YazataDec 18, 2020 10:21 PM (This post was last modified: Dec 19, 2020 03:24 AM by Yazata.)
Short road closure this afternoon. It was used by an SPMT to move a huge green... something... to the launch site. Looked like a prefabricated building of some sort.
And there was lots of interesting stuff happening on the Lab Padre front. A couple of cars pulled up across the road from the launch site, very close. Then right after the mystery object above arrived, a truck carrying a green shipping container appeared and pulled into the weeds by the cars across the road where it unloaded the container. Turns out that it was Lab Padre setting up a new live camera location. All of it live-streamed by... Lab Padre's Labcam, what else?
The moderators on the Lab Padre chat say that it's private non-SpaceX property, Lab has permission to use it and that the container is atop a concrete pad that's been there for years. Obviously there won't be any people there during tests, but it's almost as close as the SpaceX cams. Dunno how they will get electricity (solar?) or how they will get the video out. Will need lots of bandwidth and cell coverage is iffy at best out there as Mary has found. But Lab has it planned out and already has several live cams out there. Dunno how he does it, perhaps some kind of dedicated radio data link to South Padre Island where he's based.)
Additional road closures have been announced for next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, prior to Christmas. The after-Christmas closures are still in effect. Speculation (that's all it is right now) that Sn9 might be transported to the pad before Christmas and pressure-tested after. I've heard talk on the various fora that damaged fins have been removed from Sn9 but haven't seen any photographic verification. Sn10's new nose still has only one forward flap installed, so is the other one going to Sn9 as a replacement fin? Or will it be as-yet noseless Sn10 heading to the pad? Still lots and lots of questions.
And this is kind of funny. It's from David Attenborough narrating a BBC nature documentary about geese, repurposed for a different kind of first flight...
Today the giant crane made its way to the launch site atop two red SPMTs. It made the journey along with what has been estimated as 200 tons of crane counterweights.
Sn9 is still in the high bay. It may or may not make its own trip to the launch site tomorrow, atop its own new multi-SPMT transporter. When that happens, it will be the first time that an integrated Starship complete with nose and engines has made the journey.
Here's Lab's video of the crane's journey. Some of it is timelapse and the crane seems to be zipping along. In real life the whole journey was slow walking speed.
When Sn9 gets to the launch area, it will be the crane's job to lift it off its transporter and place it atop one of the test stands.
YazataDec 22, 2020 04:28 PM (This post was last modified: Dec 23, 2020 01:57 AM by Yazata.)
Eileen has stumbled out of the High Bar into the light. Still don't know when she will begin her tipsy trip to the pad. Might be immanent, might be a while off. (I'm guessing today.)
There still isn't a gantry crane in the roof of the high bay, so I don't know how they plan to mount it atop its new SPMT ride. The SPMTs can raise and lower themselves, but now they have that steel I-beam framework atop them linking them into a wider platform. If they plan to drive the whole thing under Sn9 and then raise it up, the stand that Sn9's sitting on will have to be tall and wide enough to admit it. Which might speculatively explain the recent stand problem when some of its (perhaps lengthened) legs suddenly collapsed.
Edit: 11:07 CST -- Eileen's on her way to meet her destiny -- has just left the build site and is turning on to the road. Looking all shiny and new, she knows how to turn heads.
YazataDec 23, 2020 01:43 AM (This post was last modified: Dec 23, 2020 04:17 AM by Yazata.)
Eileen made it to the launch pad where she's perched atop the second test stand. Appears that she didn't use the new wide-stance crawler and instead rode atop two regular SPMTs just like Sn's 5 and 6 traveled to the pad, probably the same ones that carried the giant crane down to the pad yesterday. (Elon's really gotta think about widening and strengthening the little 2-lane highway into something able to carry extra-large and extra-heavy loads.)
As soon as Eileen left the High Bay, Sn10 scooted across from the Midbay to take her place where it will presumably get its new nose installed. (Still needs a front fin though, which is probably on order from Hawthorne or wherever they are made.) Sn 11 is partly stacked in the Midbay. Looks like Eileen's unfortunate accident and her delay in getting to the pad clogged up the flow and now all the Starships in work move up a spot.
Photo by either Gene or Rachel of SpacePadreIsle showing the unique only-in-Boca Chica traffic congestion. (Even in LA you don't see anything like this.)
Watch the little video in this tweet with the sound on
YazataDec 24, 2020 04:14 AM (This post was last modified: Dec 24, 2020 05:22 AM by Yazata.)
Apparently Sn9/Eileen (from I lean) only had two of her three Raptor engines when she rolled yesterday. She was to have three, but when Sn8 lost one to pad debris, she selflessly provided the replacement. So another one had to be procured from McGregor. It arrived and was installed today. Mary identified it as #49 (the serial numbers are stenciled on the engine bells).
