Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

New drone fly-by of the Cocoa Florida site:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNO2ElxXueQ

Reports today (Monday August 12) say that preparations might be underway to build a new access road to the Florida Spaceshipyard. It appears to the locals like it will extend from the dead-end road to the immediate left of the FedEx Ground facility (the white building in the upper right corner of the photo below), along a brown dirt path visible in the photo, to a point to the left of the blue-roofed building on the right side.



See blue line here. The Spaceshipyard is at the upper left in the photo below, to the left of and above the 'V' in 'V.A. Paving' (the next-door neighbor with the piles of dirt or gravel): (Map by local Cocoa FL resident Andrew Stoltz who might prove to be a good source of information)

https://twitter.com/Andrewhoonigan/statu...7564846089



The tall structure's framing seems to be complete and now they are starting on the walls (which seem to consist of tent-like seemingly plastic material). The Starship prototype's cylinder section has grown as tall as it's probably likely to get. It seems to have caught up with the Boca Chica version and is at a similar stage of completion.

The Florida site seems to have a whole different attitude than the Texas site. The Texas security guards are friendly, the Florida ones reportedly are surly. Texas allows interested spectators close-up access every day and aren't particularly bothered when people take photographs. (They have asked photographers like Mary not to photograph workers faces or auto licence numbers.) So everything Boca Chica does is minutely recorded and discussed internationally by space-geeks and aerospace professionals alike. The Florida site seems to want to operate in comparative secrecy, keeping spectators as far away as possible. See an example of the kind of signs that have been erected on nearby Cocoa FL roads here:

https://twitter.com/julia_bergeron/statu...1212270593

In more Florida news, despite the Starship prototype having reached what looks like full size (or almost), they appear to still be cranking out welded steel rings. There's speculation about that. The consensus seems to be that they have all these welders who can't just be laid off now that the Starship seems to have all the rings it needs, so they are preparing components that will be needed for building a third Starship prototype and/or the first Falcon Superheavy booster prototype.

In Boca Chica news, Mary/Bocachicagal's video of Hoppy's tanking tests on Friday feature a Texas touch: howling coyotes! I believe that coyotes live in Florida too (they live pretty much everywhere, even in urban areas here in California), but one nevertheless associates them with the West. Reportedly south Texas is overrun with coyotes which attack local livestock and are considered pests.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkzW7mycZhw

Still no move by the giant crane to stack the two Boca Chica Starship halves. Crews seem to still be installing all the tank bulkheads and piping that Mary photographed arriving the last few days.

Because it's Texas.

https://twitter.com/BocaChicaGal/status/...6892419074

(Aug 13, 2019 04:47 AM)Yazata Wrote: [ -> ]Because it's Texas.

https://twitter.com/BocaChicaGal/status/...6892419074

An anachronism that will probably continue for hundreds of years, too.[*]

"Alex Kamal, pilot of the Rocinante, was born on Mars, in the Mariner Valley. Having grown up there, Alex was raised with the incongruous Texas drawl that has caught on among the largely Indian and Chinese population who live there."

Thanks to Jeff Bezos' fondness for it, The Expanse returns Dec 13 on Amazon Prime Video.

[*] Texas, spaceships, cowboys, space cowboys.

Apparently the FAA has come through and issued their experimental flight permit. A NOTAM announcing new Boca Chica Temporary Flight Restrictions for Hoppy's farewell flight have been issued for Friday August 16 through Sunday August 18.

https://tfr.faa.gov/save_pages/detail_9_9032.html

And concerning the possible new Florida access road referred to in post #171 above, there's a complication. Endangered gopher tortoises live in that empty patch and it's illegal to molest them.

https://twitter.com/realChefJared/status...5607600128

Edit: Chris Hadfield, Canada's musical astronaut, can see the peculiar beauty of homely Hoppy. We writes: "Testing new spaceships - HG Wells would have loved to see the reality of this. Good luck with the untethered test flight @SpaceX!"

https://twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield/status...1967556608

(Aug 13, 2019 07:44 PM)Yazata Wrote: [ -> ]Apparently the FAA has come through and issued their experimental flight permit. A NOTAM announcing new Boca Chica Temporary Flight Restrictions for Hoppy's farewell flight have been issued for Friday August 16 through Sunday August 18.

https://tfr.faa.gov/save_pages/detail_9_9032.html

Nope, not so fast.

Yesterday a Nasaspaceflight.com reporter said that he could verify that while the FAA has issued a NOTAM, they still haven't issued a flight authorization. (They apparently come from different parts of the FAA bureaucracy.)

And today Elon verifies that they still haven't gotten the necessary authorization:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1161839684466532352

So Hoppy's hugely anticipated 200 meter flight might not happen tomorrow.

Edit: Cameron County has just removed this weekend's Boca Chica road closures from their website.

http://www.co.cameron.tx.us/wp/space-x/

Elon says he's going to be talking to the FAA this afternoon

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1162066571612717057

And just two minutes ago Elon posted this:

"Good conversation with head of FAA Space. Need a bit more hazard analysis & should be clear to fly soon."

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1162096454367756288

Still not clear what "soon" means.

I'm guessing (that's all it is) that the FAA saw Hoppy's giant fireball after the static test fire, Hoppy pretending to be Elon's not-a-flamethrower that time they aborted, and Hoppy lighting a brush-fire during its first untethered hop last time. So somebody in the FAA doesn't want the FAA to be blamed for approving this crazy thing if Hoppy accidently destroys Boca Chica this time.

Hoppy's new beauty mark. Down on the right like an asterisk next to the landing leg.

(Photos by Bocachicagal)



What is it? Mary captured a closeup:



They are thermal tiles. Last seen here:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1107378575924035584

So why would there be a little spot of thermal tiles on Hoppy? Certainly they are stylish. But...

