YazataMay 27, 2023 02:41 AM (This post was last modified: May 27, 2023 03:15 AM by Yazata.)
SpaceX just put out another of their great short videos. This one shows the Starship inaugural test flight, complete with views inside the control room.
We see a cascade of things going wrong. Lost engines at ignition meant the thing kind of lingered on the pad much longer than intended, something like ten seconds rather than the expected three. (Which was probably a big part of why the pad was chewed up as much as it was.) Then it accelerated upwards more slowly than planned. Additional engines continued failing on the way up, which probably doomed any chance it had of making orbit. But what killed the mission and made its termination necessary was loss of both hydraulic power units, loss of thrust-vector-control and the thing starting to corkscrew, then cartwheel end to end through the air. But despite all those stresses on the airframe, the thing held together very well and only came apart when its flight-termination explosive charges were commanded to detonate.
Elon says:
"Major launchpad upgrades should be complete in about a month, then another month of rocket testing on pad, then flight 2 of Starship."
YazataMay 29, 2023 10:58 PM (This post was last modified: May 29, 2023 11:27 PM by Yazata.)
Yesterday they tore down the triangular shaped "lowbay" that was one of the original buildings at Starbase, since long before the other vertical assembly bays or the giant tents. It was one of the last remnants of Hoppy Days at Starbase. Most recently it's been used for nosecone assembly and tiling.
They are really moving fast clearing space for the future expansion of the new Starfactory building to full giga-factory size.
The low white "propulsion building" (it was never used for propulsion and seems to have been a parts warehouse) in the lower right in the photo below is being torn down by tractors as we speak. The "pizza oven" towards the top must be very afraid right now. (It was used for metal fabrication, mostly for ground support equipment, ring-stands and similar things.)
The little grass rectangle is interesting. It's believed to belong to a private owner who is holding out for big bucks before he sells to SpaceX. Question whether they will pay whatever he's asking, or build around his little patch.
YazataJun 19, 2023 05:23 AM (This post was last modified: Jun 19, 2023 06:04 AM by Yazata.)
This photo was taken by Mauricio from 10,500 feet altitude (there's a 10,000 foot permanent "temporary" flight restriction over Starbase) through haze with a lot of zoom.
It shows the interior of the Midbay. The nosecone visible is particularly interesting, since it houses a prototype mockup of a pressurized crew compartment (for HLS I presume). They are trying out different airlock layouts and stuff. I'd love to see Elon post a video filmed in a Starship main deck. "Shields Up! More Power, Scotty!"
And clearing the decks for a huge expansion of the Starfactory continues. The two low white buildings in the photo below are history. The larger one on the lower right housed a parts warehouse (I think) and the smaller one by the corner of the Pizza Oven was a prefabricated modular building housing offices. Both are torn to shreds by ravenous tractors.
The Pizza Oven (a parts fabrication building) is gone as well. But it wasn't ripped to shreds but instead was carefully disassembled. Space for it is being cleared in Sanchez (the former Sanchez gas well site now owned by SpaceX) on the other side of the vertical assembly bays where we expect them to reassemble it. (Metal banging never gets old at Starbase, a space program by-and-for construction hardhats).
And construction of the new vertical assembly bay (seemingly a twin to the existing 'megabay') continues at a rapid pace. (It isn't visible in the photo below.)
Questions remain about the little green rectangle. It's believed to belong to a stubborn private owner who is holding out for an exorbitant price (millions). I wonder if they will pay him what he wants, or just build around his property.
Trenching for new electrical cables and sewer pipes is all over the place. Literally every place you look at Starbase has some kind of construction activity. (It's doubly true at the launch site.) It's mind-boggling. Even Boca Chica village is growing with new streets and new houses. I'm told there is a small store selling food and sundries, and one of the largest pre-SpaceX homes is now a bar and hangout for residents and employees. Everything is changing so fast you better not blink or you will miss something.
YazataJun 27, 2023 09:28 PM (This post was last modified: Jun 27, 2023 11:34 PM by Yazata.)
For the last few weeks they have been clearing rubble out of the crater under the Orbital Launch Mount and then installing a very dense network of rebar. Then the night before last a parade of 132 concrete trucks arrived (yes, people counted them) and unloaded over a period of 11 hours. The crater still doesn't appear to be full of concrete yet. (It was a big crater.) When the concrete is reasonably set, the water-cooled steel plates will go atop the reinforced concrete. (Elon's upside down showerhead, or maybe the rocket-bidet.) In the meantime, all kinds of tanks and plumbing is going in to support the pressure-fed water feed.
