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BFR Developments

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C C Offline
Kind of in line with the rest of the explosive week. At least they learned that everything around the launch pad won't be taken out. Although maybe a damage assessment from the flying debris might reveal mitigated harm that rivals total annihilation in terms of cost and replacement time.

Hopefully the escape system for the astronauts will work as expected tomorrow. Or launch will get scrubbed for a better week with a less ominous aura hanging over it.
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Yazata Offline
Here's a video filmed from the Brownsville ship canal by SPadre (Space Padre Isle). It's from Tim Dodd's youtube channel, but I believe that Tim is currently in Cape Canaveral hoping to cover DM-2. Shows the explosion from a different angle and has some fairly detailed telephoto views of the remains. You can clearly see the squarish 20 ton mass-block flying off and then falling back.

See also thes photos of the remains of SN4 and its immediate surroundings.

https://twitter.com/SpacePadreIsle/statu...9698379777

And this. It's a local news thing that got picked up by an Austin TV station. Good shots of the shock wave.

https://twitter.com/AustinKellerman/stat...3340103680

Currently, electricity is out at the launch site, it's stygian dark and the only light visible are small areas of residual flame. Very post-apocalyptic.

SpaceX has SN5 almost completed in the High Bay, but the test stand and the ground support equipment will need to be rebuilt before they roll it out. And there needs to be analysis of why this explosion happened and what exactly failed. My guess, that's all it is, is the thrust dome at the bottom. Failure there would seem to be consistent with the big oxygen plume at the bottom just before the explosion. Last month during SN4's cryo pressure tests, Elon told Chris B. "It's a little dicey tbh. Thrust dome is being redesigned."


https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/vIh4aLX3cZQ
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confused2 Offline
These tests aren't getting any easier to watch.Sad
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Yazata Offline
The remains of SN4 were cut up and removed by Sunday. Mary inevitably wriggled in and got some good shots of SN4's post-explosion tank bulkheads. They were all surprisingly intact, suggesting that the huge plume of vapor at SN4's base prior to Friday's explosion wasn't the result of the thrust bulkhead failing. The most popular opinion now is that the ground support connections failed during detanking and were spilling large quantities of both LOX and liquid methane beneath SN4. Then a minute or so later, stoichiometry and an ignition source came together and that was all she wrote. 

The wrecked test stand has been cut up and removed, and has been replaced with the second test stand that they were already working on. A new fuel storage tank has arrived and is being installed at the tank farm. Don't know if that's to increase capacity or if it's because a tank was damaged. A large new crane has arrived at the launch area and is being assembled.

And significantly, a new ground support connection assembly has made its appearance, but isn't installed on the test stand yet. It appeared so quickly that they must have already been working on it even before the explosion.

A big multi-section Roll Lift crawler has arrived and threw everyone off because it is painted yellow rather than the Roll Lift company blue. The workers have blue Roll Lift coveralls though with the 'R' on the back. So far it's been occupied moving the new tank to the tank farm and moving crane counterweights.

And new road closures have been announced. A short little one-hour closure on Monday June 8. I expect that's when they will move SN5's tank section which has been waiting patiently in the high bay down to the launch area. Then more extensive 8 hour closures for Wednesday June 10 and Thursday and Friday following. SpaceX's application says they plan to do "pneumatic" pressure tests (probably with ambient temperature gaseous nitrogen as they did before), "cryo" pressure tests (probably with liquid nitrogen) and then a static fire with live propellants.

I don't expect them to install the nose on SN5 until after the proof tests. The tanks have a history of failing proof tests, so it would be foolish to waste a nose too.

https://www.cameroncounty.us/wp-content/....10.20.pdf

Meanwhile, the thrust section of SN6 appears to have been completed and awaits stacking with the rest of SN6's tank section in the high bay. They probably want to move SN5 out of the high bay before they do that. And... SN7's top fuel tank dome has made its appearance and has already been sleeved in a ring. (Mary spotted and photographed a small paper label taped to it, identifying it as SN7's fore-dome.)

So despite blowing one up a week ago, they have another one ready to go, a second one pretty far along, and a third in its early stages.
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Yazata Offline
Interesting developments at the future SuperHeavy launch site.

The "large new crane" (a Kobelco CK 2750G-2) appears to belong to a company called A.H. Beck Foundations. Additional deliveries have delivered what's been identified as a pile auger, a giant drill to drill hundreds of feet into the earth for concrete and steel piles to support foundations in soft soil. That coupled with the presence of engineering geologists there a few weeks ago and various site preparation things currently underway, suggest that piles are about to be sunk to support a Cape Canaveral style launch pad structure for the huge Starship/Superheavy stack some 390 feet tall. (Everyone said that Elon was daft for deciding to build his castle in a swamp, so it's gotta sit atop piles.)

