BFR Developments

Reliable sources are saying that Tuesday is now the target date. That's what people in Boca Chica are being told.

Verification is that the Monday TFR no-fly-zone warning has been pulled. TFRs for Wednesday and Thursday have been added. So no-fly restrictions are in place for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

https://tfr.faa.gov/tfr2/list.html

Meanwhile...

Hoppy glaring at Sn8. (Photo from LabPadre's stream)

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/assets...993929.jpg

Tim Dodd's really beautiful photo of Sn8 illuminated by Hoppy and the other spotlights, reflected in minor flooding from yesterday's downpour

https://twitter.com/Erdayastronaut/statu...2071653384

Starship at sunset by Richard Angle

https://twitter.com/RDAnglePhoto/status/...3078372353

An Tran the space nut with another sunset photo of the build site

https://twitter.com/epfsnake_an/status/1...3070069760

Ghostly image by Jack Beyer of Sn8 projected by the spotlights into the fog. He says that there were several of these ghost rockets surrounding Sn8, projected by the different spotlights. Eerie. (Don't let MR see this one.) Maybe it's because Sn8 is probably doomed to crash when it finally tries to fly. The ghosts are gathering.

https://twitter.com/thejackbeyer/status/...2752712705

More of the looming ghost-rockets, by Richard Angle this time. Click on the image in the twitter post for the uncropped photo showing the ghost

https://twitter.com/RDAnglePhoto/status/...1290659842

Austin Bernard

https://twitter.com/austinbarnard45/stat...9672050688

Elon is on the scene

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1336041065879580673

Flaps have been flapping

https://twitter.com/tobyliiiiiiiiii/stat...0776541184

SpaceX has posted a bunch of information on the Sn8 flight and a link to their upcoming livestream

https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/index.html

They say, "As of early Tuesday, December 8, the Space team will make the first attempt of a high-altitude suborbital flight test of Starship serial number 8 (Sn8) from our site in Cameron County, Texas. The schedule is dynamic and likely to change, as is the case with all development testing."

Looks like they plan for the stream to go live at 8 AM CST (14:00 UTC, 9 AM EST, 6 AM PST). I'll have to get to bed early tonight. (Edited from several hours ago, when they said they were going live at 6 AM Central.)

Expectation is that it won't really go live at 8, but will only be live for a few minutes before and during the flight. (When will the flight happen? I don't think that even they are sure, it will happen when it happens. It's an experimental test-flight, not a scheduled launch. They will work down their checklist, working problems as they occur. Don't expect a T - minus countdown clock.) Don't expect the informative commentators that we see on Falcon 9 flights either. But do expect incredible close-up and onboard video unavailable anywhere else.

If you want the day-long coverage complete with commentary and background, and plenty of warning before the flight happens, watch Lab Padre, the nsf stream or Tim Dodd. They will show fueling and so on. Plus lots of post-mortems after the flight is over.

I plan to have most of them on different tabs on my computer and on my TV (which plays youtube).

Of course it may not happen tomorrow. It may scrub for some reason and slip to Wednesday or even later.

Another thing -- I hear a reliable but unconfirmed report that Boca Chica residents who have to leave their homes are being put up in a South Padre Island resort hotel at SpaceX expense for three days. There are indications that the evacuation is underway Monday evening.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/nf83yzzme2I

More streams

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Ky5l9ZxsG9M

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/OLpN8Cco3mU

8:25 AM CST - There are still workers at the pad and police are still at the normal roadblock site. So fueling and launch are not yet immanent. Some vehicles are still visible around the village but they may be security because it's supposed to be cleared. Another hard roadblock is set up well to the west in the direction of Brownsville. SpaceX feed now says that it is going live at 10AM CST. Lab is always on 24/7 and nsf is up.

9:35 AM CST - Still workers at the pad. Police are still at roadblock site. Speedboat is visible off beach, unclear if its Coast Guard or a range violater.

9:50 AM CST - All the cars that were visibly parked at the launch site have left. Police still at roadblock.

9:55 AM CST - Venting from the tank farm

10:40 AM CST - Lab Padre hears that they are working a hydraulic issue. Unconfirmed.

