YazataAug 11, 2020 09:49 PM (This post was last modified: Aug 12, 2020 01:47 AM by Yazata.)
From Today's episode of Texas Tank Watchers...
They just played a big switcharoo... they loaded up veteran SN5 on the blue Roll Lift crawlers and hauled it back to the build area. Where SN6 emerged from the Midbay where it was patiently waiting to greet its victorious compatriot.
But they weren't done. Texas Tank Watchers had more!
SN6 eagerly and bravely climbed atop the blue Roll Lift crawlers and headed back down to the launch area. One of the big yellow rabbit-ear cranes is positioned to place SN6 on the test stand.
Photo by Elon, apparently taken from out of a window of the Stargate building, where SpaceX's Boca Chica offices and test control room are, showing SN5 and SN6 together and the Roll Lift Crawlers which had just delivered SN5 positioning themselves beneath SN6
Notice the pareidolia... the angels are watching over Boca Chica!
Given Elon's recent tweets, they plan to fly additional hop tests and SN5 requires some repairs (to its landing legs mostly) before it flies again. So SN6 is next up at bat for additional hops. Presumably it will receive the usual pressure tests first.
August 8:
Tim Dodd: "@Elonmusk what's gonna happen to our good friend SN-5? Will it fly again? Will it get three raptors and fly a little higher? Will it Hopper and just watch the others fly?"
Elon: "Not sure yet, but hopefully. Will need leg & other repairs. Probably SN6 flies before SN5. We need to make flights simple & easy - many per day."
Austin Bernard just posted a striking family portrait on twitter. Flight veteran SN5 on the left, SN6 on the right, and a piece of their baby SN8 in the middle. (The top of the LOX tank, the common dome and CH4 header, and the bottom of the LCH4 tank. The bottom thrust section and the top dome section still to be added.) SN's 5 and 6 are for short hops, SN8 is intended to fly up to 20 km and start perfecting the highly unorthodox belly-flop and final propulsive landing process. So SN8 is slated to actually look like a spaceship, with fins and a pointy nose cone. It will probably take a long time to finish as all of the actuators and control systems are added.
And on today's episode of Texas Tank Watchers, they have installed the hydraulic thrust rams in the test stand in preparation for pressure tests on SN6, and are getting ready to lift SN6 off its temporary stand onto the test stand. There are still workers swarming over the test stand to ready it for its new occupant.
YazataAug 16, 2020 04:25 PM (This post was last modified: Aug 16, 2020 04:29 PM by Yazata.)
10:23 AM CDT - The launch pad parking lot is clearing out and a SpaceX security Tesla is visible at the lot with its light-bar flashing. Parade of cars on the road heading to the build area.
10:26 AM CDT - The security Tesla has pulled out at the end of the parade of cars and the sheriffs have erected their road clock.
YazataAug 17, 2020 07:25 PM (This post was last modified: Aug 18, 2020 07:11 AM by Yazata.)
Cryo proof test appears to have gone well. The backup road closures for today and tomorrow are cancelled and the hydraulic thrust ram thingy is being disassembled and removed.
Next up: Installing an engine on SN6 and performing a static fire. To that end, a two-week-long temporary flight restriction has been announced from this coming Wednesday August 19 until Wednesday September 2.
And Mary (who was across the road from the launch site) learned yesterday that SN6 was powered up when Hoppy spoke with its loudspeakers, making the announcement. Hoppy might have left the flying to the younger tanks, but it's still in the game.
And... tweets!
First, check out this really extraordinary video render of SN8 (already under construction) flying its long-anticipated 20 km first-attempt at the Starship's decidedly unorthodox "Crazy Elon" landing maneuver. (A name invented by some of the space-nerds, a play on the 'Crazy Ivan' maneuver often practiced by Russian nuclear subs in the Cold War.) It's almost guaranteed to give NASA heartburn, but those of us who grew up on the old-style Science Fiction and the early space program love it. The Moon landings and the first Shuttle flights were radical leaps in their own ways. The render is by the same Corey who did the earlier render of SN5 hop flight that turned out to be an almost perfect depiction of what happened.
The SN8 video render is here. Watch it in full screen.
Corey says, "With more and more hardware showing up at the construction site, #SN8's 20km hop and belly flop are feeling a little more real, despite how unreal it'll look."
Elon replies, "Very impressive render. Note, legs will be bigger & there'll be way more stuff in engine bay. Main engines actually do majority of work in turning ship vertical before landing."
