The tweet archive.

“@NASASpaceflight Still aiming for booster 4 & Ship 20 for first orbital test flight (this is pure coincidence!)”

“@muratpak My car is currently orbiting Mars”

“Construction of Starship orbital launch pad at the Cape has begun”

“@YounieTyler @Rainmaker1973 No, but you could get pretty far with rings of separately orbiting objects, like our solar system’s asteroid belt”

“@Tesmanian_com The magnitude of the Starship program is not widely appreciated. It is designed to extend life to Mars (and the moon), which requires ~1000 times more payload to orbit than all current Earth rockets combined.”

“@GerberKawasaki We had to shift some Starlink satellite orbits to reduce probability of collision. Not great, but not terrible either. Station & Dragon have micrometeorite shields (ultra high velocity impact absorption), but EVA suits do not, hence higher risk for spacewalk.”

“@ErcXspace @NASASpaceflight @SpaceX Unlikely for early ships to splashdown intact. Getting to orbit at all on first try would be a major win.”

“@StarshipFairing @Phrankensteyn @SpaceX @smvllstvrs @Erdayastronaut @austinbarnard45 @NASASpaceflight @spacex360 @ErcXspace If Earth’s gravity was even 10% lower, I’d be all for single stage to orbit”

“@Astra Congrats! Orbit is not easy.”

“129 Orbital Flights https://t.co/BjG4lNnFyJ”

“@PPathole @SpaceX Pattern on the Starlink router is orbital transfer ellipse from Earth to Mars”

“@Erdayastronaut @thesheetztweetz @BryceSpaceTech @SpaceX @Arianespace @ArianeGroup @roscosmos @northropgrumman @ulalaunch @torybruno @isro @RocketLab The Starship fleet is designed to achieve over 1000 times more payload to orbit than all other rockets on Earth combined. Almost no one understands this.”

“@thesheetztweetz @BryceSpaceTech @SpaceX @Arianespace @ArianeGroup @roscosmos @northropgrumman @ulalaunch @torybruno @isro @RocketLab Actually, 41 tons for SpaceX in Q3 & aiming for 80 tons in Q4. That said, China launch mass to orbit is extremely impressive.”

“@PPathole @thesheetztweetz Well-optimized Starship would do ~250 tons to orbit as expendable & ~150 tons fully reusable”

“@thesheetztweetz Full & rapid reusability is the holy grail of orbital rocketry”

“@Teslarati @13ericralph31 It’s a big deal that Dragon is reusable, with improved refurbishment efficiency with each passing flight! This is not the case for other orbital spacecraft. It means the spacefleet grows every time a new Dragon is made.”

“@AustinTeslaClub To be precise, completely & immediately reusable orbital rockets are the fundamental breakthrough needed to make life multiplanetary”

“@BryceSpaceTech Still basically nothing compared to the orbital mass flux needed for a base on moon or Mars”

“@Erdayastronaut @PPathole @vincent13031925 Fully reusable rockets want high T/W to minimize $/ton to orbit, because propellant cost actually matters”

“@lexfridman @SpaceX Missions like Inspiration4 help advance spaceflight to enable ultimately anyone to go to orbit & beyond”

“@inspiration4x @ChrisSembroski @rookisaacman @DrSianProctor @ArceneauxHayley It was an honor to wish you Godspeed before you left for orbit!”

“@OliOnOrbit Falcon 9 is technically a heavy lift rocket. If flown as an expendable, payload to orbit is similar to Delta IV Heavy (~25 tons to LEO). And Starship is ~10 times bigger.”

“@Teslarati @13ericralph31 @SpacePadreIsle Booster static fire on orbital launch mount hopefully next week”

“@Teslarati @RDAnglePhoto First orbital stack of Starship should be ready for flight in a few weeks, pending only regulatory approval”

“@SPEXcast @TrungTPhan Starship will be crushingly cost-effective for Earth orbit or moon missions as soon as it’s operational & rapid reuse is happening. Mars is a lot harder, because Earth & Mars only align every 26 months, so ship reuse is limited to ~dozen times over 25 to 30 year life of ship.”

