SpaceX Starship: Flight 12 Ship 39 Reveals A Secret Trick! [21:37]

Transcript

SpaceX Updates
SpaceX is dropping the bump. Ship 39 is at the test site after a spectacular rollout. But there is a story they didn't tell us. Starship Flight 12 is closer than you might think. And Starve is getting ready for a giant leap. And NASA is overthrowing its own plans while SLS is still stuck on the ground. Radical change is coming for Artemis, and it's not at all what you'd expect.

My name is Felix. Welcome to What About It? Let's dive right in.
Starship Updates
Starbase is testing the first version 3 ship finally. We've all been waiting so long for ship 39 to start testing. It started stacking on August 16th, 2025. That was 199 days ago when this video went live. 199 days. And every hour shows in the result. Ship 39 isn't just the next step in the Starship development pipeline. Musk gave an outlook that shows how much weight is riding on these flaps. He is highly confident that Starship version 3 will achieve full reusability. But what exactly does this mean?

The biggest difference between Starship's reusability approach and that of Falcon 9 is that the latter is around 70% reusable. Starship is trying to push this metric to a clean 100. Super Heavy Starship's booster stage has already demonstrated it. Booster 15 flew, was caught, and flew again. Full reuse. The same is supposed to happen with the upper stage, or ship, as SpaceX calls it. It is supposed to fly, be caught, and then reused. But I have to dampen the enthusiasm a bit here. At first, this is very likely going to include extensive refurbishment, detailed checks, heat shield inspections, and repairs, engines. All these components will take time to mature. An hourly flight rate, as Musk is teasing, will likely take some time to become routine. But he is saying there's a high chance version 3 will achieve this.

Why? What's so different about this ship? What does ship 39 have that ship 38 didn't? Let's take a good look.

Jordan was out when SpaceX finally rolled it from the production site to Masses, the testing grounds for any booster or ship. And he wasn't just on the ground either. Amy, our latest team member, flew with him, and they took some amazing pictures and videos of what SpaceX has been cooking up here. The one-stop shop for ship testing has its first customer.

Taking a closer look at the ship reveals an incredible amount of changes compared to the last version two ship. Starting at the top, we have a largely different heat shield pattern. On ship 38, the top cap had a zigzag pattern. It is now straight on ship 39. The same can be observed under the forward flaps. On ship 38, the pattern looked very random. On ship 39, it's all squared off. And maybe even more importantly, all the edges have tapered tiles. All the edges are smooth now. No rough borders.

We also have some intriguing looking weld patterns on ship 39's nose cone. Right between the forward flaps, which are missing on ship 38. On ship 38, all the way up, there are two black humps on the nose cone. Those likely are flap cams used to monitor the flaps in flight. They are gone on ship 39. The design of the payload door seems largely unchanged, but the arrangement of items beneath it has changed again. The two forward inspace fueling adapters or docking ports are present on ship 39, but they are just props. Nothing is in there, just the housing. To accommodate this, SpaceX needed to reposition a few items. Most prominently, the manhole was moved into the middle. It gives workers access to the inside after the rocket is stacked.

The two Starlink antennas can be found right under the payload bay door on ship 38. On ship 39, they've been moved up to make room for the docking ports. Then there are three visible raceways. On ship 38, these hold everything from autonomous pressurization lines to re-pressurize the tanks in flight to data and hydraulic lines. They are still missing any sort of cover on ship 39. But what's also visible is that the middle raceway from ship 38 seems to be gone on ship 39, further making the design more compact.

Going further down, right above the aft flaps, the same tapered edges as on the top can be found on ship 39, whereas on ship 38, the tiles just end in a zigzag line. Again, the new raceways on ship 39 are wider, and this can best be seen here at the bottom of the ship where they start. The terminal is much larger than on ship 38 where it had the same width as the raceway itself. On ship 39, it's easily double the width.

