BFR Developments

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I'm hoping this was mostly sound and light effects which won't leave a huge crater where a lot of expensive things used to be.

Yeah, me too!

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Elon sez:

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1935660973827952675

"Preliminary data suggests that a nitrogen COPV in the payload bay failed below its proof pressure.

If further investigation confirms that this is what happened, it is the first time ever for this design."

photo by Jordan Guidry for WAI from a helicopter showing blast damage at the Masseys test site.

The flame trench looks structurally intact, but there's lots of debris in it. Unknown if the water-cooled flame diverter is still ok. The test stand may or may not be usable. It's still standing but it's cooked. The structure that bore the fuel lines that connected to the rocket is destroyed.

The ends of the white hotdog water deluge tanks are seriously blackened. Unknown if that's just superficial or if the tanks are compromised.

The pipe and cable runs to the test stand are totally mangled. The two electical bunkers (with fans on top) are completely burned out.

The CH4 tank farm to the left outside the photo is damaged but largely intact, but will probably have to be replaced because it probably isn't certifiable now.

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What remains of Ship 36. (This is gonna require several rolls of duct tape...)

Photo by Mauricio of RGV Aerial Photography

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https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/TC7uvGz_hfM

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https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/OAuZ5vIk3SY

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Photos by Irma of RGV Aerial Photography

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Assembling the Pad B CH4 booster quick disconnect

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A few days ago, a very interesting self-propelled barge was at the Port of Brownsville. It featured tall poles several hundred feet tall, that can be lowered down to reach the sea bottom (in shallow seas like the Gulf of America). Then the barge jacks itself up out of the water and becomes an offshore platform.

https://seacormarine.com/vessel/l-b-jill-335-class/

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Then it left port and went fishing for something in waters off the northeast corner of Mexico. Here's what it found.

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It's Booster 13, the Flight 6 booster that aborted its tower catch due to a data communications problem and performed its landing in the sea instead. After landing it was floating on its side and drifting south into Mexican waters, so SpaceX shot at it and sank it.

Unclear why they are fishing it out now. Several theories are going around.

1. It was in shallow waters where it created a hazard to navigation and needed to be removed. The barge legs were less than halfway extended when L/B Jill jacked itself up, so the Gulf is probably well under 100 feet deep at this particular spot.

2. Mexico complained about it.

3. The Raptor engines are very high tech and countries like China would probably love to get a few to reverse engineer. So ITAR rules apply.

My guess is that it might have been a combination of all three reasons.

Anyway, this is the business-end with 33 Raptor engines, the propellant feed manifolds and the LOX header surrounded by smaller COPV bottles.

Edit Word is that a road delay has been announced between the Port of Brownsville and Starbase from midnight to 4 AM central daylight time on Wednesday morning. Speculation is that the thrust section of B13 will be returning home.

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Here's a great video from Frontera Espacial in Spain. (A very good Spanish language space-nut site, one of several.)

https://x.com/FronteraSpacial/status/193...9157682213

It really captures the spirit of Starbase.

The Spanish text at the end of the video says (S36 is the ship that exploded at Masseys):

"It hurts to see S36 go so abruptly. It hurts to see those heroes suffer such a painful blow after working for hundreds of hours and knowing it was all in vain, doesn't it?

Iterating on the designs of something so beautiful and at the same time so complex carries risks. Yes, we know you never want to fail, but we must remember that something good always comes out of it. You know what fails and you know how to fix them. It sounds contradictory, but it's the path to success.

In conclusion, we can't let events like last night's dampen our enthusiasm for Starship. We can't lie; the path will be painful, but we can affirm that one day we will be very proud to shout with joy "Starship has landed on Mars."

To the entire team of people who work day after day with indescribable passion for a prosperous future far from the outer space, thank you for giving us one more reason to keep going. You are heroes to many and make so many of us happy, and that is invaluable.

Thank you."