Starship Development Thread #47
pigeonberry @ pigeonberry @lemmy.world Posts 40Comments 87Joined 2 yr. ago
pigeonberry @ pigeonberry @lemmy.world
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Another glamor shot, this one from Jack Beyer @thejackbeyer 9:57 PM - Jul 20, 2023, of a NASA Space Flight picture.
Super Heavy Booster's 33 Raptor engines. Looking so clean!
@NASAspaceflight
Nice picture from RGV Aerial Photography @RGVaerialphotos 1:45 PM - Jul 20, 2023:
New flyover!
Booster 9 ready for lift operations!
Also an unusual perspective from Mary @BocaChicaGal 7:51 AM - Jul 20, 2023:
It’s great to see Booster 9 rolling to the launch site this morning. 🚀🤩
@NASASpaceflight
And a glamor shot in transit by Starbase Surfer @cnunezimages 10:31 AM - Jul 20, 2023
WOW ! - Image Taken: July 20, 2023
Starship Gazer @StarshipGazer 5:21 PM - Jul 20, 2023
New Booster Hot Staging section spotted earlier today. - 7/20/23 - https://starshipgazer.com
SpaceX made a prototype like this, with lots of vertical slits, and then scrapped it. It was suggested at the time that it might have been for hot staging. Well, that's looking more likely. The current article has the outlines of the vertical slits but they haven't been snipped out.
Well, Zack Golden did reply that he thinks they're holding back, so maybe you'll get your wish for more violence.
Zack Golden @CSI_Starbase added on 2:09 PM - Jul 17, 2023:
Interesting things to note about this test:
- In the near future this will have an even higher volume of water
- The system appears to be in the process of being expanded and might eventually have double the amount of high pressure gas tanks feeding it.
On point 1, someone asserted (based on "Individuals on various discord servers") that it was only the center manifold.
Zack had a later tweet, 3:37 PM - Jul 17, 2023:
The purpose of the water system is purely to keep the steel plates from melting.
Without the water, the plates would be disintegrated, but the actual foundation would still survive as long as the booster cleared the pad fast enough.
The upgraded foundation is the key to success here. Had the original foundation been constructed the way it is now, the pad would not have failed during the first launch attempt while using Fondag on the blast surface
IMHO it's impossible for that type of failure to occur again.
He clarified in a later reply, "As I said, the water is not preventing mechanical forces from being transmitted through the plates and into the foundation. That’s not it’s job. It’s purely for thermal protection."
Chris Bergin - NSF @NASASpaceflight 1:24 PM - Jul 17, 2023
WOW! OLM Water Deluge System conducts its first full test! That was super impressive. No more rock tornados, I'd say!
I wonder whether the MP4 will attach here? ... edit: Nope, it seems not. See https://imgur.com/a/CQwvvl0 . Audio, but don't turn it up.
Edit 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgTqqGaU-Bg is a closer view from Starship Gazer @StarshipGazer, but with some unrelated chopstick stuff at the end apparently.
Edit 3: DRAT! I hang out in this thread, not the main group, and didn't see that @llamacoffee had posted "[Chris Bergin - NSF] WOW! OLM Water Deluge System conducts its first full test! That was super impressive. No more rock tornados, I’d say!" here.
Hmmm.
Jon Edwards @edwards345 12:21 PM - Jul 16, 2023
We are linearizing the Merlin production line in the high bay of HT01. Should be operational in September. Gonna be super bad ass.
There was a bit of discussion about what "linearizing" might mean. Mass production? Maybe not mass production, just setting up a formal assembly line, and removing extra capacity for long-pole items? So people get to specialize in specific parts?
Someone mentioned another tweet by the Mother of the Dark Lord, Last edited 8:34 PM - Jul 15, 2023: they claimed that someone was working inside an octoweb in the third picture. I don't see it.
Checking The Other Place: chatter there about the massive cryogenic release yesterday.
"the PA mentioned a valve issue"
It’s LOX according to the guys who were sent in to try and close the valve and just happened to stop in front of Rover 2 to make their plan....
They were talking about whether to go in from the front (Hwy 4) or go around through the back.
