Starship Flight 14 has a more definite launch date and time

It was just 10 days ago when Starship Flight 14 was listed as flying September 15th but with no launch time. I think I remember seeing the date of September 18, three days later, and the "next Friday" to us, but without a launch time. That mystery disappeared and the flight now has both: Tuesday September 22, at 8:15 AM EDT. 

This is going to be a BIG test flight. Exactly what's going to go on is hard to pin down, but there are a couple of interesting side notes going around. The least important of them is that this launch will carry the first batch of version 3 Starlink satellites. That means it's a commercial flight, one in which SpaceX is both the launch contractor and the customer whose payloads are going into orbit. That makes their financial situation look a bit better, but not incredibly better.

Another interesting side note is that the booster for Flight 15 is being prepared now. That raises the question of "why?" The simple explanation is that SpaceX needs to increase their Starship flight cadence but the more interesting explanation is that they need to start making progress on their orbital refueling technology that they've been working on for years. 

They need more than one Starship for that, one to be the on-orbit "fuel depot" and the other(s) to bring fuel to it. Depending on the mission that needs the fuel, it almost certainly needs more than one fuel transfer loaded onto it. In the past, I've seen posts saying on the order of ten to a dozen Starships would be required to fill one Starship as the fuel depot and that much fuel would be required for a lunar mission.

The logistics of doing the "10+" flights to fill a tanker in orbit which will fuel the SpaceX HLS (Human Landing Ship) are mind-boggling - some models talk about launching ten Starships in ten days, or even less time. That's never been done before. There are also rumors and reports all over about new designs for the Human Landing System and how it's going to be much easier to get to the moon with this new one. Obviously, this test would only be two Starships but they don't really need to load enough fuel to send a Starship to the moon. Lots will be learned from docking and transferring enough fuel to get started. 

Blue Origin infographic about the differences between the lunar Starship (HLS) and their National Team lander. Reduced file size, more detail in the source version at Reddit. File is dated 2021 - image at that Reddit link.

Another big question is whether or not the booster is coming back to Starbase to be readied for reuse. I've seen arguments both ways and I can only say to stand by because we're likely to find out before the launch. Things like the need for "ten Starship (flights) in ten days" has a huge impact on the need for rapid reusability. A commercial airplane doesn't need days between flights, and a rapidly reusable Starship and SuperHeavy booster could eliminate the need for a fleet of "ten Starships and ten boosters" - or at least drop it from ten Starships and boosters to "a few".