Flight 4 had a flap burning on reentry. After Flight 13, the ship floated in the ocean for weeks. Flight 14 flies tomorrow, and it is the first Starship flight with reused heat shield tiles: two tiles from Ship 40 are flying again on Ship 41. "The toughest remaining problem is a reusable orbital heat shield." @elonmusk The window opens Mon, Sept 28 at 7:15 a.m. CT / 5:15 a.m. PT, pending regulatory approval.

Starship Header Tanks & No Landing Legs - Explained During the belly-flop reentry, Starship falls horizontally. Propellant in the main tanks sloshes to one side. If the Raptors tried to pull from them, they’d ingest air and destroy themselves. That’s why Starship carries two small, dedicated header tanks (one in the nose, one inside the main tank). They stay completely full and pressurized, feeding the engines only for the final flip and landing burn. Landing legs were dropped for the same reason everything else was simplified: • Massive dead weight = less payload to orbit • Terrible turnaround: land off-pad → cranes → transport → slow ops Catching the ship and booster with the tower arms puts them straight back on the mount. That’s what makes rapid reuse (target: refly in under an hour) actually possible.

It turns out that the @S4S_SDA TIP message recording LINK's reentry on Sep 24 was incorrect. The Katalyst team inform me that the SWIFT reboost mission satellite sent its last data during reentry at 0638:12 UTC Sep 25. I have no explanation for the incorrect USSF data.

Ship 40’s incredible journey 🔥 • Launched from Starbase • Flew through space • Survived reentry • Splashed down intact in the Indian Ocean • Was towed to Christmas Island • Was lifted aboard Forte • Is now ready for its journey home 📸 SpaceX and Chris Bray Photography

Post-flight analysis confirms the Artemis II Orion heat shield performed as expected during its Mach 39 reentry, protecting the spacecraft and the astronauts aboard as they returned from the 694,481-mile journey around the Moon.