The stress tests they'll perform are really interesting:
1) Starship will deploy "two modified satellites... [to] transmit imagery [of the heat shield] down to operators... Several tiles on Starship have been painted white to simulate missing tiles and serve as imaging targets in the test."
2) Relighting a Raptor engine
3) "For Starship entry, a single heat shield tile has been intentionally removed to measure the aerodynamic load differences on adjacent tiles when there is a tile missing"
missed the part where they are leveraging the starlink hardware for visuals durring tests.
At some point someone from space x quiped that they were in the business of gathering data on rockets, and given that they have the ability to insert a sattelite into any orbit at there discretion, it would be a trivial extra cost to get full spectrum video of there test flights from orbit.
The stress tests they'll perform are really interesting:
1) Starship will deploy "two modified satellites... [to] transmit imagery [of the heat shield] down to operators... Several tiles on Starship have been painted white to simulate missing tiles and serve as imaging targets in the test."
2) Relighting a Raptor engine
3) "For Starship entry, a single heat shield tile has been intentionally removed to measure the aerodynamic load differences on adjacent tiles when there is a tile missing"
4) Banking maneuver and rear flap structural test
missed the part where they are leveraging the starlink hardware for visuals durring tests. At some point someone from space x quiped that they were in the business of gathering data on rockets, and given that they have the ability to insert a sattelite into any orbit at there discretion, it would be a trivial extra cost to get full spectrum video of there test flights from orbit.
> May 21, 2026 17:30 - 19:00 Germany Time
> The twelfth flight test of Starship is preparing to launch as soon as Wednesday, May 20. The launch window will open at 5:30 p.m. CT.
So that was a lie