Here's another cool thing. The definitive Director's Cut of SpaceX's Sn8 video, with helpful captions and a sci-fi music soundtrack. It's only been out about 2 1/2 hours and it's already got 212,000 views on Youtube and 818,000 views on Twitter! A million views in 2 1/2 hours! Eat your heart out, Hollywood!
YazataDec 24, 2020 10:53 PM (This post was last modified: Dec 25, 2020 06:59 PM by Yazata.)
The SpaceX video has been out less than one day and it's already up to 905,000 views on Youtube and 3 million views on twitter!
They plan to fly Sn9/Eileen in early January (in as little as two weeks). This is apt to become a regular occurrance in Boca Chica, complete with Crazy Elon landings at least once a month. The first SuperHeavy is expected to fly in 2021. Then fully stacked orbital launches of the whole monstrous thing and attempts to get Starships back from orbit in one piece. After the success of Sn8 showed that the crazy descent and landing is doable (at least after tweaking the header tank plumbing that Elon calls "minor" and apparently has already been done on Eileen) orbital reentry is perhaps the biggest challenge that they still face. Probably orbital in 2022. Manned some time after that, since SpaceX wants multiple successful unmanned orbital flights first to prove safety and reliability. Then experiments with orbital refueling and trips to the Moon and then Mars. They are already eyeing Jupiter and Saturn too, but that's a long way off.
All of that fast-paced action is going to attract tourists from all around the world to South Padre Island (if covid ever permits). SPI is a beach resort with tourist infrastructure like hotels and restaurants already in place. So far SPI is mostly known for spring break, when thousands of college students descend on it to get drunk. But the locals have already built a viewing area at the south tip of the island that looks to be the best place to see launches and landings when the closer-in safety exclusion zones are up. They were hoping for a tourist boost like the Florida Space Coast has long had, and now they may be getting it.
Port Isabel is right across the causeway from SPI and probably just as close to the launch site with equally good views, but it's less tourist-oriented, more downscale and is where the local fishing boats sail from. But some people like it, it's quieter and cheaper to live. (I hear that some of the displaced Boca Chican's have resurfaced there.) So it might get an economic boost from SpaceX too.
YazataDec 27, 2020 05:38 PM (This post was last modified: Dec 27, 2020 09:18 PM by Yazata.)
The Sn8 video is up to 2,458,000 views on Youtube and 3,800,000 views on twitter. (I bet that some of those views were at NASA. We know that the Human Exploration and Operations Missions Directorate (HEOMD) has shown some of Mary's photos at briefings.)
In post-Christmas action, Sn9 is at the launch pad being prepared for some kind of testing this week. Unclear what, but probably a pressure test. A static fire perhaps later in the week. Flight is expected early in January.
Yesterday Sn10's nose received its second flap, newly arrived from wherever spaceship flaps come from. (Amazon? E-Bay? Santa Claus??)
And there were signs that the long-awaited bridge crane is being installed in the roof of the High Bay.
Besides Sn9, parts of eight more have been spotted, from Sn10 (nearing completion) to Sn 17! Plus the SuperHeavy, slowly stacking in the High Bay.
I suspect that the SuperHeavy is waiting on that bridge crane in the High Bay roof. Elon says that completion of the SH is "a few months" off. Everyone is waiting with anticipation to see what its thrust dome looks like, given that operational SHs will eventually have 28 Raptors! Thinking seems to be that there will be some kind of Falcon-9 style 'octaweb' framework. But even if the thrust isn't going to be handled by the dome like in Starship, there's certainly going to be lots of propellant plumbing. Some serious engineering is going to be necessary to make it work. (Lucky that SpaceX is the company that most US engineering graduates say that they want to work for.)
And here's a Sn9 rollout compilation video by Gene and Rachel of SPadre -
Sn9 underwent ambient temperature nitrogen testing on Monday. They fill the tanks with ambient temperature nitrogen gas at low pressure and then wait several hours to see if the pressure goes down, indicating leaks.
Then on Tuesday they did it again. Isn't clear if they weren't satisfied with Monday's results, or whether they were leak-testing different tanks.
Then they did a cryo-test in which they put cryogenic liquid nitrogen in the tanks that they are interested in. Since the whole vehicle didn't frost up, my guess is that they were just filling the header tanks. They seemed to me to be most interested in the CH4 header, which is what lost pressure in the Sn8 landing.
And finally, they did some testing of the reaction control thrusters. Short video of that in the tweet below.
Dec 18, 2020 10:21 PM
(This post was last modified: Dec 19, 2020 03:24 AM by Yazata.)
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