Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

Big news this morning.

Severe weather and tornadoes swept through Boca Chica and South Padre Island last night. Many power lines down, power on South Padre is going to be out for days, and both LabPadre's and SpacePadreIsland's live webcams are down. (Due to electricity outages, reportedly.) Causeway to South Padre Island closed to all but residents.



https://twitter.com/LabPadre/status/1186275935580053505



SpacePadreIsland reporting in:

https://twitter.com/SpacePadreIsle/statu...5051442176

While South Padre Island was hit by fierce winds, Boca Chica (just a few miles away) seems to have been a lot calmer. Lab Padre reports that the Starship is still standing.

https://twitter.com/LabPadre/status/1186249258476982272

Mary (who appears to be fine) reports that not only is Starship still standing, the crews are continuing to work on it like normal this morning. (It's Texas! They don't let little things like weather stop them.) Today they seem to be installing landing leg mountings.

https://twitter.com/BocaChicaGal/status/...6378551296

https://twitter.com/BocaChicaGal/status/...3461783553

https://twitter.com/BocaChicaGal/status/...9724921856

Maria Pointer reports that a tornado was descending over Boca Chica but wasn't on the ground until it reached South Padre Island. It was a relatively weak EF1 tornado with about 100 mph winds, but bad enough. It would have destroyed Starship.

https://twitter.com/BocachicaMaria1/stat...7445454855

Well, that's nice: In addition to being in the the domain of hurricanes it's also in tornado territory. Seems like the latter may have been brought up before in this thread or another via a "tornado alley" map of the country or link to such (maybe the area was just outside an extreme tip by some miles).

From the International Astronautical Conference in Washington DC:

SpaceX says that the Mark1 Starship prototype (the one in Boca Chica) should fly in about two months. The SpaceX presenter wasn't Elon, so maybe that estimate isn't overly-ambitious 'Elon Time' this time. Interestingly Mk.1 is seemingly considered expendable, since Mk.2 (at Cocoa FL) is at a similar stage of completion and Mk.4 (the second Cocoa Starship) seems to have recently commenced very early construction. (Mk.3 will be the second Boca Chica Starship which we haven't seen any sign of yet. It's pointed out that the numbers are basically just identifiers and don't indicate order of completion. Unclear how many times they expect to fly Mk.1 before they either retire it or crater it. It's the Silicon Valley rapid-prototyping "failing forward" strategy.

https://twitter.com/TrevorMahlmann/statu...8838457345

The SpaceX presentation attracted lots of attention and was standing room only.

https://twitter.com/Craig_VG/status/1186400905635258371

SpaceX also says that they will fly a Falcon 9 for the fourth time (so far the most they have flown is 3x) early in 2020. The specific booster isn't specified yet but the payload will probably be a bunch of SpaceX's own Starlinks. (Suggesting that other paying customers want to wait and see before plopping down their cash for a ride on a triple-used booster.)

https://twitter.com/TrevorMahlmann/statu...9137400832

Buzz Aldrin wearing SpaceX and Blue Origin pins on his lapel.

https://twitter.com/Craig_VG/status/1186350236500922370

Buzz on how long NASA's hugely over-budget and behind-schedule multi-billion-dollar non-reusable SLS will last before SpaceX and Blue Origin replace it: "Not long".

https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1...9517552640

Vice President Pence commits to manned spaceflight and a return to the Moon (to stay, this time) and Buzz (who has actually walked on the Moon) salutes him.

https://twitter.com/TrevorMahlmann/statu...7576008704

Blue Origin had one of their new BE-4 engines on display. These are larger than the Raptor and like it run on liquid methane, but unlike it have two fuel rich preburners and aren't full flow. A more conservative design and perhaps not quite as efficient.

https://twitter.com/TrevorMahlmann/statu...3331342336

Rocket Lab (yes, Rocket Lab) announces a plan to fly a very small payload to Lunar orbit with their small relatively inexpensive Electron rocket.

https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1...3395302406

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/10/...-the-moon/

Lab Padre's drone video of Boca Chica in beautiful HD.