It was Lox tank 1820. The big boy and they’d have to Spin That Valve
Then at the end it was, we’re going to punch thru, stay together, and if the monitor goes off, get out....
with someone's long explanation:
Short periods of around an hour in highly elevated oxygen levels at atmospheric pressure is not particularly toxic. You may feel slightly dizzy, and feel dryness in your throat making you cough. You don't want to stay too many sustained hours in it, as basically the natural antioxidants in your body will deplete and the oxygen will oxidise you, possibly leading to long term tissue damage. Especially the eyes, namely lens and retina.
What you don't want to be anywhere near whilst working in this environment is an ignition source. If something sparks up or becomes hot, such as an insecure light connection, or grease in a valve spindle, Everything instantly ignites. Living tissue, Everything, including most metals will burn intensely once the heat gets going.
The Apollo 1 deaths of astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee, who perished during a flash fire caused by an electrical spark in pure oxygen levels inside the crew capsule during a launch rehearsal made NASA redesign the whole system.
So several gather that there was only one big valve whose failure caused a complete dump, and they find a bit surprising to have a single point of failure.
I think this was what was mentioned in the "New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:" thread just a bit ago, around "7:00pm".
Zack Golden @CSI_Starbase tweeted at 7:54 PM - Jul 15, 2023:
Pretty massive liquid nitrogen or liquid oxygen dump going on. Tough to tell which it is.
I can't remember ever seeing this occur before outside of a testing event.
Initially thought this was some sort of clean out process but the volume appears to be a bit excessive for that.
A tweet from Jack Beyer @thejackbeyer with a close-in picture (from the state park?) of the Orbital launch mount.
4:13 PM - Jul 14, 2023 'Just got shooed out of the dunes by a drone with a speaker on it because im “in the blast danger area for today’s test”. That’s a first. [emojus] @NASASpaceflight'
Edit: video here, visible to me even in incognito mode.
An unusual test object (?) has caused some discussion, it seems, like in https://lemmy.world/comment/1154582 from @LettuceTurnipTheBeet@lemm.ee
The Ringwatchers @Ringwatchers had a long thread today analyzing the situation. threadreaderapp unroll here.. Their TL;DR: "Ship 24.2 will be a 7-ring tall article composed of 3 main sections: a top ring with a dome and 24 external attachment points, a Ship Payload Bay that features a PEZ dispenser rack, and a bottom ring with a hatch in the side.", designed nicely to fit into the nosecone cage / can crusher, and the nosecone cage structure has been modified to fit it.
The Booster Bidet got its first test. Looks like a lot of pressurized gas spewed out for about 40 seconds. The video can be seen on Twitter even without being logged in (currently) here. The video is from LabPadre, shown in a tweet by Zack Golden @CSI_Starbase 7:40 PM - Jul 12, 2023:
Much better angle of the purge test. This is a pretty intense amount of force that will be pushing out the water through steel blast surface!
Audio has been synced with @LabPadre Rover 2.0 camera.
Later,
This was no accident. Its a purging of the high pressure gas system
Huh, the tweet seems to be visible even without a login? If not, the underlying image is https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F0zTpR6XwAAnVvl?format=jpg&name=4096x4096
The tweet says
Chris Bergin - NSF @NASASpaceflight 9:09 PM - Jul 11, 2023
Say hello to S24.2 at Starbase. You're interesting!
Photo by Jack Beyer (@thejackbeyer) for NSF.
I think the naming convention of Snumber.number or Bnumber.number is for a test tank or other test subassembly.
One suggestion is that it's a test of the lunar Human Landing System. S normally means it's on Starship, and maybe the reinforced holes at the top of the tank are the landing thrusters, or the openings for the thrusters.
There's also the suggestion that it's a hot staging ring, but it was objected elsewhere that that would be on top of a booster, not in a Starship.
Another suggestion is that it's a "Frankenbarrel", combining two tests.
By STEPHEN CLARK - 7/10/2023, 11:59 AM. 15 launches used to be the limit for the Falcon 9 first stage, but they just went to 16 with B1058 on Sunday.
This is Falcon 9’s second booster life extension
Bill Gerstenmaier, SpaceX’s vice president of build and flight reliability, said in May that engineers were in the process of certifying Falcon 9 boosters for up to 20 flights for Starlink missions. Launches with customer satellites may be limited to rockets with lower flight counts. NASA has only certified reused Falcon 9 boosters with five or fewer flights for the agency’s astronaut missions going to the International Space Station....
