BFR Developments

[Yazata]

Go for propellant load!

https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1RDGlydZAeOJL

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/QdGJ5p4PP1M

nsNS

---

Propellant loading is underway

T - 4 minutes - Go for launch

Good Liftoff! All 33 engines running.

Good stage separation

Good boostback burn

Tower catch waved off - going for landing in the Gulf instead

Booster landed in the water.

Ship accelerating to orbital velocity

Space Station crew say that they saw the launch from space, hopefully they got photos. (NASA astronaut Don Petit did get photos.)

Ship coasting, awaiting engine relight test

Engine in-space relight test good, awaiting atmospheric reentry

Reentry underway, approaching peak heating

Survived peak heating - flip-n-burn landing good in the Indian ocean

Bottom line: Everything seemed to go well, except the aborted tower catch

Video of booster landing in the Gulf:

https://x.com/SpaceNosey/status/1858996091557212193

Booster in the Gulf:

[Image: Gcx9RibbwAAznOz?format=jpg&name=small]

Video of ship landing from a buoy in the Indian ocean

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1859010620471079361

[C C]

Disappointing that they couldn't go for a booster catch. But finally a daylight view of the spacecraft landing in the water perfectly upright, and gently to boot. Maybe the larger version will get a "land" landing someday.

[Yazata]

Disappointing that they couldn't go for a booster catch. But finally a daylight view of the spacecraft landing in the water perfectly upright, and gently to boot. Maybe the larger version will get a "land" landing someday.

Without knowing why they chose not to attempt the catch-landing, all we can do is speculate. Given the success of Flight 5 and how well Booster 13 did today landing in the Gulf, I doubt very much whether there was any kind of hardware defect or design flaw. It might be something as simple as wind gusts being stronger than they liked. (They chose not to launch yesterday because of wind.) Hopefully SpaceX will tell us.

Meanwhile, here's a more complete video of Ship 31's flip-n-burn west of Australia.

https://x.com/LabPadre/status/1859018090996215937

Elon says that they will do one more ship landing in the ocean (that will be the first flight of a version.2 ship) then they will try a tower catch of the ship as well as the booster.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1859036912348262787

This was the last version.1 flight, and SpaceX says that not only did they remove 2,100 tiles along the sides of the ship, they were also using older generation tiles instead of their latest upgraded ones. And they were flying at a more aggressive angle of attack, designed to stress the flaps to their design limits. One of the big objectives of this test flight was to explore the outer limits of the ship's performance envelope to see what it is capable of.

And S31 just said "Hold my beer!"

[Image: GcyJT7SXcAABN2s?format=png&name=small]

[confused2]

...then they will try a tower catch of the ship as well as the booster.

I think that might be too much for me.

[Yazata]

Eric Berger is reporting that the FAA has issued their environmental assessment of a proposed 25 Starbase Starship launches per year (up from the current five authorized) and have no environmental objections.

This isn't the same thing as a launch license. Licenses involve evaluation of each flight's flight plan and the possible danger to life and property that it represents.

Eric says:

"In a draft version of what is known as an "Environmental Assessment," the FAA indicated that it will grant SpaceX permission to increase the number of Starship launches in South Texas to 25 per year from the current limit of five. Additionally, the company will likely be allowed to continue increasing the size and power of the Super Heavy booster stage and Starship upper stage...

The 158-page document makes for interesting reading, and it details the extent to which the FAA and other agencies reviewed air quality, climate, water, noise, cultural, wildlife, and other impacts. In all of these areas, the federal agency concluded that the mitigations SpaceX undertook as part of the 2022 environmental review process are sufficient to account for the increase in its Texas launch activities...

Additionally, SpaceX founder Elon Musk has said the company intends to move to a larger and more powerful version of the Starship and Super Heavy rocket about a year from now. This version, dubbed Starship 3, would double the thrust of the upper stage and increase the thrust of the booster stage from about 74 meganewtons to about 100 meganewtons. If that number seems a little abstract, another way to think about it is that Starship would have a thrust at liftoff three times as powerful as NASA's Saturn V rocket that launched humans to the Moon decades ago. The draft environmental assessment permits this as well."

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/11/sp...-launches/

[C C]

Eric Berger is reporting that the FAA has issued their environmental assessment of a proposed 25 Starbase Starship launches per year (up from the current five authorized) and have no environmental objections.

This isn't the same thing as a launch license. Licenses involve evaluation of each flight's flight plan and the possible danger to life and property that it represents.

