
Falcon 9 Record
“Star Wars Day” on May 4 saw a new record! Twenty-nine of the new Starlink satellites on a single launch. Falcon 9 lifted off from LC-39A with the Starlink 6-84 mission, deploying 29 V2 Mini Optimized satellites—the largest second-generation batch ever to fit under Falcon 9’s fairing.
The V2 Mini Optimized weighs about 225 kg less than the previous variant: the bus was reworked, and the electrical subsystems condensed into more compact modules. The mass saved was converted into extra accommodation for satellites. The prior maximum for V2 Mini was 28.
Oh, and for booster B1078 it was already the 20th flight; eight minutes after launch it landed on the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas. This marks SpaceX’s 443rd successful first-stage recovery—and, notably, their 100th consecutive landing.
How did you like this issue? Let us know in the comments what stuck with you most. See you in a week!