SpaceX’s latest iteration of the Falcon 9 rocket design—called the Block 5—flew for the first time in 2018. At that time, SpaceX had the goal of launching each Falcon 9 Block 5 booster 10 times.... [Aviation Leak] reported that SpaceX put booster components through vibration testing to four times the fatigue life of what they would experience over 15 flights, giving engineers confidence that the rockets will continue to fly successfully.
Tweets from Elon Musk @elonmusk.
7:51 PM - Jul 9, 2023: "3 more engines for the meaning of life." Meaning 42 Raptor engines total for Super Heavy and Starship together. It's with an upskirt photo of a Starship, though with 6 engines. I can't quickly find an authoritative statement of the configuration, but since 2021, it seems that people have been stating 3 sea-level gimballing engines in the center, and 6 Rvacs (vacuum Raptors) inside the circumference (so one added between each existing pair of RVacs for a hex array). Everyday Astronaut tweeted a reply at 8:57 PM - Jul 9, 2023, "So 33 on booster, 9 on ship. Which will be the first 6 X Vac ship?", so he seems to be thinking 6 RVacs.
The Ringwatchers @Ringwatchers have a 10-tweet thread (via threadreaderapp) analyzing it. They see a Hydraulic Power Unit: they say that, since S26 on and B9 on have the electric Thrust Vector Control system, this has to be a picture of S25. The engine shielding has been removed -- for inspections? for redesign? The COPVs have been removed too. There are other details, like the interior camera, the static firing stiffeners on the RVac (vacuum Raptor) engine bells to prevent damage from sea-level flow separation, et cetera.
Two Elon tweets in sequence:
- 12:35 AM - Jul 10, 2023 "Looks like we can increase Raptor thrust by ~20% to reach 9000 tons (20 million lbs) of force at sea level"
- 12:43 AM - Jul 10, 2023 "And deliver over 200 tons of payload to a useful orbit with full & rapid reusability. 50 rockets flying every 3 days on average enables over a megaton of payload to orbit per year – enough to build a self-sustaining city on Mars."
Edit for the record: Zack Golden @CSI_Starbase tweet on Jul 9 this picture. It showed Starship's config as mentioned above. But the 3 center gimballing sea-level engines are lined up with 3 of the 6 RVacs on the rim, which I think would slightly reduce their range of motion.
Musk replied 10:29 PM - Jul 9, 2023
Inner engine gimbal angle is limited in some directions, due to impacting outer engine nozzle, but probably ok
"SpaceX launched the most powerful rocket ever built. Its impact is still felt in this Texas community", a CNN article dated Friday, 7 July 2023.
Musk has repeatedly said he’d like to try to launch Starship again as soon as this summer, but the FAA said in a statement to CNN that SpaceX has yet to take public safety actions or submit a mishap report with corrective actions for FAA review and approval.
Much lifting and lowering and all sorts of craney stuff, but it's believed that all the manifolds are in place by now. A nice Imgur picture of a manifold being craned.
Unrolled tweet thread at threadreaderapp.com by Ryan Hansen Space @RyanHansenSpace. It's a look at the details of the steel plate parts and assembly under the Orbital Launch Mount.
More pour info, this time from tweets from Zack Golden @CSI_Starbase. The truck counts basically match those from @LettuceTurnipTheBeet@lemm.ee's post earlier.
SpaceX has received their final load of concrete for today's Orbital Launch Mount foundation work. Here are the totals after the 15.3 hour marathon:
June 25th - 132 Truck loads
July 3rd - 171 Truck loads
Total Volume = 2,302 m3 = 3030 yd3
Total Weight = 5,411 Tons
For reference, a Fully loaded Starship ~ 5,000 Tons
Note: There were 4 additional trucks that showed up but were turned back around without offloading.
Shoutout to agents @VickiCocks15 and @SpmtTracker for keeping track of all these.
4:11 PM · Jul 3, 2023
and
Obviously this number is significantly greater than we predicted. For those who asked, that previous number was not considering the area in yellow, which were also completed today. This area is technically outside of the true foundation of the OLM
with a picture by RGV Aerial Photography.
ANOTHER glamor shot, this one from SpaceX @SpaceX itself, 3:08 PM - Jul 21, 2023:
Image 1
Image 2
Marcus House retweeted with, "Looks like something right out of your favourite sci-fi movie huh!?".