“@considercosmos @SpaceX Booster & Ship will return to orbital launch pad on Monday (winds allowing). Just finishing off some small plumbing & wiring, which is easier in high bay.”

“@spacex360 If lobbying & lawyers could get u to orbit, Bezos would be on Pluto rn”

“@wapodavenport However, even if it were 16 flights with docking, this is not a problem. SpaceX did more than 16 orbital flights in first half of 2021 & has docked with Station (much harder than docking with our own ship) over 20 times.”

“@wapodavenport 16 flights is extremely unlikely. Starship payload to orbit is ~150 tons , so max of 8 to fill 1200 ton tanks of lunar Starship. Without flaps & heat shield, Starship is much lighter. Lunar landing legs don’t add much (1/6 gravity). May only need 1/2 full, ie 4 tanker flights.”

“@WholeMarsBlog @NASASpaceflight @BBCAmos There is a reason no fully reusable orbital rocket has been built – it’s an insanely hard problem. Moreover, it must be rapidly & completely reusable (like an airplane). This is the only way to make life multiplanetary. Efficiencies of scale is why Starship is so large.”

“@NASASpaceflight @BBCAmos Over time, we might get orbital payload up to ~150 tons with full reusabity. If Starship then launched as an expendable, payload would be ~250 tons. What isn’t obvious from this chart is that Starship/Super Heavy is much denser than Saturn V.”

“Moving rocket to orbital launch pad https://t.co/zZLiXIPD6M”

“All 6 engines mounted to first orbital Starship https://t.co/l5QnQRSg3D”

“@teslaownersSV @NASA I thought we had lost for sure. We were just a tiny company back then, only 1 of 4 launches got to orbit & I had no money left. Out of the blue, a few days before Christmas, NASA calls to say we won.”

“Super Heavy Booster moving to orbital launch mount https://t.co/axaDnXNm84”

“Installing Starship booster engines for first orbital flight https://t.co/yhqrNFBclh”

“@RationalEtienne @thesheetztweetz @BryceSpaceTech @SpaceX @roscosmos @Arianespace @ArianeGroup @northropgrumman @RocketLab @ulalaunch @VirginOrbit @torybruno Mass to orbit is the fundamental metric for making life multiplanetary”

“@DJSnM Orbital precession takes a long time. With Starship & Starlink V2.0, hopefully we can direct inject to target orbit.”

“@Rainmaker1973 Quaternions are important for orbital spaceflight”

“@ajtourville @PPathole @Adamklotz_ @AaronS5_ @crheller @SpaceX If we can do this successfully, then anything developed for ground/undersea fiber is automatically better in orbit”

“@PPathole @Adamklotz_ @AaronS5_ @crheller @SpaceX Laser links in orbit can reduce long-distance latency by as much as 50%, due to higher speed of light in vacuum & shorter path than undersea fiber”

“Dragon returning from orbit”

“@DJSnM We could stretch the Falcon Heavy upper stage & increase this a lot, but FH already covers all known payloads. Starship, especially with orbital refilling & dedicated deep space variants (no heatshield, flaps or header tanks) will take this up orders of magnitude.”

“New SpaceX Starlink cover shows transfer orbit from Earth to Mars https://t.co/vwWeuhWCoP”

“@RationalEtienne There is a big difference between reaching space and reaching orbit”

“@nextspaceflight There is the internal goal if things go right, which needs to be aggressive. Obviously, some things will not go right internally & there will be external issues too. That said, I think we can stack an orbital ship on an orbital booster in July.”

“All 72 orbital planes activate in August, plus many other improvements, enabling global coverage, except for polar regions, which will take another 6 months”

“@WatchersTank @SpaceX We’re almost done with first prototype booster. This will go to test stand A. Next one will fly to orbit. Team has been crushing it many days & nights in a row!”

“@DJSnM Cool, but an unnecessary complication for now. These are being removed to speed up time to orbital launch.”

“@torybruno Good chart. This is a major reason why we moved Starlink from ~1100km orbit to ~550km. Atmosphere automatically clears the lower altitude within a few years, so space junk cannot accumulate.”