It starts with the growing launch site, showing the fuel and oxidizer tanks, the new launch area and Hoppy overseeing everything. Then it switches to the Starship construction area, with the top and bottom halves of the Starship, Ironhenge etc.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_conti...2k4HVcAMgo

New Boca Chica road closures have been announced, beginning October 30 and running through mid November. I'm doubtful whether Starship will be ready for prime-time by then, so it's more likely for ground support equipment tests. Moving liquid methane around comes with explosion risks.

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

Even rockets have to take a piss. This appears to be a hole intentionally drilled in the side of the bottom tank half, immediately above the top fuel tank bulkhead, in order to allow rain water that collects there to drain out. Lots of rain in the last few days in Boca Chica.



The new bottom fin supports installed a couple of days ago need to be attached to something more substantial than the rocket's thin metal skin. So here's Mary's photo of the more substantial bits being hoisted into the engine bay. Lots of welding sparks and grinding sounds in there.

What appear to be radio antennas attached to the nose.

Mary's photo of a SpaceX worker wondering 'What the hell is this thing??'

After a week spent installing Starship's rather lame-looking landing legs, the Giant Crane reappeared today. Photo from LabPadre's live stream shows it being set up. (It travels in several pieces.) I don't think that they are even close to being ready to stack Starship. (They need to get closer to installing the nose fins for one thing.) So I'm guessing that they want to remove the cylinder from its supporting structure and set it down on the rickety new legs, to verify that it can actually stand on them.



Photo just taken at sunset showing the assembled Giant Crane

The Giant Crane is preparing to lift the cylinder. Livestream on Lab Padre's youtube channel here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-BYd2b3thg

The Giant Crane picked up the cylinder and placed it on a roll-lift crawler which is still in the construction area.

https://twitter.com/SpacePadreIsle/statu...8400947201

Then the Giant Crane was disassembled and headed off towards the launch area.

https://twitter.com/SpacePadreIsle/statu...7434319872

Speculation is that the cylinder, the bottom half of Starship still without its fins, is going to move to the launch area tonight or tomorrow for tanking and pressurization tests. (That's probably what the upcoming road closures are about.) The engineers expect that they will discover some minor leaks, but probably not bad. Lots of welds and piping, so it's probably inevitable. Then it will probably return to the construction area where it will be completed, the fins attached, aerosurfaces over the raceways, and so on. Then once it's stacked and the top half integrated with the bottom, the whole thing will return to the launch area for new pressurization tests. (The header tanks and their associated plumbing would need to be tested at the very least.) No doubt there will be all kinds of electronic tests that we won't see. Then static fire, then an actual flight.

Finishing touches being put in today to the structure at the launch area where the cylinder will sit. This is where fuel, oxidizer and electical lines will plug into the bottom of the cylinder.

https://twitter.com/SpacePadreIsle/statu...3498099719

The SpaceX firetruck was there

https://twitter.com/SpacePadreIsle/statu...9450714113

Apparently the first in a series of road closures is on for tomorrow. That's probably so that the cylinder can take its joyride down to the beach on its Roll-lift ride. (Not a Tesla??) It's an extra wide load and only moves at walking speed, so it doesn't mix well with traffic.

Damn! They snuck the cylinder over to the launch area while I was asleep, so I couldn't watch them moving it.

SpacePadreIsle has a video replay here:

https://twitter.com/SpacePadreIsle/statu...3228090378

The Giant Crane is at the launch site and currently appears to be preparing itself, and the cylinder isn't atop its platform yet. The platform has the necessary fuel and oxidizer plumbing and electrical connections.

Live stream here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-BYd2b3thg

Photo from SpacePadreIsle showing the cylinder joy-riding down the road this morning.



Photo by LabPadre showing the thing zooming crazily down the road, while throwing beer cans out the window. LabPadre's one-word caption was "Massive!"

Now it's alongside Hoppy and there are two water towers at the launch site.

Here's the scoop on the Giant Crane. It's a Liebherr 11200-9.1-Max, able to lift 1,200 metric tons with a maximum hoist height of 188 meters.

https://www.liebherr.com/en/usa/products...20091.html





The manufacturer is Swiss! But they operate world-wide and much of their manufacturing is in Germany or the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebherr_Group

They make all kinds of very cool engineering products. For example, they are the place to go for the giant dump trucks used in the mining industry.