When (first) orbital flight?First integrated flight test occurred April 20, 2023. "The vehicle cleared the pad and beach as Starship climbed to an apogee of ~39 km over the Gulf of Mexico – the highest of any Starship to-date. The vehicle experienced multiple engines out during the flight test, lost altitude, and began to tumble. The flight termination system was commanded on both the booster and ship."
What's happening next? SpaceX has assessed damage to Stage 0 and is implementing fixes and changes including a water deluge/pad protection/"shower head" system. No major repairs to key structures appear to be necessary.
Why no flame diverter/flame trench below the OLM?Musk tweeted on April 21: "3 months ago, we started building a massive water-cooled, steel plate to go under the launch mount. Wasn’t ready in time & we wrongly thought, based on static fire data, that Fondag would make it through 1 launch." Regarding a trench, note that the Starship on the OLM sits 2.5x higher off the ground than the Saturn V sat above the base of its flame trench, and the OLM has 6 exits vs. 2 on the Saturn V trench.
8:30am- Raptor install stand was moved to the suborbital side of the launch complex. The LR11000 has moved to the right a bit and swung around to pick something up behind the tower
9:17am- LR11000 picks up another section of stairs and lifts them to the back side of the tower
10:55am- Crane disconnected from stairs. 3 lifts up at the OLM. 2 under and one at the top of the stairs
1:15pm- 🥱. Lift is still up at the top of the stairs and the scissor lift is up to the left of the stairs
4:00pm- The 2 lifts from above are still in the same place with the workers having moved to the dance floor. A 3rd lift is up behind the cryo leg and a 4th went up to the left chopstick for a few minutes before coming down.
7:00pm- 2nd shift got lost
9:30pm- Workers could be seen on the dance floor and around the base of the OLM. Someone finally brought the scissor lift down from the dance floor