And yesterday, they successfully conducted a six engine static fire of Ship 25 (expected to be the next to fly). (They used a different pad, not the still being repaired OLM.)
C CJun 27, 2023 10:26 PM (This post was last modified: Jun 27, 2023 10:28 PM by C C.)
(Jun 27, 2023 09:28 PM)Yazata Wrote: For the last few weeks they have been clearing rubble out of the crater under the Orbital Launch Mount and then installing a very dense network of rebar. Then the night before last a parade of 132 concrete trucks arrived (yes, people counted them) and unloaded over a period of 11 hours. The crater still doesn't appear to be full of concrete yet. (It was a big crater.) When the concrete is reasonably set, the water-cooled steel plates will go atop the reinforced concrete. (Elon's upside down showerhead, or maybe the rocket-bidet.) In the meantime, all kinds of tanks and plumbing is going in to support the pressure-fed water feed.
And yesterday, they successfully conducted a six engine static fire of Ship 25 (expected to be the next to fly). (They used a different pad, not the still being repaired OLM.)
EXCERPTS: The largest rocket to ever take flight requires a substantial number of upgrades ahead of its second test flight, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk revealed this past weekend.
Musk made the comments on June 24 during a live Twitter discussion with Bloomberg journalist Ashlee Vance, saying “well over a thousand” changes are needed ahead of Starship’s second test flight, the date for which has not yet been set.
"We made sort of a late-breaking change that’s really quite significant to the way that stage separation works,” Musk explained...
[...] Elaborating further, Musk said the strategy calls for the majority of the 33 booster engines to switch off prior to stage separation, and with some still active, all six Raptor engines on the upper stage will ignite while it’s still connected to the booster. This will prevent the temporary loss of thrust that traditionally occurs during stage separation, Musk said...
YazataJun 28, 2023 12:22 AM (This post was last modified: Jun 28, 2023 01:00 AM by Yazata.)
I was going to post about this, but CC beat me to it!
(Jun 27, 2023 10:26 PM)C C Wrote: There's also this. Some kind of rogue, "elsewhere" update on rocket changes that deal with the separation problem.
Elon aid it on one of his "Twitter spaces" where interesting people answer questions. On this one, Elon himself was the interesting person and Ashlee Vance was the questioner.
EXCERPTS: The largest rocket to ever take flight requires a substantial number of upgrades ahead of its second test flight, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk revealed this past weekend.
Probably some were "required". The first flight could have been better and shortcomings have to be addressed. Some changes were already planned, such as swapping out the hydraulic thrust vector control (which failed resulting in a loss of control) and replacing it with electric TVC. The pad upgrades were already in work as well, though they never expected the pad design they had to be torn up as much as it was. (Big chunks of concrete flying everywhere leaving a hole halfway to China.) The engines need significant upgrades to make them more reliable. That's supposedly happening too.
Quote:Musk made the comments on June 24 during a live Twitter discussion with Bloomberg journalist Ashlee Vance, saying “well over a thousand” changes are needed ahead of Starship’s second test flight, the date for which has not yet been set.
The FAA has a say in that.
Quote:"We made sort of a late-breaking change that’s really quite significant to the way that stage separation works,” Musk explained...
[...] Elaborating further, Musk said the strategy calls for the majority of the 33 booster engines to switch off prior to stage separation, and with some still active, all six Raptor engines on the upper stage will ignite while it’s still connected to the booster. This will prevent the temporary loss of thrust that traditionally occurs during stage separation, Musk said...
Yeah, that's the real biggie!
Hot Staging!! (Totally a 1960's Russian-style concept from the golden-age of wild and crazy rocket engineering)
"Never Stop Thrusting"!! has become a thing on Twitter.
YazataJun 29, 2023 09:45 PM (This post was last modified: Jun 29, 2023 09:46 PM by Yazata.)
Kevin Randolph of WAI media captured this view inside the end of the new(ish) Inventory Tent at Sanchez (the old Sanchez gas-well site) at the west end of Starbase.
The primary item of interest is one of Elon's water-cooled steel plates, seen end-on. Water will forced into this at high pressure, then allowed to squirt out many holes in the top surface. The upside-down shower head!
This is just part of it, there will be something like half a dozen of these sections welded together. Some have already been seen, but there had to be missing ones. There was speculation they were in the inventory tent, and now that's been confirmed.
Presumably they will have to remove the vertical structural members at the end of the tent in order for the plate to emerge.
Also interesting are the inventory racks inside the tent. Home Depot for spaceship parts!!
May 27, 2023 02:41 AM
(This post was last modified: May 27, 2023 03:15 AM by Yazata.)
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