Eric says:

"In a draft version of what is known as an "Environmental Assessment," the FAA indicated that it will grant SpaceX permission to increase the number of Starship launches in South Texas to 25 per year from the current limit of five. Additionally, the company will likely be allowed to continue increasing the size and power of the Super Heavy booster stage and Starship upper stage...

The 158-page document makes for interesting reading, and it details the extent to which the FAA and other agencies reviewed air quality, climate, water, noise, cultural, wildlife, and other impacts. In all of these areas, the federal agency concluded that the mitigations SpaceX undertook as part of the 2022 environmental review process are sufficient to account for the increase in its Texas launch activities...

Additionally, SpaceX founder Elon Musk has said the company intends to move to a larger and more powerful version of the Starship and Super Heavy rocket about a year from now. This version, dubbed Starship 3, would double the thrust of the upper stage and increase the thrust of the booster stage from about 74 meganewtons to about 100 meganewtons. If that number seems a little abstract, another way to think about it is that Starship would have a thrust at liftoff three times as powerful as NASA's Saturn V rocket that launched humans to the Moon decades ago. The draft environmental assessment permits this as well."

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/11/sp...-launches/

If a Biden or Harris administration was installed, there would be a long shadow looming over each of those 25 particular assessments of that general positive approval. Fortunately for Elon, it's Trump instead -- plus he's got the "Department of Government Efficiency" role, with Vivek Ramaswamy. That's also going to really assist in setting-up the latter as one of Trump's potential successors (barring a major controversy connected to that Dept, which the Dem opposition will traverse heaven and Earth to discover or help facilitate, and light a fuse to).

[Yazata]

SpaceX has revealed the reason why the Flight 6 tower catch didn't happen. It seems that the booster flight computer had lost communication with the tower. (They normally talk to each other during the catch.) SpaceX says that the catch would probably have worked anyway, but better not to risk it.

The space nerds aren't surprised, since they had spotted what appeared to be a damaged antenna atop the tower after launch. Apparently the antennas need some hardening. (Discovering these things is what test flights are for.)

SpaceX photos

Flight 6 stage separation

[Image: Gc8KuKaaAAALtmU?format=jpg&name=large]

Ascent

[Image: Gc8KFn1aAAUevz_?format=jpg&name=large]

View inside the cargo bay while in space, showing Starship's first payload, an extraordinarily brave banana! I believe that the metal truss structure is the "pez dispenser", that will hold a double stack of the new large sized high capacity Starlinks and spit them out in orbit on future flights.

[Image: Gcx-_2yWgAAmfFp?format=jpg&name=large]

[Yazata]

This was the last version.1 flight, and SpaceX says that not only did they remove 2,100 tiles along the sides of the ship, they were also using older generation tiles instead of their latest upgraded ones. And they were flying at a more aggressive angle of attack, designed to stress the flaps to their design limits. One of the big objectives of this test flight was to explore the outer limits of the ship's performance envelope to see what it is capable of.

And S31 just said "Hold my beer!"

Ship 31 was also the ship that suffered an electrical fire at the Masseys test site that earned it the nickname "Sparky".

And during reentry during Flight 6, the ship's steel hull was visibly softening due to high heat along the edge of the tiled area where the 2,100 tiles had been removed.

But Sparky perservered, and emerged triumphant! There's a lesson in that...

Sparky Strong!!

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

nsNS

[Yazata]

Rumors are going around that Flight 7 might happen on January 11, 2025.

The story is that NASA has requested permission from Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority to operate a NASA tracking aircraft from Perth Australia, starting January 3, with time for rehearsals prior to imaging Starship's reentry, peak heating and landing on January 11.

At this point it's still very unconfirmed.

---

OK, I found confirmation and it looks credible. (Actually, credit goes to Nasaspaceflight.com, which is where I got this.)

NASA has requested the FAA to issue a waiver to rules requiring commercial aircraft to fly at night with running lights lit. The purpose of flying without lights is to calibrate the sensitive imaging equipment that the plane carries. NASA says that they propose to do this calibration over the Gulf of Mexico and Southwest Texas in December, in preparation for deploying to Australia for Flight 7 scheduled for January 11.

[Image: GdMZoy2XMAA6iCo?format=jpg&name=large]

[Image: GdMZoy1XkAAkXFS?format=jpg&name=large]

https://airbornescience.nasa.gov/aircraf...am_V_-_JSC

[Yazata]

N95NA (callsign NASA-5), the NASA plane that will be observing the Flight 7 reentry over the Indian Ocean on January 11, 2025

[Image: GdMVu-CXgAAurky?format=jpg&name=medium]