LabPadre update from Starbase: February 20

BOCA CHICA, Texas (ValleyCentral) — As this past week rolled on, so did construction on Ship 36.

Ship 32 and Ship 34 were deconstructed and relocated to the Massey outpost for static fire testing.

Now let's dig into the rest of this week's update.

At the Massey outpost, Ship 34 underwent some flap actuation testing, starting with its aft flaps, then moving on to the forward flaps.

Around noon time, Ship 32 continued to shrink as its common dome section was brought out of high bay.

Later, a crane was spotted lifting the first pieces of steel in the flame trench for installation.

The scrapping of Ship 32 continued with another section of the obsolete ship being brought out of high bay.

That evening, the Massey outpost was cleared out for testing on Ship 34.

At 8:15 pm, local time, SpaceX performed their most ambitious ship static fire as the Flight 8 Starship fired at six raptor engines for almost a full minute.

This long duration was to test out new hardware and cycle the engines through different simulated flight conditions back at the launch complex, the recently delivered second hydraulic actuator was lifted and installed on the backside of the new tower's starboard arm.

Late that afternoon, Ship 36's nose cone and payload section were moved from Starfactory to Mega Bay 2.

This is the first time these sections have been stacked inside of Starfactory.

Additionally, Ship 36 is the first ship to be pre-fitted with catching hardware.

Around midnight, Ship 34 started rolling through the Massey outpost and onto Highway 4 as it began its journey to the build site, back at the launch site.

The ship quick disconnect arm on Tower One was swung away from the tower, and the chopsticks raised and opened into the launch position.

Once the chopsticks were past it, the quick disconnect arm was rotated back towards the tower next to the ship.

Quick disconnect interface was extended, simulating a connection to a stacked starship.

Over the next couple of hours, SpaceX performed various tests on the tower, including the raising of the landing rails, simulated catch movements with the arms and a full-speed retraction of the ship, quick disconnect

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