Tim Dodd exclaims, "Another awesome render! I think people might forget how high 20km is! That's about twice as high as a commercial airliner flies, so watching Starship bellyflop out of the sky at that altitude will be crazy!!!"
Chris Bergin asked him what serial number Raptor they are on now.
Elon responds, "SN40 is about to be tested & has several upgrades over 330 bar engine. For reference, 330 bar on Raptor produces ~225 tons (half a million pounds) of force."
Tim Dodd exclaims, "Holy crap! You just shattered the record!!! Does hitting that high of target come with some loss in throttling? Because won't these higher thrust Raptors not throttle?"
Somebody asked, "What do you mean by throttling? As in controlling how much power you output?"
Tim: "Exactly! Merlin for example can deep throttle down to under 40% of its max output (I forget the exact number) thanks largely in part to its pintle injector. Raptor hasn't gone below 50% that I'm aware of and might have a harder time doing so than the Merlin."
Elon clarifies, "Max demonstrated Raptor thrust is ~225 tons & min is ~90 tons, so they're actually quite similar. Both Merlin & Raptor could throttle way lower with added design complexity. Raptor preburner & Merlin gas generator flameout are what limit lower bound."
YazataAug 19, 2020 04:15 AM (This post was last modified: Aug 19, 2020 07:54 PM by Yazata.)
What a difference two years make.
Here's a photograph of the Boca Chica build site two years ago. (Retrieved from Google by RGV Aerial Photography) All that's visible are Stargate (then a U. of Texas radio astronomy thing), some private houses and a white slab in a cleared area.
And here's the spaceship plant now (Photo from twitter by RGV Aerial Photography, who do very interesting detailed imagery of the Boca Chica build and launch sites. Their twitter page is well worth a look.)
Stargate is almost obscured behind the new High Bay with an employee parking lot to its right. Stargate now houses SX local office space and the test control center. It's kind of the administration building. Three giant tents, the two longer ones shaping into assembly lines for tank barrel sections and pressure domes, the third shorter (but taller) one for nose cones. The fourth narrower white tent structure and the square building to its left are machine shop with metal forming machines. The area around the last small white tent nearest the camera is the scrap yard area where lots of recycling is going on. Things like rings and barrels that didn't pass inspection are being repurposed into training objects for workers to practice on. The old SN2 pressure tank looks like it's being used to experiment with attaching the kind of wing roots and aero surfaces that SN8 will need. The building in the upper left is currently making pressure dome forming jigs. The low flat roofed building on the left appears to be a tool and parts storage area.
The triangle bay is being used for nose cones. The Mid Bay houses SN5 and parts of under-construction SN-8. The new High Bay will be for Superheavy boosters and maybe complete Starships (tanks + noses).
The parabolic antennas, the solar power farm, the emergency operations center (fire and security) and what I call the Rocket Diner (a food service thing with a 1950's 'modern' aesthetic) are outside the photo to the left. There's an old gas well that's receiving lots of attention off the photo to the right. (Maybe SX hopes to get methane fuel from it. It will take some refining though, to remove engine-clogging impurities like heavy hydrocarbons.)
"They said I was daft to build a castle in a swamp. So I did, just to show'em! It sank into the swamp. So I built another. It sank into the swamp. The third burned down, fell over and sank into the swamp. But the fourth stayed up!" (Monty Python channeling Elon)
YazataAug 20, 2020 09:51 PM (This post was last modified: Aug 20, 2020 10:11 PM by Yazata.)
SN6's static fire has been moved forward a day, from Monday to Sunday August 23 (with Monday and Tuesday as backup days).
And SN8 is coming along. The top dome and its barrel sleeve is stacked atop the common dome and its sleeve in the Midbay. And SN8's thrust dome/sleeve) has been stacked atop its skirt. All that remains to finish the basic tank structure is to stack the larger (top and common dome) tank section atop the bottom thrust section.
Here's Brendan Lewis' breakdown of all the pieces that have been spotted and where they go on the finished vehicle. Click on the image in the tweet to get the whole thing.
It's still unknown how the fins/control surfaces and their actuators will be fitted. That's going to be a tough engineering problem, but we can be certain that the SpaceX engineers have plans about how they hope to do it. Unclear if the fins will be fitted separately to the tank section and the nose, before the nose is mated to the tank, or whether the nose will be mated first, then the fins attached. (I'm guessing the first.)
Aug 11, 2020 09:49 PM
(This post was last modified: Aug 12, 2020 01:47 AM by Yazata.)
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