Preparations are underway for a late July launch of the fifth SpaceX orbital starship but the eighth heavy booster is already partially built. The eighth heavy booster has redesigned block 2 features. The block 2 Starship and booster will be 10-20% longer and will be lighter for more payload. Felix Schlang at the What About It? youtube channel has coverage of the new block 2.
If the Spacex Starship flights get to a monthly or faster launch cadence then the flights could be as follows:
fifth flight with booster catch in late July.
Sixth flight in August (perhaps with a Starship catch).
Seventh flight in September
Eighth flight in October.
SpaceX could have Starlink version 2 or version 3 satellites launched by Starship by the end of this year.
Recovering the heavy booster will reduce the cost of Starship from about $40 million to $12 million as 33 of the 39 engines would be saved. It will also mean each new test will only need 6 new Raptor engines.
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Recovering the booster is also critical to recovering *failed* raptors and a complete diagnosis of the failures, which would lead to new versions of these engines.