View of Roberts Road from the air, by Greg Scott Photo.
The half finished building at the left is the new Starship factory. The black crane in the middle is next to the foundation of the first of the big vertical assembly bays.
To the left of the black crane, where the yellow crane is, they may or may not be starting on the segments for a second OLIT tower! To the left of the new factory is where they are putting the tower arms and the ship quick disconnect arm together.
The finished building on the other side of the ponds is 'Hanger X', the facility where already flown Falcon 9's are refurbished.
Eric Berger of Ars Technica reports that Bill Gerstenmeier (former head of Human Spaceflight at NASA who quit and went to work for SpaceX) says that work has begun to convert SLC 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to crewed flights, which would create a second Crew Dragon human spaceflight pad at the Cape in addition to Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center.
He also said that SpaceX won't be launching Starships from the Cape "until we have a good and reliable vehicle". Which suggests that all of the early prototyping and development will be at Starbase.
YazataOct 18, 2022 04:28 AM (This post was last modified: Oct 18, 2022 04:48 AM by Yazata.)
(Jul 26, 2022 06:36 AM)Yazata Wrote: Julia Bergeron from nasaspaceflight.com has spotted at least two very large horizontal tanks being unloaded from a barge at Cape Canaveral. These tanks look identical to the two larger methane storage tanks at the Texas Starbase, so there's speculation that these may be headed to Pad 39A. That isn't known for sure though.
They were indeed headed for Pad 39A. But today one of them was spotted being transported back to the Cape Canaveral turning basin to be reloaded onto a barge for transport out. So return-to-sender I guess. 'Thank you very much, but nope!'
(Sep 22, 2022 06:08 AM)Yazata Wrote: they may or may not be starting on the segments for a second OLIT tower!
And indeed, recognizable OLIT tower segments are being constructed at Roberts Road, despite the OLIT tower at Pad 39A having been topped out.
(Sep 27, 2022 03:49 AM)Yazata Wrote: Eric Berger of Ars Technica reports that Bill Gerstenmeier (former head of Human Spaceflight at NASA who quit and went to work for SpaceX) says that work has begun to convert SLC 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to crewed flights, which would create a second Crew Dragon human spaceflight pad at the Cape in addition to Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center.
So there was speculation that the new tower segments were for a crew-access tower for crewed Falcon 9 flights from SLC 40 at CCSFS.
And at the Crew-4 splashdown NASA press conference, somebody asked about that, whether the new tower segments were destined for SLC 40. And NASA said no, construction of the SLC 40 tower hasn't begun yet.
Which suggests that the tower segments at Roberts Road are destined for a second Cape Canaveral Starship tower.
Speculation now revolves around whether this second tower will be another Boca Chica style launch/catch tower, or whether it will be a specialized catch tower.
We know that SpaceX has long term plans for a second Starship launch pad at Cape Canaveral. The site is already chosen and environmental reviews are ongoing. But we also know that NASA is uncomfortable with the idea of catching giant spaceships so close to its Falcon launch pad at 39A and may want the catching further away. If so, where? Speculation again is that a catching tower might go where the Falcon 9 booster landing pads are.
YazataOct 18, 2022 06:49 PM (This post was last modified: Oct 18, 2022 07:11 PM by Yazata.)
A second large horizontal cryo tank was moved from 39A to the turning basin this morning (Tuesday). Looks like SpaceX's plans have swerved onto another course.
YazataOct 29, 2022 04:07 AM (This post was last modified: Oct 29, 2022 04:12 AM by Yazata.)
Latest Roberts Road aerial photos.
The new Starship factory is progressing nicely. But apart from foundation work, the vertical assembly bays haven't started yet.
There are three tower segments for a second OLIT tower visible. But nobody has located piles being sunk anywhere or the massive concrete base upon which they will sit. So it's a bit of a mystery. One speculation is that they already have the experienced tower construction crews on site, SpaceX knows they will need another tower at some point, so they are manufacturing the pieces now.
Starbase.FR is a French language Starship youtube channel that's been around for a while. They have just started doing English language videos which are well worth a watch.
This one is largely about Starship developments at Cape Canaveral, so I put it here rather than the BFR thread.
Give this guy's video a like and subscribe to his channel!
Here's a bit of unexpected photographic intelligence from Cape Canaveral:
It's what appears to be the massive circular steel platform that sits up atop the Orbital Launch Mount legs. It's being constructed in what's known at Cape Canaveral as "Hanger M". This is a government owned building on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station property, a couple of miles south of Roberts Road. It's kind of a historic structure since it's where NASA prepared the Space Shuttle solid rocket boosters. So here's another hitherto unknown (to outsiders) SpaceX site at Cape Canaveral. I assume the SpaceX is just renting this particular site from whatever federal agency owns it (NASA or the Space Force.)
In the foreground is what appears to be a Booster Quick Disconnect Hood. So some of the missing bits of the Pad 39A Starship pad have been spotted.
Last night this thing was seen passing the VAB (Vertical Assembly Building) moving atop SPMTs from Roberts Road to Pad 39A.
It's the carriage that moves up and down the Pad 39A OLIT tower that carries the "chopstix" arms.
It's moving from left to right in this photo at walking speed. The man in hi-vis yellow at far left is the SPMT driver who walks behind when the SPMT(s) is/are loaded. (For big loads, the SPMTs are ganged together.)
C CJan 7, 2023 07:36 AM (This post was last modified: Jan 7, 2023 07:47 AM by C C.)
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
I'm even starting to feel that the first orbital flight test of a Starship is actually going to occur in Florida rather than Texas. Given that the last flight test of any kind was May 2021, and the never-ending string of impotent predictions like the one below made back on Nov 30, 2022:
Sep 22, 2022 06:08 AM
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