11:25 AM CST - parade of cars has returned to the pad. This was expected. There's a lift by the pad and the fins may still be tied down. So the ties-downs have to be removed and the lift moved to a safe distance.

12:10 PM CST - Flight plan just filed with FAA for a nasa WB-57 high altitude research plane to leave Houston and arrive at Boca Chica roughly 3 PM CST. So the launch will probably happen after that.

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/NASA.../KEFD/KEFD

2:15 PM CST - Pad clear again. Flaps seen moving. Still not fueled.

3:15 PM CST - Tank farm is venting. Police have left the normal roadblock site, which was expected close to launch time. There's another roadblock much further out between the build site and Brownsville, with several police vehicles and a Tesla, probably SpaceX security. Speculation of a 4 PM CST launch target.

3:25 PM CST - Word is that a second high altitude nasa tracking plane has left Houston and is en route to Boca. The first WB-57 is on scene and circling at about 45,000 feet. (Edit: Only one nasa plane. It was entered twice in the database. It's on scene and its contrails have been spotted in sky.)

4:15 PM CST - fueling has apparently started - frost on LOX tank. SpaceX says they are targeting ~ 4:30 PM CST launch.

4:26 PM CST - SpaceX stream going live. ~ T-4 minutes

4:30 PM CST - RAPTOR ABORT - The computers didn't like what they saw and aborted the engine ignition. The vehicle is structurally fine.

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1336438761345839104

4:40 PM CST - SpaceX says that they are standing down for the day. Unknown if they will try again tomorrow, but TFRs and road closures are in place for tomorrow and Thursday as backup days.

Screen shot from the SpaceX stream

Aaah!
I started to get bladder problems as the workers left the site. By 8 hours later all sorts of systems had either shut down or gone into overload.
One comment was "Look, Flappy's waving - everybody wave back." I had to stop myself from doing exactly that.
Totally worth it.
Thanks Yazata.

Wednesday Dec 9...

11:25 AM CST - Didn't look like anything would happen today since there were lots of workers at the launch site and no police roadblocks. But in the last few minutes police have appeared at the more distant roadblock towards Brownsville and many of the workers have been seen leaving the pad.

What's more nasa927, one of the three WB-57 camera planes based in Houston has filed a flight plan for Boca with arrival in the 1:30 to 2 PM CST timeframe reportedly. So that's good evidence that something might be planned for early afternoon today.

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/NASA927

Kind of speculative, but getting exciting again.

11:55 AM CST - Police setting up roadblocks at the close-in spot. Tracking dishes moving. (They move surprisingly fast.)

12:05 AM CST - Cars leaving the build area. Flaps are flapping.

12:50 PM CST - SpaceX insider says that they are planning an early afternoon attempt. Still no sign of fueling.

1:05 PM CST - Unconfirmed report that nasa plane was taxiing out to take off in Houston when it was called back. Pilots told that SpaceX says wait two hours. Departure time now 2:30 PM CST.

Edit: Pilot of the plane confirms

https://twitter.com/NerdyKowboy/status/1...8526579718

1:40 PM CST - vapor venting at tank farm, suggesting that fueling might be starting. Cars are flooding out of the build area, at least 100 with more departing the parking lots. Police have left the close-in roadblock.

2:00 PM CST - First venting from the vehicle. Report that a nasa T-38 is inbound. The WB-57 is scheduled to depart Houston in about half an hour.

2:15 PM CST -SpaceX is saying that they are shooting for a 3:00 PM CST launch

2:30 PM CST - the nasa T-38 just buzzed South Padre Island. The WB 57 should be inbound.

2:45 PM CST - frost on Sn8 indicating LOX loading in progress

2:55 PM CST - Getting short. Something (or nothing) is going to happen soon.

3:00 PM CST - SpaceX stream is on! T - 4 minutes

Hold at T - 2 minutes 6 seconds. Talk is that an airplane has violated the no-fly zone. Dunno where that comes from or whether it's true.

