Oct. 7, 2026 · A busy Wednesday at Starbase: a booster test tank may have burst overnight, Ship 40 is due in port, and the city votes at 7 p.m.

October 7, 2026 · Starship · Starbase

A busy Wednesday at Starbase: a booster test tank may have burst overnight, Ship 40 is due in port, and the city votes at 7 p.m.

A stainless steel Starship test tank on a test stand between two cranes, with dark storage tanks to the left and brush in the foreground — A Starship test tank being readied for a destructive cryogenic pressure test, September 2020. Photo: Raquel Aldape, CC BY 2.0.

Overnight at Massey's, SpaceX's test site near Starbase, a booster test tank may have given out. NASASpaceflight reported late Tuesday night that "the Starship booster landing tank test article, which was undergoing its 16th Cryo Test at Massey's tonight, might have had a rupture near the bottom of the tank." NSF added: "It is unknown if this was unintentional or on purpose."

What a test article is: a tank built to be tested on the ground, not a vehicle that will fly. Test tanks are sometimes pushed until they fail, as in the photo above, so "on purpose" is a real possibility. We'll update this if SpaceX or NSF says more.

Ship 40 this morning: the heavy-lift ship Forte, carrying Ship 40 home from its Indian Ocean splashdown, was in the Gulf of Mexico at 3.4 knots about 7:30 a.m. Central, with a VesselFinder ETA of 14:00 UTC, about 9 a.m. Central. NASASpaceflight's live stream, "SpaceX Ship 40 returns to Starbase," is set for 8 a.m. Central. Ship 40's trip home.
Tonight at 7: the Starbase City Commission's special meeting at 48491 State Highway 4 is still on the city's calendar. Item E.3 is a Section 212.172 development agreement with SpaceX for land in the city's extraterritorial jurisdiction, outside city limits. What that kind of deal can do.
Beach and flights: Boca Chica Beach is open, there's no road delay, and no closure order is posted. Starship Flight 15 has "no launch date yet," with an estimate of Q4 2026, per Starbase Events.

Sources: NASASpaceflight, Oct. 6 (test tank) · Wikimedia Commons, test tank photo · VesselFinder, Forte (read Oct. 7) · NASASpaceflight live stream · City of Starbase, commission meetings · Oct. 7 agenda · City of Starbase, beach and road access (read Oct. 7) · Starbase Events, Flight 15 (read Oct. 7)

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