BFR Developments

[Yazata]

Two new Raptor engines have arrived from McGregor, both with McGregor's amusing messages placed on the protective coverings over their fuel inlets.

I especially like this one:

(Photo by Jack Beyer)

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[Yazata]

Kong is standing tall again!! I guess that his ailment yesterday wasn't too serious. (Perhaps the Crane-Worshippers finally found a virgin somewhere.)

The Daily Hopper on the subject of Elon's cranes

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Actually"back in the day" was only a little over a month ago. But that seems like forever inside Elon's Reality Distortion Field.

[Yazata]

Kong is Alive and OLIT-4 is going up!

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https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/sTA0GTgFn5E

[Yazata]

Photo taken inside the high bay showing stacking operations during construction of the first Superheavy flight article. The bridge crane on the roof appears to be moving the thrust dome that will go on the bottom of the SH. The growing SH is on the left, the rather mysterious Sn16 on the right. (They apparently don't plan to fly 16, but they haven't scrapped it and it's still in the high bay taking up space, so they are saving it for something.)

Photo by Elon. His photo caption is "Stacking Super Heavy aft section"

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1404707141102059520

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And a panorama shot from the top of the High Bay looking west (away from the launch area). You can see 15 parked to the right (they seem to be saving it) and the distillation column for the future air separation plant (that pulls oxygen and nitrogen from out of the air) to 15's left. In the middle distance is a work area where they are constructing the OLIT tower segments and the cryo-shells. In the left foreground is what looks like a parts staging area. And off in the distance the lights of what I assume is Brownsville (and maybe Matamoros). On the left is the road and the white line is where the new 'Starbase' sign is.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1404711878501318658

[Yazata]

Speaking of Sn16, this morning it was removed from the High Bay and moved to overflow parking, next to Sn15. Still unclear what its longer term fate will be. (The prevalent thought still seems to be that it will be scrapped.)

There are suggestions by the nerds that 15 and 16 become gate-guards at the entrance to Starbase, one on each side of the road.

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And in more Boca Chica news, Kong has just raised the fifth Orbital Launch Integration Tower segment (OLIT-5) and it's currently being installed (no small job) See the little man in the yellow vest on the scaffold by the nearest leg for scale.

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[Yazata]

Speaking of Sn16, this morning it was removed from the High Bay and moved to overflow parking, next to Sn15. Still unclear what its longer term fate will be. (The prevalent thought still seems to be that it will be scrapped.)

Elon hollers 'not so fast!' and writes "We might use Sn16 on a hypersonic flight test"

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1405588281622859778

And in today's Boca news, a second pressure test of Superheavy test tank 2.1 is currently underway. Frostline creeping up the tank as they fill it with liquid nitrogen. LabPadre's Padcam has all the action.

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[Yazata]

Check out this Mind-bogglingly realistic render of the first Starship orbital test-flight by Corey and Neopork -- extraordinary. The fact that this is penciled in to happen by the end of this year is extraordinary too. Elon's tired of fooling around with hops and is ready to try to grab the prize...

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

[Yazata]

Big development today is the arrival of what may or may not be a ADS 30Q Draw Works. This is an Absolutely Monster electric winch, most often used on off-shore oil drilling platforms. Rumor is that two of them were mounted on Phobos and Deimos and SpaceX acquired them when they bought the platforms for scrap metal prices. It's about as big a winch as there is (since Elon's gone full-Texas he likes everything big): 6,000 horsepower, weighs 82 tons, can lift 1,245 tons. They have already started fitting it to the Orbital Launch Integration Tower and it will presumably provide the muscle of the crane that will be mounted there for stacking Starships and perhaps for catching returning Superheavies). 

See page 8 here

https://www.nov.com/-/media/nov/files/pr...atalog.pdf

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[Yazata]

Brady Kenniston captured this photo of the Superheavy forward dome sleeve. Very interesting to the engineers, particularly this item which has been identified as a hot-gas 3-thruster pack. Unlike the Falcon9 cold-gas thrusters that just burp out pulses of compressed gas, these thrusters are being called upon to move a much bigger vehicle and are little rocket engines in their own right. So each of the three thrusters has its own fuel and oxidizer lines plus an elaborate starter system since the engines have to start and stop instantly. I expect that they are pressure-fed and don't have turbopumps.

If you look closely you might note another message from McGregor, cryptic this time and probably something of an inside joke among SX'ers. There's a little face on the cover over the middle thruster nozzle. The identity of the young man pictured remains unidentified. (By outside onlookers at least.)

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The hot gas thrusters have been under test at McGregor for some time. Here's a little video shot May 4 by somebody with the great Texas name Nicotine Jenkins that doesn't really show much except a distant view of part of the SpaceX McGregor facilities, but the audio captures the short thruster firings very well. Reportedly these thrusters are surprisingly loud.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/cK579HjnlhY

For more serious McGregor action, here's a long duration Raptor engine burn on the huge Tripod vertical test stand at McGregor (visible in the middle left in the wide view above) also filmed by Nicotine Jenkins. There's a sound delay because the camera is quite a distance away.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Nec76IqPdyU

[Yazata]

Starship Gazer has captured the new "draw-works" hoist installed in its new engine room on the side of the OLIT (orbital launch integration tower).

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