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/stat...6717958144

3:25 PM CST - SpaceX says new T - 0 is now 4:40 PM CST. About an hour and 15 minutes. Suggests that they are doing a full recycle, detanking the fuel because it's getting too warm, then refueling again. Inside SpaceX source says cause of the hold was not a vehicle issue, recycle in progress.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/ap-BkkrRg-o

Lab Padre's stream is very good and is already on

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Ky5l9ZxsG9M

Heh. No NASA and LabPadre youtube commentators around when it finally happens. (EDIT: Well, maybe the LabPadre guys were there after all. But I sure didn't hear them when I jumped briefly over from the SpaceX feed a few times to check.)

EDIT: Didn't look like enough time/distance left to descend slowly or properly. Maybe the legs didn't work, too. Never expected the landing itself to be a problem, if it got beyond the other stages and upright again. There's always a "gotcha" when it comes to personal predictions.

Well, it crashed as expected. But all in all it was a roaring success for a first try.

The thing ascended well. At about 1:43 one engine shut down which might have been planned since they didn't want it to go supersonic on its first flight. At 4:40 the other two engines shut down. By 4:50 it had entered into a stable skydiver attitude. It seemed under control throughout the skydive and the aerodynamic surfaces evidently worked. Then at 6:30 it successfully performed its flip maneuver and relit its engines. It even successfully found its way back from over the Gulf to its landing pad.

But it hit the ground too hard and exploded in a fireball.

Bottom line seems to be that the basic concept is sound. The extremely unorthodox never-been tried "Crazy Elon" landing maneuvers almost worked. They certainly show as much promise as the first tries at landing a Falcon 9 booster.

I'd call it a success.

---

(Dec 9, 2020 11:46 PM)C C Wrote: Heh. No NASA and LabPadre youtube commentators around when it finally happens.

EDIT: Didn't look like enough time/distance left to descend slowly or properly.

They might have underestimated zeroing out its descent velocity. A tweak of the software may (or may not) take care of that.

Quote:Maybe the legs didn't work, too. Never expected the landing itself to be a problem, if it got beyond the other stages and upright again. There's always a "gotcha" when it comes to personal predictions.

I thought that it would screw up before that point too. I worried that they wouldn't be able to control its fall, or that the engines wouldn't relight, or that the flip maneuver would go disastrously wrong. Or even that it might come apart in the air. But all the seemingly hard stuff worked and it just hit the ground too hard.

My guess is that the designers are pretty happy with how it turned out.

---

Elon tweets!!

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1336808486022258688

"Successful ascent, switchover to header tanks & precise flap control to landing point!

Fuel header tank pressure was low during landing burn, causing touchdown velocity to be high & RUD, but we got all the data we needed! Congrats SpaceX team hell yeah!!"

I was left with What - What - for heavens sake WHAT?

Hopefully Spacex record stays:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf83yzzme2I

To me it looked 100% good up to about 500 feet above the landing site. The control system on those raptors is out of this world. My guess is they could have done a perfect landing on 2 raptors if someone hadn't chosen to come in real fast and finish with a flourish. With such precise control of the raptors it looks to me like they could do the crazy elon even without the flapelons.

Shame about SN8 but apart from that - gorgeous to watch (when a camera was actually pointed at it).

(Dec 10, 2020 12:49 AM)confused2 Wrote: I was left with What - What - for heavens sake WHAT?

Hopefully Spacex record stays:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf83yzzme2I

To me it looked 100% good up to about 500 feet above the landing site. The control system on those raptors is out of this world. My guess is they could have done a perfect landing on 2 raptors if someone hadn't chosen to come in real fast and finish with a flourish. With such precise control of the raptors it looks to me like they could do the crazy elon even without the flapelons.

Shame about SN8 but apart from that - gorgeous to watch (when a camera was actually pointed at it).

When it switched from three engines to two, there was some "fire" running amok inside the housing (perhaps due to residual methane leaking from the silenced engine). At the time I thought something might be wrong and it was about to blow in flight, but I guess it was anticipated and the exposed areas/components protected sufficiently.

Maybe you need a certain amount of g to get the fuel to the end of the tank where you can catch it - you can't use the raptors to do that while the fuel is lurking at the wrong end of the tank.