BFR Developments

[Syne]

Booster 19, the first Version.3 booster destined for flight 12, is at the Massey's test site being cryo pressure-tested.

(Nasaspaceflight.com photo by Ceaser G)

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Wow, that's a lot of ice.

[Yazata]

B19 has completed its round of several ambient temperature and cryo pressure tests and has rolled back from the Masseys test site to the production site. Hopefully to have its engines installed.

The two red things up near the top by the chines are red covers over the CH4 and LOX fill/drain unbilical connections (plus electrical, pressurization etc.) I'm not sure what the pipe that runs up the booster in the middle is, but think that its for autogenous pressurization of the main tanks with bleed gas from the engines. (Otherwise a vacuum would form in the tanks as the engines draw propellant from them, causing the whole thing to crumple. The autogenous pressurization backfills that and maintains constant pressure in the tanks.) The thinner circumferential pipes below the umbilicals and chines are for high pressure spin-up gas to start the outer ring of raptor engines. As well as having aerodynamic purpose, the chines enclose COPVs that supply high pressure spin-up gas for the middle engines that have to restart in flight for boost-back and landing.

In the photo below, towards the bottom inside the booster cryo/transport stand you can see some of the hydraulic cylinders that push upwards to simulate the tremendous thrust of rocket engines on the bottom of the tanks and structure while it is filled with liquid oxygen. All part of structural qualification.

(Photo of the roll-back by Amy Doehring, who is a talented photographer.)

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[Yazata]

Carlos Nunez got this great photo of the new actuators on the Pad 2 chopstick arms. There was quite a bit of discussion about these, because after the arms were initially installed, the original hydraulic actuators were immediately removed without ever being used. Everyone asked - why?

Well, the cables, control box and the removal of the hydraulic accumulators indicate that these new actuators are electric rather than hydraulic. Electric actuators are believed to supply better speed and position accuracy, and are easier to maintain.

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[Yazata]

Yesterday morning the scaffolding was removed from the Pad 2 launch mount. Movement of the BQDs and clamps were observed. Then... they performed the first full-on deluge test including the OLM top plate, which is another of Elon's upside down shower heads.

Oh My God!!!

It was far more forceful than anyone expected (except perhaps the SpaceX engineers)! Definitely not one of those woke low-pressure shower heads!

https://x.com/StarshipGazer/status/2023619621446717800

https://x.com/ENNEPS/status/2023730641787871304

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/OEk79WkLMe0

The reason for the deluge is partly to reduce heating damage to the launch pad and tower. But mainly, it's to deaden the incredible acoustic energy (at some point sound becomes indistinguishable from air pressure waves) the that 33 Raptor engines put out, loud enough to be capable of causing considerable damage to the infrastructure. (The sound waves are actually visible to the eye, since they cause light diffraction.) Lessons learned from the Pad 1 experience.

And no, water won't put rocket engines out.

(Screenshot from the Nasaspaceflight.com stream)

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[Yazata]

Look what washed up today on a beach in Madagascar!

It appears to be a Starship lox header tank, and it seems to have made its way all the way across the Indian Ocean from near the Australian coast in the east, to near the coast of Africa in the west.

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[Yazata]

Zack Golden makes Starship videos that are a labor of love with him. He calls them "deep dives" and yes, they are often so deep that you need a scuba tank to watch them!

This one is about what motivated SpaceX to design Pad 2 so differently than Pad 1. There were engineering problems piled atop engineering problems and considering them can be a little overwhelming. Imagine how Elon and the SpaceX engineers felt!

But Zack is not only an engineer himself, he's an extraordinarily gifted engineering communicator. And Zack is aided by some extraordinarily good renders and animations that help him illustrate his points.

As he points out, never have people been able to watch the development of things like these in as much detail as can be seen at Starbase. NASA, the Russians and the Chinese obviously faced their own problems, but it was never visible to the public. At Starbase you can examine photographs from all the photographers, or drive down the road and look for yourself. And Zack helps explain what you can see there.

This video is Part 1 of a three part series (the second and third parts aren't out yet). Check it out! It's as good as anything that's ever been done about Starbase and the sometimes difficult technical issues that guided its development.

Zack never talks down, but always keeps things at a conceptual level that can be understood by laymen (like me)

(As you can tell, I like Zack and the work he does a lot!)

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Xh-QBWtP444

[Yazata]

B19, the first version 3 booster, rolled out to the launch area last night. Then today, the chopstick arms on the new tower 2 picked up a booster for the first time (by the grid-fins instead of catch pins, another first) and placed it on the launch mount, the first time any vehicle has been placed on Pad 2.

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