And last but not least, we're at the quick disconnect interface, which on ship 38 was one unit providing both methane and oxygen interfaces. On the new version 3 ships, this element is split into two separate interfaces. One last change that needs mentioning is that the stringer band running across the hull on both vehicles, which provides structural strength to the engine section, has moved down quite a bit on ship 39 compared to its predecessor. It is now right above the quick disconnect interface. An additional line of stringers has also been added to the engine bay skirt, visible by changed weld patterns on the outside. Each one of those dark dots and lines is a sign that on the inside there is something welded to the steel surface. Those weld patterns are different almost everywhere, which gives you an idea of how much change there must be on the inside, hidden from our view.

And then there's the biggest change yet on ship 39. One that has me puzzled.

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All right, here it is. Look between the aft flaps and the ship's hull itself. Do you see those pipes? They come out and go in, and they snake around in a massive raceway pattern. And I honestly have no clue what those are for. SpaceX hasn't said anything yet. What's way more interesting is that these are the spots that got hammered the hardest during past re-entries. Those gaps between the flaps eventually let plasma through because the shield doesn't seal them completely. SpaceX putting pipes right there might signal their confidence about changed hinges and better tiles. There are some theories circulating that those might be related to a new drive system for the flaps or that they might be chill lines or vents. Honestly, none of those make much sense to me. The pipes are thick. Maybe an active cooling system for the gap between the flaps. What do you think? Let me know your theory in the comments.

Just looking at everything on the outside reveals a massive number of changes. The inside hides even more. Taking a look at the back of the ships reveals largely the same shield. While ship 38 was missing more tiles in strategic places to test the structure during re-entry, ship 39 for now has a closed shield. The pattern is the same, and SpaceX might remove a few tiles before launch. At the forward flaps, for example, two tiles are missing in the same tip location on both flaps. This is deliberate, not an oversight. The arrow covers on top of the aft flaps have similar gaps in the tiles. Those might be added before the flight.

That is a huge dump of information. I hope you were able to follow my explanations. If not, be sure to leave a comment. I'll try to answer as many as I can.

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Ship 39 Testing
Now, let's take a look at where Ship 39 went and what it's been doing in the past few days. Here it is, the new one-stop ship testing shop. And ship 39 looks a little bit like Hannibal Lecter in his restraints. It is surrounded by test equipment, and each piece has its use case. On February 27th, it likely performed an ambient pressure test to verify tank integrity and make it safe to proceed with cryo testing. Then it was time to send V3 SN1, as Musk called it, through its paces. Ship 39 did not wait at all. On March 1st, we already saw the first cryotest activity.

I recently got the question if SpaceX goes above flight pressure in these tests. Yes, they do. A safety margin for flights is very important. SpaceX has never publicly stated how much higher they go on these ships. During cryogenic tests on the old SN prototypes from the high altitude flight test days, they exceeded flight pressure by 30%. I presume it's something very similar for these ships.

Now, during this cryotest, SpaceX will do things with ship 39 that it's never done before. They'll test things that were exclusively tested during re-entry before. Do you see all these straps on both the forward and aft flaps? They also include blue force sensors. SpaceX will actuate the fins, possibly even while the ship is doing its cryo test runs, and measure the force at these points. This is very likely to measure deformations that only occur in different temperature ranges. SpaceX also has chopstick simulators on the same test stand. Those will perform load tests on the catch points while the ship is on the stand.

Before all these changes, the messy test stand did two things: pressure tests in the form of ambient and cryo tests and static fires. Now, it does those along with structural tests on the flaps and the catch points. It doesn't do docking port testing yet, but sources tell me it would be just a small modification to enable it. For now, those ports are fake, as mentioned before, so no testing is needed.

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SpaceX and NASA Updates
SpaceX is still aiming for a March launch window of flight 12. And besides all the progress we just talked about, there is proof that this might still happen. Raptor 3 is loose at Starbase, cited by several outlets, including NSF. You're looking at the first confirmed Raptor 3 deliveries to Starbase that were not for show or presentation reasons. These are meant for ship 39 and booster 19. SpaceX will need 39 of them, 36 sea level engines and three vacuum engines, also called Arvac. And this delivery can only mean one thing. We're close to hearing them roar at Starbase. Expect an extensive cryo test campaign for ship 39, similar to what we saw for booster 19. And at the same time, get ready for some static fire action. How high do I rate the chance of flight 12 in March? 50/50. 50/50.