Opinion seems to be that it's a test of whatever adhesive that they plan to use to attach them to the Starship. Many of these sort of tiles will need to be attached to the Starship's extremely cold steel cryogenic fuel/oxidizer tanks. One of the plans is for it to do kind of a belly-flop into the atmosphere (at 18,000 mph!) and the windward side of the Starship to be covered with thermal tiles (like the bottom of the Space Shuttle). But... adhesives and extreme cold don't go very well together. The stickiness goes away. So given the liquid oxygen and liquid methane temperatures of Hoppy's skin and all the vibrations of its flight, will the tiles stay put or will they fall off? That's the current speculation about the beauty mark.

If the adhesives don't work, there's talk about fixing them on with metal fasteners and spot-welds.

They have removed the Boca Chica Starship's poorly fitting nose. It obviously needs more work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_conti...i7kQICkfVQ

And the Cocoa Florida Starship was brightly illuminated around 2 AM this morning. Not sure why, were they taking photographs?

https://twitter.com/FLAsteve321/status/1...9474674690

Lots of work raising and/or burying power and communications lines in Cocoa FL along the route that they are expected to use transporting Starship and Superheavy to Cape Canaveral. Presumably horizontally, since the lines would have to be lots higher if the things are moved vertically.

https://twitter.com/Andrewhoonigan/statu...8496594944

Elon says that the Cocoa prototype is coming right along, with the stacking of the fairing (pointy nose half) and the tanks (cylinder part) to happen soon. Then fins, landing legs and engine installation.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1162066262672855040

What may or may not be parts of the Boca Chica Starship's control surfaces/fins arrived in Boca Chica this morning. (Presumably after having been fabricated in California.)

https://twitter.com/BocaChicaGal/status/...6792514561

Meanwhile they continue to add components to the Starship's tank (cylinder) section in both Florida and Boca Chica.

https://twitter.com/julia_bergeron/statu...8534327296

In more news, SpaceX's west-coast 'droneship'/landing-barge is currently transiting the Panama Canal from west to east. Presumably headed for Cape Canaveral where it would join another 'drone ship' like it. Vandenberg launches satellites into polar orbit which is useful for getting satellite coverage of the entire Earth rotating below. These are typically low-Earth-orbits that are relatively easy for boosters which would have enough fuel to return to land at Vandenberg. While one of the things Cape Canaveral specializes in is putting heavy communications satellites into high geostationary orbits. This requires more fuel which can make it impossible for these boosters to return to Cape Canaveral. Hence the greater need for the 'drone ships' there.

https://twitter.com/SpaceXFleet/status/1...1162122240

Photograph taken on Saturday by Seamore Software (public use ok) showing that the nose has been removed from the fairing (the formerly pointy half) in Cocoa Florida as well as in Boca Chica Texas. Note also the rings on the ground. Local observers have seen still more rings inside the large low building where they are being cranked out. Since the Starship seems to already have all the rings it needs, speculation is moving towards the imminent start of the first Superheavy booster prototype.

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-first-s...r-florida/

Photographs taken Monday 8-19 show the rings multiplying like rabbits. (Where's Frodo when we need him?) At least seven more have appeared, bringing the five seen Saturday up to 12 (three rows of four). There's at least one more over on the other side of the building too, by the pond (that's sporting a big algae bloom by the looks of it).

Subsequent Edit: Eagle-eyed photo analysts have found 15 rings in the photos. The 12 grouped together, the one on the other side of the low warehouse-like building, plus one next to the large high arched structure and one inside a smaller white tent like structure near the fairing's detached nose. There's speculation that there are several more inside the warehouse-like building where they are fabricated. Note that the cylindrical tank part of Starship is estimated to be 15 rings tall. So 15 rings might combine to be very roughly 40% of a Superheavy.

Elon says that the SH won't just consist of rings welded together. It will need vertical structural columns called 'stringers'. After all, it will need to be able to support not only its own weight but also a Starship stacked atop it.

https://twitter.com/flying_briann/status...2761873409

Here's a video also taken today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_conti...LDhiEjMrng

They are still installing things that look like fuel tank bulkheads in the Cocoa FL cylindrical tank half. One is visible in the video between the cylindrical tank half and the (formerly) pointy fairing half. Possibility that they may have removed the nose segment of both the Cocoa and Boca Chica fairing halves to install canards or something like grid fins up there to increase aerodynamic stability when the thing is flying tail-first during landing. If so, we should be seeing them soon. Elon has said that there have been big changes in the thing's wing/fin/control surface configuration since the last artist's-concept renders. It's extraordinary that they are kind of building these things simultaneously with running big computational fluid dynamics models with different wing and fin configurations in different flight regimes. The reentry heat-shielding design doesn't seem to be finalized either. (The legacy aerospace companies wouldn't do it in this 'make it up as you go' way.) So everyone is speculating about what the Starships will ultimately look like.

The arrival of the weird control surfaces at Boca Chica (there are now two of them) hasn't helped since nobody is sure what they are or where on the vehicle they will go.

Elon's tweeting again!

He says that they still haven't gotten FAA approval to fly Hoppy. So it sounds like the flight penciled in for tomorrow is off.

My speculation is that Hoppy's dramatic pyrotechnics scared the bureaucrats who are afraid they might be blamed if Hoppy ignites another big brush-fire. But the FAA can't really be blamed for getting cold-feet since there's a legitimate issue regarding firefighting immediately after landing when the vehicle is still fueled and pressurized and not yet rendered safe for even for the SpaceX firetruck to approach.



And Elon also says that Hoppy's retirement won't be spent as a water tower like many had speculated. Elon says that Hoppy will become a Raptor engine vertical test-stand. (It's a sexier job for our beloved homely Hoppy.)

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1163888165901484037