BFR Developments

[Yazata]

Lots of talk today (Tuesday July 27, 2021) that many (hundreds?) of SpaceX workers are being flown from Hawthorne and Cape Canaveral to Starbase for a big push to orbit ASAP. The already frantic build and launch sites seem to have become visibly even more frantic.

I don't know the source for this but lots of people are repeating it and it seems consistent with things said by SpaceX employees on the nasaspaceflight private forums about a new laser focus inside the company on the first Starship orbital flight.

All outside observers agree that an August 5 target isn't remotely possible. Elon has a habit of setting impossible targets ("Elon time") so as to create a sense of urgency and stimulate out-of-the-box thinking. (What would it take to accomplish it?) But expectations are that Elon's goals are more realistically months off, not 9 days. (With establishment aerospace like Nasa or Blue they would be years off.)

But everyone agrees that Elon's trying to recreate the crazy hair-on-fire intensity that American industry had during World War II.

What's more, on July 9, SpaceX reserved five new aircraft registration numbers, N310SX, N502SX, N812SX, N840SX and N928SX. The company already has two Gulfstream large corporate jets used to fly engineers and sometimes Elon around. There's speculation that several of these new numbers might go to helicopters to service Phobos and Deimos.

[Image: E7PzYiIVEA84L7Z?format=jpg&name=large]

[Yazata]

Today they raised OLIT-9, the last tower segment. It's as much a machine as tower framework, since it has lots of moving parts. Big mysterious black pulleys. Everyone is breaking their brains trying to figure out what it will do and how it will work. Getting all four legs to seat seemed to be a problem that took them hours to solve. But it seems to be stacked now and they have unfurled a big American flag from it, the traditional way that iron-workers show they have topped out their structures. So the grand Tower of Elon (todays tower of Babylon) is as tall as it's going to get, apart from a possible crane and an inevitable flagpole/lightning rod on top.

(From the nasaspaceflight.com stream)

[Image: E7aiyvtXoAEshlT?format=jpg&name=small]

And today both a GSE tank (ground support equipment, a storage tank for the new super-sized tank farm) and the massive Orbital Launch Table (the part of the launch pad the rocket sits on) were transported to the launch area. The GSE tank is being placed by crane (what else?) on a concrete base prepared for it.

Great human interest story about the big yellow crane to the left in the photo below. It's affectionally known as "Bucky" on the LabPadre youtube chats, because of the 'Buckner' written on it. (The crane's owner, from whom SpaceX leased it.) Well one day a guy called 'David Abbott' who had been posting on the chat announced that he was the operator of Bucky and some of the other cranes. And he said that he would come out from Bucky's control cab and wave. And the door of Bucky's control cab opened and the operator stepped out and waved at Lab's livestream cam!!! That isn't all. On at least one of his bigger lifts, his mom was posting on the chat about how proud she was of her boy! I love it!!!

(Photo of today's new GSE tank passing Bucky, taken by Paul of Oceancam on youtube)

[Image: E7ZKZkXXEAcbdP8?format=jpg&name=small]

And the Launch Table is parked by the Orbital Launch Mount.

Bucky is scheduled (per David) to be the one to lift the Orbital Launch Table atop the six legged Orbital Launch Mount. The Table weighs about 200 tons and is constructed of armor plate. It has fueling connections and hydraulically operated hold-down clamps. A fully fueled (thousands of tons) Starship/Superheavy stack will sit atop the Table and the hellish fire of 32 Raptors will go through the big hole in the middle.

(Photo from nasaspaceflight.com's youtube stream with B3 watching in the background)

[Image: E7ZErYkXMAUnKRZ?format=jpg&name=small]

Wits have already taken to calling it the Lunch Table. Here's Daily Hopper's take on that, entitled "Space Lunch System" (SLS)

[Image: E7VPL46XMAYfjUA?format=jpg&name=large]

[Yazata]

And in other news, SpaceX has asked LabPadre to take down his PadCam, right across the road from the launch area. This is the same cam that SpaceX security seized a while back, then apologized and returned when Elon personally intervened. Reason for today's removal request is that SpaceX will be building an employee parking lot where it's located. Reason Lab was given for the suddenness of the request (the parking lot already was in the long-term plans) is that lots of additional employees are inbound as part of the 'Surge' (see above). Lab has good relations with Elon and he removed the camera today.

The same removal request was received by nasaspaceflight.com and they obligingly took down their DangerCam (given that name after it narrowly survived the steel rain after Sn11 exploded in midair).

Elon promised in the past to find Lab a new spot for his cam if it became necessary to remove it. So hope is that he remembers and relocates both nsf and Lab to somewhere just as good. Closeup cams are currently offline.

[Yazata]

Two giant cranes have simultaneously installed the massive Launch Table.

The giant launch pad comes together. This is the platform that the Superheavy/Starship stack will launch from.

Photo by Elon. Flying Saucers over Starbase! Don't let MR see this!

The cranes are both Liebherrs. The yellow one on the left is "Bucky", an 11000 model. (I believe that David is at the controls.) The one on the right is "Kong", a larger 11350 model. They are performing a tandem lift, done with extra heavy loads.

You can see the red SPMTs in the foreground that the circular launch table rode in on. There are two of them side-by-side.

[Image: E7pvCrOXIAMwzq8?format=jpg&name=large]

Another photo by Elon. Shows that what he is really doing at Boca isn't building rockets at all, but rather constructing one of those giant battle-walkers from War of the Worlds! It probably has death-rays too. (And a Tesla logo.) Somebody's gotta stop Elon!