And while SpaceX is advancing its Starship timeline, NASA is doing some major housekeeping. I cannot sugarcoat this. NASA rolled the SLS back to the vehicle assembly building, not because of weather or another external factor, but because of a flow issue in a helium system inside the rocket's upper stage. And fixing it outdoors simply is not feasible. The issue sits in the interim cryogenic propulsion stage or ICPS. That is the upper stage that performs the crucial burn sending Orion toward the moon. During and after the second wet dress rehearsal, engineers detected abnormal helium flow behavior. Helium in a rocket is not fuel, but it is just as vital to the operation. It is used to pressurize propellant tanks and operate valves. If helium does not flow correctly, you cannot guarantee stable engine performance. And without stable engine performance, you do not launch astronauts, or at least I hope you don't.

The suspected culprits are small pieces of hardware, possibly a stuck valve, a clogged filter in an umbilical line, or a faulty quick disconnect fitting. None of those components are large. None of them are dramatic, but they are critical. And the situation feels eerily familiar because Artemis 1 was also delayed by helium valve trouble back in 2022. The real problem is not just the malfunction itself. It is where that malfunction is located. The ICPS sits high on top of the 98 m stack far above the pad's fixed access structures. There is simply no practical way to open panels and replace components at the height on the launchpad. Only the rotating work platforms inside the VAB can safely reach that section of the vehicle. If engineers want full access, the entire rocket has to go back indoors.

And when I say the rocket has to go back, that does not mean rolling a simple cylinder on wheels. The SLS does not travel alone. It moves together with its entire mobile launcher. That is a 113 m steel tower weighing roughly 5 million kg. It carries every umbilical connection, the crew access arm, propellant lines, electrical systems, and environmental controls. Underneath all of that sits the crawler transporter, another 3 million kg of machinery. When you combine the rocket, the tower, and the crawler, you get about 10.7 million kg moving as a single unit. It crawls at less than 1.6 kilometers per hour across nearly 7 kilometers of specially engineered roadway. This is not simply transportation; it is closer to relocating a skyscraper, and that process puts real mechanical stress on the vehicle. NASA is fully aware of the risks. More than 300 sensors are attached to the rocket and the mobile launcher, and dozens of accelerometers monitor the crawler itself. And this concern is not theoretical. During Artemis 1 preparations, the mobile launcher developed a documented lean. NASA attributed part of that to vibration during crawler transport. After one previous roll back, engineers even expressed concern that the journey may have disturbed hydrogen umbilical seals that had just been repaired. In other words, the act of fixing a problem and rolling back to the pad can sometimes introduce new risks.

To keep the platform level, the crawler uses a hydraulic jacking equalization and leveling system that adjusts each corner independently and maintains level within a fraction of a degree even while climbing the 5% incline up to the launchpad. The obvious question becomes, why build it this way in the first place? Why not stack the rocket at the pad like most modern launch companies do? The answer goes back to Apollo, the OG moon program. The integrate transfer launch model was pioneered for the Saturn 5. When the next launch attempt comes no earlier than April, the entire 10.7 million kilogram stack will make the journey again, slowly and deliberately down that river rock road and back to the pad. Because before Artemis 2 can send humans on the longest journey we have attempted in half a century, it first has to survive the slowest crawl in space flight.

And then on Friday, NASA dropped a bomb. This was unexpected. NASA just changed its plan to return astronauts to the moon. The mission that was supposed to mark America's triumphant return to the lunar surface, Artemis 3, will no longer land humans there, is not even going to the moon. That decision may end up meaning far more than a simple delay. Let's unpack this. At the press conference at Kennedy Space Center, NASA administrator Jared Isikman confirmed that Artemis 3 is being fundamentally restructured. The mission will now focus on testing hardware in low Earth orbit. The new mission profile includes docking the Orion spacecraft with commercial Luna landers and putting new life support systems and space suits through their paces. And yes, landers plural. If possible, NASA wants to put both projected landers through docking tests. The actual Luna landing is being pushed to a later mission, likely Artemis 4 sometime in 2028. That alone is a major shift, but the reason behind it is where the story really gets interesting.

