BFR Developments

[Yazata]

Road closings, roadblocks and exclusion zones have been announced for a June first OFT-4 attempt:

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[Yazata]

The Coast Guard is putting out this warning to mariners about a June 1st launch from Starbase. Followed by a long list of coordinates that I didn't copy.

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[Yazata]

Today SpaceX made additional information public on why IFT-3 didn't complete its booster landing and what went wrong with ship attitude control in orbit.

https://www.spacex.com/updates/#flight-3-report

They say, in relevant part:

"Following stage separation, Super Heavy initiated its boostback burn, which sends commands to 13 of the vehicle’s 33 Raptor engines to propel the rocket toward its intended landing location. All 13 engines ran successfully until six engines began shutting down, triggering a benign early boostback shutdown.

The booster then continued to descend until attempting its landing burn, which commands the same 13 engines used during boostback to perform the planned final slowing for the rocket before a soft touchdown in the water, but the six engines that shut down early in the boostback burn were disabled from attempting the landing burn startup, leaving seven engines commanded to start up with two successfully reaching mainstage ignition. The booster had lower than expected landing burn thrust when contact was lost at approximately 462 meters in altitude over the Gulf of Mexico and just under seven minutes into the mission.

The most likely root cause for the early boostback burn shutdown was determined to be continued filter blockage where liquid oxygen is supplied to the engines, leading to a loss of inlet pressure in engine oxygen turbopumps. SpaceX implemented hardware changes ahead of Flight 3 to mitigate this issue, which resulted in the booster progressing to its first ever landing burn attempt. Super Heavy boosters for Flight 4 and beyond will get additional hardware inside oxygen tanks to further improve propellant filtration capabilities. And utilizing data gathered from Super Heavy’s first ever landing burn attempt, additional hardware and software changes are being implemented to increase startup reliability of the Raptor engines in landing conditions.

During Starship’s coast phase, the vehicle accomplished several of the flight test’s additional objectives, including the first ever test of its payload door in space. The vehicle also successfully completed a propellant transfer demonstration, moving liquid oxygen from a header tank into the main tank. This test provided valuable data for eventual ship-to-ship propellant transfers that will enable missions like returning astronauts to the Moon under NASA’s Artemis program.

Several minutes after Starship began its coast phase, the vehicle began losing the ability to control its attitude. Starship continued flying its nominal trajectory but given the loss of attitude control, the vehicle automatically triggered a pre-planned command to skip its planned on-orbit relight of a single Raptor engine.

Starship went on to experience its first ever reentry from space, providing valuable data on heating and vehicle control during hypersonic reentry. The lack of attitude control resulted in an off-nominal entry, with the ship seeing much larger than anticipated heating on both protected and unprotected areas. High-definition live views of entry and a considerable amount of telemetry were successfully transmitted in real time by Starlink terminals operating on Starship. The flight test’s conclusion came when telemetry was lost at approximately 65 kilometers in altitude, roughly 49 minutes into the mission.

The most likely root cause of the unplanned roll was determined to be clogging of the valves responsible for roll control. SpaceX has since added additional roll control thrusters on upcoming Starships to improve attitude control redundancy and upgraded hardware for improved resilience to blockage."

nsNS

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And it looks like Flight-4 has already been pushed back to June 5.

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1794000049858597253

https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/...p-flight-4

[Yazata]

While Flight 4 continues to prepare for an anticipated June 5 launch, big changes are underway all over. Combined with Megabay 2 and the recently topped out Starfactory, Starbase is being rebuilt!

First off, the Cryo-testing (both ships and boosters) and static fire (just ships) facilities at Masseys are almost complete and are looking good. All of the functions of the Sub-Orbital pads at the launch area are being moved to Masseys.

Photo by RGV Aerial Photography showing Ship 26 (the Silver Bullet) atop the new static fire flame trench at Masseys.

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In the photo of the launch area below by Mauricio of RGV Aerial Photography, the Sub-Orbital Launch area has almost entirely been torn out. (The left half of the site.) Its former propellant tanks weren't moved to Masseys but instead seem headed to Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where they appear destined to increase propellant storage to support a higher Falcon Heavy launch cadence.

The area freed up will become a second Starship launch pad, with its own Tower and Orbital Launch Mount. Foundation work for the second tower has begun with more than 100 piles being drilled into the earth. (The indented square area visible on the lower left in the photo). A huge concrete & rebar base is expected to be built on the piles above which the tower segments will be erected. These are already waiting at Sanchez, being fitted out with cryo-pipes, electrical cables etc., after being barged into the Port of Brownsville from Kennedy Space Center. One of the world's largest crawler cranes will again be hired to come in (in pieces, to be assembled on-site) to do the heavy lifting.

The new orbital launch mount is expected to go below the site of the tower, towards the lower point of the site. A pile drilling auger is already visible there along with long rebar cages to go in the holes it drills and be filled with concrete. There's lots of speculation that OLM-2 might be somewhat redesigned, based on real world experience with OLM-1. Nobody is sure what these changes will be and they are eagerly awaited. Once Pad 2 is constructed and operational, some of the modifications are expected to be retrofitted on Pad 1.

It's still unknown whether a new tank farm will be built on the upper left of the site, or whether one tank farm will feed both pads. Expectation is two tank farms.

(Photo by RGV Aerial Photography)

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[Yazata]

The FAA has just issued the following statement:

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nsNS

[Yazata]

Panorama photo by Carlos Nunez showing the site of the new Starbase shopping, the better part of a mile west of the build site in the direction of Brownsville, between the build site and Masseys. The site will feature a restaurant with a deck overlooking the Rio Grande (just beyond the vegitation on the far side of the cleared area), a super market and other amenities as yet unknown.

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[Yazata]

Amazing SpaceX photographs from Flight 3 - Science Fiction made real - The goal is a relatively inexpensive transportation system able to deliver large cargoes to interplanetary destinations and carry human beings throughout the Solar System!

Liftoff!

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The first real spaceship, (enough with capsules), on-orbit!

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Peak heating on reentry!

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nsNS

[Yazata]

Yesterday they did another launch countdown rehearsal, complete with full propellant load.

They are still saying that they are aiming at June 5th (a week from today), pending regulatory approval.

For those wondering what all the white vapor on the ground is in the photo below, I believe that it's the product of LOX line chill. If they try flowing liquid oxygen through ambient temperature pipes, it boils. So they flow LOX through the lines until the pipes are chilled enough that the LOX is liquid when it reaches the rocket. Dumping the boiled LOX vapor isn't an environmental hazard since it's just oxygen.

They have similar issues with the liquid methane lines. The LCH4 boils in ambient temperature pipes as well. They can't release CH4 vapor both because of the flammability risk and because of no end of environmental regulations. So they cycle it back, recondense it, and return it to the storage tanks until the pipes are chilled down and the CH4 remains liquid.

(SpaceX photo)

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[Yazata]

Tony Bela's extraordinarily good infographic, explaining Flight 4's flight plan. (Zoom the image larger to read the captions.)

Chris Hadfield, Canada's musical astronaut, likes it

https://x.com/Cmdr_Hadfield/status/1795882032641282146

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[Yazata]

Today (Thorsday May 30) they installed the flight-termination charges. That surprises me a little, given that explosives installation is usually right before launch and we are still six days away from the planned launch date of June 5.

Emerging from the explosives storage bunker (a shipping container fronted by Hesco barriers). It's further away from the activities in the background than the photo makes it appear.

(photo by Mary/Bocachicagal)

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Installing the charges on the booster. Reportedly they have been installed on both ship and booster.

(photo by Starship Gazer)

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