You can see how the cranes have rotated. A job like this takes some very sophisticated crane driving. Lots of technical stuff with movement rates, angles, counterweights and so on. Quite a bit of it is computerized. These crane operators can work together and place the table on its legs with an accuracy of millimeters. Hugely impressive.

Frankly, watching all this stuff gives me more appreciation for some of these skilled trades. It's a lot more sophisticated and takes a lot more know-how than getting a sociology degree or something like that. I find myself watching the cranes at all the local building sites, looking at makes and models, how they are counterweighted and rigged. I'm becoming a sidewalk crane connoiseur!

[Image: E7pvCrMWEAA8I4h?format=jpg&name=large]

[Yazata]

Crazy hair-on-fire activity at Starbase continues. Booster 4, the orbital booster, completed stacking yesterday. And they are already installing engines on it. Oh, are they installing engines! (Engines are like cranes, Elon can never have too many.) Just imagine the plumbing for something like this!

Photo by Elon

[Image: E7zARpUWEAI65OI?format=jpg&name=medium]

[Yazata]

SpaceX photo showing the business end of the first orbital Superheavy Booster. There are 9 Raptor engines in the middle, in a configuration reminiscent of a Falcon 9, all capable of gimbaling (wiggling) for thrust vector control. They are surrounded by a ring of 20 fixed Raptors. Together, the 29 Raptors will provide something like twice the thrust of the Saturn 5 Apollo Moon rocket. (17 million pounds of thrust vs 7.9 million, 74 mega-newtons vs 35) It's a monster.

[Image: E71EdLhVUAAifFJ?format=jpg&name=4096x4096]

SpaceX photo showing the first orbital Superheavy Booster with a Falcon 9 style grid-fin (except a lot bigger). These grid-fins are for reentry and landing tail first. It's notable that the Superheavy won't have sci-fi style fins at the bottom tail end. It's just a steel cylinder. Steering during ascent will be entirely by thrust vector control.

[Image: E71EbSvUcAEnHkI?format=jpg&name=4096x4096]

[Yazata]

B-4 is rolling out to the launch site while I write this.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/brCjLHKvxE8

Photos by Elon (taken from the top of the High Bay):

[Image: E74epYyWQAIA027?format=jpg&name=medium]

The smaller cylinder in front of the Midbay in the photo below is the tank section of orbital Starship Sn20. It has its lower fins which are smaller than the fins on earlier Starships since they learned by experience that they don't need to be so large. Half of 20 is black, covered in thermal tiles.

[Image: E74epbIWUAU8t6l?format=jpg&name=medium]

[Yazata]

And here's Tim Dodd and Cosmic Prepective, getting an extraordinary tour of Starbase, recorded just a few days ago, with Elon himself as tour guide! Elon goes into depth about his unorthodox but successful design philosophy and tosses out all kinds of facts about why the Superheavy's grid-fins don't fold, about how heavy the Booster is, about why the Tesla batteries they are using to move the grid-fins are too heavy, about using ullage gas as reaction control gas, about new Raptor developments, about the engines for HLS lunar lander, about how Starlinks are deployed, all delivered in the beeping, banging turmoil of his crazy Elon-style spaceship construction. Also some interesting stuff about design lessons learned at Tesla. You start to get a feeling for how Elon thinks and why he makes the decisions he does.

Elon's obviously involved in all the nitty-gritty of Starship design and manufacturing. Extraordinarily hands-on. Unlike Jeff Bezos who I sense delegates all those kind of decisions to his staff.

This is part one of three, the first two at the Build Area, the third at the Launch Area. The next two videos to be released soon.

Elon comes across as a nice guy, a super-nerd, but nevertheless kind of scary since his genius is so obvious when he speaks. Kind of like getting Einstein to give you a tour of relativity.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/t705r8ICkRw

[confused2]

Kind'a reminds me of Zephram Cochrane in the Star Trek universe but not the Star Trek universe.

[Yazata]

Today Kong had been attached to the Booster's load points and they were ready to place it atop the Orbital Launch Platform, when Hoppy ordered everyone to stand down because of incoming lightning storms. (Hoppy is equipped with loudpeakers that make announcements.)

Edit It looks like they have resumed preparations to move Booster 4

Edit 2 They are slowly lifting it

But back at the build area frantic activity continues. The orbital Starship Sn20 was moved to the High Bay yesterday soon after Booster 4 left, and today it was mated with its nosecone. At some point it received its engines as well.

Photo by Elon showing 20 with its three gimballed sea-level Raptors in the middle and three fixed big-belled RVacs (vacuum Raptors) around the edge.

[Image: E7663rjXoAUPP5V?format=jpg&name=small]

Booster is now atop the Launch Mount. It seemed to go on without any drama. Photo of it being placed there by Elon.

Talk is that this placement of B4 on the Launch Mount is just for fit checks. Sn20 may or may move from the High Bay to the Launch Site where it's being completed in the next few days for placement atop B4 to check how well it mates up there (and so that lots of photos can be taken). It will be the first time that anyone has ever seen the full stack!

Then 20 will be removed and B4 will be taken down off the Launch Mount. The 29 engines will probably be removed since they are said not to be the "orbital set". They seem to just be any engines they had around installed to see how well all they and all the fittings fit. As we speak, McGregor is working overtime to certify a flight set of fully tested engines.

Elon wants everything ready for flight in a few weeks, but the new tank farm and all of its plumbing seem far from completion. And there's the hurdle of getting FAA launch approval for an orbital launch of a vehicle this big from Texas, always a wild-card. It could take a year for them to make a decision, if they demand environmental hearings and all that kind of BS. (We can be sure that activists will appear from out of the woodwork to oppose it.)

[Image: E7-oZsRWUAISuIU?format=jpg&name=large]