By now, we know that the SLS used for Artemis 2 suffers from the same types of technical problems that delayed Artemis 1 back in 2022. Isikman openly acknowledged that NASA has lost what he called its institutional muscle memory. A component of that is when you are launching every three years, your skills atrophy. You lose muscle memory. In other words, when you only launch a giant deep space rocket once every few years, teams disperse. Experienced engineers move on and hard-won expertise fails. Between the launches, you can't build rhythm. You can't build cadence. And without cadence, you can't build sustainability. That matters because NASA says this isn't about planting flags and footprints anymore. The goal is a permanent presence, a moon base, infrastructure, something that lasts.

And that's where the uncomfortable question comes in. Can you build a permanent moon base with a rocket that flies once every few years, costs more than $2 billion a pop, and is thrown away after each mission? The Space Launch System was designed as NASA's flagship. A massive expandable rocket meant to carry astronauts beyond Earth orbit, but it is also riddled with problems. Objectively, it is an outdated design. Its low flight rate is no longer just a scheduling inconvenience. If each launch is a rare event, enormously expensive, and operationally disruptive, then scaling up a sustained Luna program becomes incredibly difficult. Meanwhile, the commercial space sector is moving in a very different direction. We literally see it every day. SpaceX is rapidly iterating on Starship, testing, flying, and refining the vehicle at a pace that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. Blue Origin has brought its new Glen rocket into service. Rocket Lab is preparing its larger Neutron vehicle. These companies are building reusable systems designed to fly often, land, refly, and drive down costs through repetition.

The contract is hard to ignore. On one side, a government rocket that launches rarely and is discarded after every flight. On the other, commercial systems built around reuse and high cadence. Exactly the kind of approach you would expect if the goal is a sustained presence beyond Earth. When Artemis was conceived, it was treated like a second Apollo, a rocket ship to visit the moon. This has changed drastically. By now, it is all about establishing a permanent presence. By restructuring Artemis 3 around commercial vehicle testing in low Earth orbit, NASA is quietly signaling something important. The agency isn't abandoning the moon, but it may be shifting how it plans to get there and stay there. Instead of relying primarily on its own heavy lift rocket, it is leaning more heavily into partnerships and commercially developed hardware.

That shift doesn't necessarily spell the immediate end of the Space Launch System. The rocket is still scheduled to carry astronauts on Artemis 2 and beyond. Contracts are signed, hardware is built, political support remains strong, but the strategic center of gravity appears to be moving, and the direction seems to lead away from a rocket that is more like a relic from the past. If NASA's own administrator is saying that cadence matters, that frequency matters, that sustainability matters, then the architecture has to match that vision. You cannot build a long-term lunar presence on occasional once every few years missions alone. Permanent infrastructure demands repetition. It demands learning curves. It demands launches that become routine.

So the real story here isn't just that Artemis 3 won't land on the moon. It's that NASA may be at an inflection point. For decades, deep space exploration meant massive government-built rockets developed over many years and flown sparingly. Now, commercial companies are demonstrating a different model. Build fast, test often, reuse everything you can, and iterate your way forward. The question isn't whether astronauts will return to the moon. They almost certainly will. The question is which launch system and which philosophy will ultimately carry that vision forward.

When historians look back at this press conference, they may not remember it as the moment a landing was delayed. They may remember it as the moment NASA began transitioning quietly but decisively from a legacy approach to a new era shaped by commercial speed and reusability. And if that is true, then Artemis 3 didn't just change its destination. It may have changed the future of America's return to the moon.

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Former NASA Chief Now Lobbying to LIMIT SpaceX
-- Congress Targets 50% Cap | 6:41
Ellie in Space | 220K subscribers | 4,114 views | March 3, 2026

YouTube transcript reformatted at textformatter.ai follows.
Transcript
So, here's a pretty crazy story for you about some proposed legislation from a former NASA administrator. As you can see, this article from Eric Berger has gotten over 44 million impressions on X. So, you might have heard about it, but I wanted to give you the background because it is kind of a crazy thing.

So Jim Benstein, a former NASA chief who is now a lobbyist for United Launch Alliance or ULA, is seeking a law to limit SpaceX funding. His argument is that America succeeds in space when American companies compete. Eric Berger with RS Technica writes, "A former NASA administrator says he is encouraged that the US Congress is considering legislation to prevent NASA from spending more than 50% of its launch funding on any single provider."

