BFR Developments

[Yazata]

There seem to be little things zipping around in the cargo bay .. probably not insects .. any ideas? Even entering the atmosphere at 20,000 kph there seem to be things drifting around quite slowly.

This?

https://x.com/INiallAnderson/status/1956398759988064640

That was Flight 9, the flight before this that lost attitude control in space and burned up on reentry.

I think that the consensus is that the white particulates floating around were methane ice/snow, caused by the leak in the fuel tank pressurization system diffuser that ultimately led to the loss of the mission.

I don't recall seeing similar things floating around in Flight 10 a couple of days ago.

[Yazata]

You may have noticed that the photo of S37 landing in the Indian Ocean was poor quality. Well, today SpaceX released high definition photos and video of the landing. Even drone video, since the buoy (literally an inflatable kiddie-pool turned raft) evidently launched a camera drone. (SpaceX has the best photography in the business.)

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1961165064666312956

And check this out (sound on!):

https://x.com/rawsalerts/status/1961169386477347122

There had been speculation that maybe 37 had lost its tiles and that the bare steel had turned orange from heat and oxidation. But looking closely at these very detailed photos shows that the tiles appear to all be intact. They are just discolored. I'm guessing that when they were heated by hot plasma some of the test tiles on this particular ship (SpaceX was trying out a variety of different tile types) gave off some colored vapor discharge that discolored tiles all around. If it's just superficial discoloration, it might not be a big deal at all.

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And this photo of the business end of the booster right after engine ignition with all 33 engines running. The holddown clamps appear to be retracted and the vehicle is free to fly and is no longer being supported by the launch mount.

There's been lots of talk about how did this camera survive the fires of hell. Apparently its a very robust professional camera inside a custom actively cooled protective enclosure, cooled by water or perhaps even liquid nitrogen. Again, the best photography in the business.

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Liftoff from a very unusual angle

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[Yazata]

Elon says

"Worth noting that the heat shield tiles almost entirely stayed attached, so the latest upgrades are looking good!

The red color is from some metallic test tiles that oxidized and the white is from insulation of areas where we deliberately removed tiles."

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1961217495383322755

SpaceX says

"Starship made it through reentry with intentionally missing tiles, completed maneuvers to intentionally stress its flaps, had visible damage to its aft skirt and flaps, and still executed a flip and landing burn that placed it approximately 3 meters from its targeted splashdown point."

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1961165064666312956

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Scott Manley thinks that this is the source of the orange discoloration. It appears to be a metallic test tile, perhaps a copper composite as hypothesized in the X post by ashtorak @StarbaseSim on the last page. (The color is right.) Note the intentionally missing tiles around it. It's located in the right spot too, at the top (towards the nose) point of the orange discoloration where the airflow could distribute vaporized material behind it on the heat shield.

(Photo by Jack Beyer of when Ship 37 rolled out to the pad)

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[Yazata]

Photo taken Thursday August 29 by Mauricio of RGV Aerial Photography

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[Yazata]

This is the Intro that SpaceX used for their Flight 10 livestream

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/9FeBmbgMZk8

[Yazata]

Zack Golden's excellent summary and analysis of Flight 10

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

[Yazata]

Good article by Oskar of the Ringwatchers about how the heat shield fared during Flight 10. He addresses the tile design and particularly their backing and gap filler. Then he discusses the experiments conducted with this flight including omitting gap filler in some places, intentionally omitting tiles in other locations, and the various experimental test tiles. Finally he discusses the very noticeable white and red discoloration on Ship 37.

The white was the result of heating the backing layer under the intentionally missing tiles. The ablative backing layer is black but turns white and powdery when heated to extreme temperatures. The red was similarly caused by metallic test tiles oxidizing in the hot plasma, leaving a residue on the rest of the heat shield.

All in all, the Ship survived reentry despite all the intentional test defects and despite an edgy reentry flight plan intended to stress the vehicle to its design limits. So the ship design appears to me to be pretty robust.

https://ringwatchers.com/article/s37-tps

[Yazata]

This morning they static fired Booster 15.2, the Flight 11 booster back for its second flight (it was already the Flight 8 booster, caught by the tower's loving arms while its second stage ship exploded over the Turks and Caicos).

This will be the last booster static fire on Pad 1, since Flight 11 will be the last version.2 booster flight. Starting with Flight 12 they will be moving on to version.3 boosters (and ships) that will be different in may ways and will only be compatible with the new Pad 2. Pad 2 is still being completed and the very first version.3 ships and boosters are still being assembled and structurally tested.

(SpaceX photo from the top of the tower.)

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[Yazata]

Lab's latest update video:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/N6DzsOMZJJU

[Yazata]

Around the time of Starship Flight 1 a group of environmental activists filed suit to shut down Starbase. Well, today a US District Court judge denied their motion and ruled in favor of the FAA and SpaceX.

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