In other perhaps related news, there are deliveries underway of pieces that may or may not be intended for another high bay. Speculation is rife about whether this new structure (assuming the parts are being interpreted right) will end up being taller than the existing one so as to fit a Superheavy inside.


https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/7NrAM3qmEdE
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Yazata Offline
Elon has just confirmed the rumored new High Bay and a lot more. The production of SuperHeavy looks like it's well and truly getting underway.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1269418186757206016

Chris Bergin asked him, "Amazing how much the place has grown. Any more additions we can look forward to? Like another High Bay, some more big tents, etc?"

Elon, "Giant high bay coming soon"

Chris B., "Oh my! And we thought the High Bay currently being used to stack Starship was impressive. Something for Super Heavy stacking I assume? KSC VAB scale?"

Elon, "Yeah, for Super Heavy stacking"

Somebody else, "Does super heavy need to be SO tall because of the amount of fuel required?"

Elon, "3600 tons of propellant, almost 80% of which is densified liquid oxygen"

Michael Baylor asked, "Are you thinking Boca, 39A, or an ocean platform for the first Super Heavy launches?"

Elon, "Pursuing all three. Hard to say right now."

Photo of the KSC VAB, originally built to stack Saturn 5 Moon rockets, and later used for Shuttles. (I believe that it's still the world's largest enclosed indoor space. Clouds have been known to form inside.)

(Photo from Wikipedia)


[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2F...f=1&nofb=1]
[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2F...f=1&nofb=1]

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Yazata Offline
People expected SN5 to drive down to the beach-side launch pad Monday morning. Didn't happen. Instead the yellow (!) Roll Lift crawler was disassembled and loaded aboard several large flatbed trucks and hauled off to parts unknown. SN5 is still sitting in the High Bay as of Wednesday June 10.

Wednesday's road closures have been cancelled as have Thursday's. Friday's is still listed. Meanwhile, the FAA has announced temporary flight restrictions for two weeks straight, from June 10 through June 24.

At the launch site, the hydraulic thrust ram assembly is back, used in cryo pressure testing. The ground support connection thing that suddenly appeared the other day is being rigged up. The big thing that's still missing are hold-down clamps to keep SN5 tied down to the test stand.

They keep adding things to Hoppy. They added a small radar antenna on a stalk atop Hoppy the other day and the latest thing is a rather demonic looking red light bar. Hoppy is trying to look like a Cylon!

From Lab Padre's stream -


[Image: 1936781.jpg]
[Image: 1936781.jpg]




[Image: ?u=http%3A%2F%2Fhavebabywilltravel.com%2...f=1&nofb=1]
[Image: ?u=http%3A%2F%2Fhavebabywilltravel.com%2...f=1&nofb=1]

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Yazata Offline
Thursday the Roll Lift crawler returned (a normal blue one this time) on a series of flat-bed trucks. Paradoxically, the road closures for Thursday and Friday were cancelled. The ground support arrangements are more complete and the hold-down clamps are being installed. And interestingly, the flare stack has been removed and has been replaced by a big elaborate industrial size 'bog' (boil off gas) recondenser. It appears to use liquid nitrogen (which they have on site) to reliquify methane gas into liquid methane, instead of burning it in a flare. That should make the environmental people happy and may even eventually pay for itself someday from returning LCH4 to the fuel tank farm.

Meanwhile the fate of SN7 (what was to have been the newest Starship) seem to have undergone a dramatic swerve. That's the crazy personality of SpaceX which reflects the personality of its crazy Chief Engineer. They literally make it up as they go and aren't afraid to suddenly change things and try out new ideas, regardless of what last week's plans said. (It is reminiscent of World War II though, when new aircraft designs went from the back of envelopes to production in mere months.) Today's legacy aerospace would have apoplexy at the thought.

SN7 seems to have transmogrified into a new bopper-style pressure test tank. This is apparently associated with a change in the steel alloy used, a change in the geometry and the assembly of the tank domes, and changes in the welds. They presumably want to prove out all these changes in pressure tests before committing them to flight articles. So, if it remains true that something is headed to the newly reconstructed test stand in coming days, which it still looks like, it isn't clear what it will be. (SN5 waiting patiently in the high bay, or the new SN7 pressure test tank?)
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