And by the way, he pulled a post from Jim Benstein on LinkedIn. Jim wrote, "Space is foundational to the American economy, national security, and our way of life. The launch industrial base that assures space access is a national imperative. Section 313 of the Senate's proposed NASA authorization act of 2026 recognizes this reality. By capping any single launch provider at 50% of NASA's total launch contract value, Congress is reinforcing competition and protecting the small and medium-sized manufacturers, propulsion companies, avionics developers, and suppliers that make up the backbone of America's space enterprise. Competition lowers costs, accelerates innovation, and provides redundancy."

But here, let me read you some of the comments, and I kind of share their reaction. A retired NASA employee, Phil Mallister, says, "It is so disappointing to see your name on this, Jim." That part of the legislation does not support competition. What it supports is using the political process to funnel money into favored companies with inferior products. Competition is a full and open match between companies where the best company wins. If this legislation passes, it ensures that the best company will not win. Instead, the second or third place company will get an award because they could not compete and win fairly. And the biggest loser in all of this is America. The American taxpayer and our space agency NASA will be forced to pay more for inferior products.

Alex Lindseay wrote on this post, "Jim, wouldn't this have a massive negative impact on NASA in 2026? SpaceX is currently the only provider capable of flying both crew and cargo to the ISS. This isn't because other providers were excluded from contracts. In fact, several received larger contracts. However, some of those providers failed to execute, which ultimately led to SpaceX's current position. This isn't the case of NASA awarding unfair contracts. SpaceX built the most reliable and capable product and became the primary provider because others were unable to deliver. And we know that. Remember, Boeing got double the funds during the early days of Starliner and Crew Dragon, and well, we know how that turned out."

But as Eric points out, it is obvious that this provision is targeting SpaceX. If passed into law, this language could effectively prohibit SpaceX from launching crewed lunar missions from Earth on Dragon or Starship for NASA in addition to its existing portfolio. And Eric Bergerer goes a little further to find out that the Artemis Group, which is what Jim Benstein is affiliated with on LinkedIn, and he doesn't talk about the Artemis Group on social media, but this is his consulting firm. And his consulting firm netted $990,000, almost a million dollars from United Launch Alliance in 2025. And that was nearly a third of all revenue raised by his lobbying last year, totaling $3.3 million.

And what I think is interesting about this, and Eric points out, Jim was NASA administrator from 2018 to January 2021 during President Trump's first term. And the high point of his tenure in office came in May 2020, thanks to SpaceX. And I remember watching this. It was the summer when the Crew Dragon vehicle successfully flew two astronauts to the International Space Station. This was a huge moment. But it seems like ever since Jim Bridenstine left NASA, he's gotten kind of hostile or maybe just money hungry because he's collecting a lot of lobbying fees from ULA and others. And so Elon shared this just writing, hm. And this is of course why it has so many impressions on X.

And here's an update for you. Remember when I told you about Roscosmos destroying their launchpad and not being able to launch for a while? Well, apparently they have completed those repairs. According to Russian Space Web, the new Baikonur service platform was installed at site 31 by February 10th. And Roscosmos just officially confirmed that they replaced all the attachment devices, replaced and tuned up electric equipment, and inspected or serviced all the systems and mechanisms of the service platform. And this is a big deal because this is Russia's only pad for crewed launches which had some major damage late November of last year. This was during the launch of the Soyuz MS28 crew vehicle and it caused the mobile service platform at site 31 to collapse in the flame duct below the pad around 10 seconds after liftoff. Now, luckily no one was hurt, but this basically rendered the only facility for Russian orbital crew launches unusable, which again I saw this on Eric Berger's X page. He wrote, "This is legitimately impressive in the dead of winter with limited resources. It's also good for NASA and the ISS in general. So, go give Eric Bergerer a follow on X. He really is like the first with all this information."

So, there's some news for you. Again, I have some videos that I'm still working on from my Colorado trip, but it's been hard to edit those when there's been so much breaking or more timely news to share with you. So, thanks so much for supporting my channel. Hope you have a great week and I'll see you in the next video.

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