NASA and SpaceX advance wind tunnel tests for Starship rocket! NASA and its industry partners are preparing for next year’s Artemis III demonstration mission by completing new wind tunnel tests on SpaceX’s Super Heavy Version 3 rocket booster. The tests, conducted at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, focused on better understanding the extreme aerodynamic forces the rocket can experience during re-entry. The recent test series builds on previous testing completed at NASA Ames in 2024.

NASA experts with decades of experience with heat shields: Starship’s heat shield is a dead end. Elon on the heat shield for Starship in the Q2 earnings call: “I don't want to jinx it or anything, but I think I would call the heat shield problem solved at this point. All indications from data and visual inspection are we have solved it. That doesn't mean we won't make improvements, but we do not see any technical obstacles to achieving rapid reusability at this point.” After a ship catch they will thoroughly inspect it, refurbish as needed, and work on fixes to prevent those issues in the future.

NASA is now targeting no earlier than September 12 for the launch of SpaceX Crew-13 Falcon 9 and Dragon will carry four astronauts to the International Space Station: • Commander Jessica Watkins • Pilot Luke Delaney • Mission Specialist Joshua Kutryk • Mission Specialist Sergey Teteryatnikov For Delaney, Kutryk and Teteryatnikov, this will be their first journey to space After docking with the ISS, the crew will join Expedition 75 for a long-duration science mission Another Falcon 9 is preparing to launch. Another Dragon is preparing to carry humans safely into orbit SpaceX returned human spaceflight to American soil...a capability America had lost after the Space Shuttle retired

NASA recently recognized one of America’s outstanding engineers. At @SpaceX’s Rocket Development Facility in McGregor, Texas, I joined Congressman @PeteSessions and McGregor Mayor Jim Lilley to present Andrew Berkowitz with NASA’s Exceptional Public Achievement Award. Andrew’s pioneering research to better understand liquid methane and oxygen explosions is helping enable the next generation of rockets that will return Americans to the Moon, establish a sustained U.S. presence on the lunar surface, and prepare us for Mars. America’s greatest achievements in space are built by extraordinary people whose work often happens behind the scenes. Andrew’s contributions will help shape the future of exploration for years to come. Congratulations on this well-deserved honor, Andrew, and thank you for your contributions to NASA’s mission and America’s future in space.

NASA Chief highlights SpaceX’s key role in building America’s Moon base: “A lot of the roads go through McGregor, Texas. So you think about building out the moon base. A lot of the landers, the rovers, a lot of the scientific equipment, the test equipment that's going to build out and establish a moon base will be launched on a Falcon 9 rocket, the stage of which and the Merlin engines are tested here in McGregor. But we'll take that even farther. The vehicle that has a great chance of returning astronauts to the surface of the moon, whether it is on Artemis 4, is the HLS, which is powered by the Raptor motor that's been developed and tested here at McGregor, Texas. So you're talking about everything from the infrastructure for building the moon base to what has a very good shot of returning the astronauts to the surface of the moon come through McGregor.”

NASA Chief says competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin is great for America. “Competition is a great thing I mean, competition is what's enabling NASA now to focus a lot of our resources back on the near impossible mission. The reason we were established in the first place, what taxpayers fund us to do, which is what no other company, agency or nation, frankly, in the world is capable of doing. So in that respect, competition is fantastic. Competition is great across industry. And yes, you have SpaceX and Blue Origin that are both building landers. And I have no doubt whichever one is first or otherwise, we're going to need both. We're never giving up the moon again. We will have multiple pathways to put cargo and crew on the surface of the moon routinely. SpaceX, Blue Origin are very much in the race on that.”

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman: SpaceX’s Raptor Engines will power America’s return to the Moon and Moon Base. “The Raptor engines that go on the human landing system that we are going to use to put American astronauts back on the moon, not to mention build the moon base, absolutely, they're doing the development and testing at McGregor. There is a space race that's underway. It's going to take the contributions of the best and brightest across the nation, including what's going on right here, the contributions from SpaceX, the supporting community around it to undertake and achieve the near impossible. And Congressman Sessions has been vital, too, that I can tell you, I mean, without our national space policy, without the resources that came from the Working Family Tax Cut Act, NASA would not have the tools, the resources right now to undertake this adventure, to win the next space race, to return to the moon and build the moon base and win.”

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman: SpaceX helped lead America’s shift to methane rocket fuel. "SpaceX was one of the first to move on from their current propellant structure, which is basically refined diesel and liquid oxygen, to liquid methane or liquid natural gas and liquid oxygen. But we know so very little about it and what we get concerned about very early on is what happens if something goes wrong during testing? And we assumed a lot of worst case scenarios. But other companies, so Blue Origin, for example, decided, this is the right path we should go on to. Now the problem is you have all these companies working on this new propellant system, and we had to take very conservative views, which would have actually shut down testing and launch operations at multiple centers across the United States. And this employee, Berkowitz, he came up with the analysis that determined, actually, it's a lot safer than we may think it is, and it's permitted us to conduct lots of simultaneous operations. It was a real enabling breakthrough work he did, and that's why he was honored."