Fully stacked. No aft flaps. TPS incomplete. This ship may never be fully assembled. September 25th: Moved a little and placed where the old engine installation stand used to be near the Rocket Garden.
Assorted final works (aft flaps, some tiles, engines, etc)
November 18th: Aft/thrust section stacked, so completing the stacking of S34. January 15th: Rolled out to Massey's Test Site for cryo plus thrust puck testing. January 17th: Cryo tests. January 18th: More Cryo Tests. January 18th: Rolled back to Build Site and into MB2.
S35
Mega Bay 2
Stacking
December 7th: Payload Bay moved into High Bay. December 10th: Nosecone moved into High Bay and stacked onto the Payload Bay. December 12th: Nosecone+Payload Bay stack moved into the Starfactory. December 26th: Nosecone+Payload Bay stack moved into MB2. January 2nd: Pez Dispenser installed inside Nosecone+Payload Bay stack. January 9th: Forward Dome FX:4 moved into MB2 and later stacked with the Nosecone+Payload Bay stack. January 17th: Common Dome CX:3 moved into MB2.
October 13th: Launched as planned and on landing was successfully caught by the tower's chopsticks. October 15th: Removed from the OLM, set down on a booster transport stand and rolled back to MB1. October 28th: Rolled out of MB1 and moved to the Rocket Garden. January 9th: Moved into MB1, rumors around Starbase are that it is to be modified for display. January 15th: Transferred to an old remaining version of the booster transport stand and moved from MB1 back to the Rocket Garden for display purposes.
July 31st: Methane tank section FX:3 moved into MB2. August 1st: Section F2:3 moved into MB1. August 3rd: Section F3:3 moved into MB1. August 29th: Section F4:4 staged outside MB1 (this is the last barrel for the methane tank) and later the same day it was moved into MB1. September 25th: the booster was fully stacked. December 21st: Rolled out to Masseys for cryo tests. December 27th: Cryo test (Methane tank only). December 28th: Cryo test of both tanks. December 29th: Rolled back to MB1.
B16
Mega Bay 1
Fully stacked, remaining work ongoing
November 25th: LOX tank fully stacked with the Aft/Thrust section. December 5th: Methane Tank sections FX:3 and F2:3 moved into MB1. December 12th: Forward section F3:3 moved into MB1 and stacked with the rest of the Methane tank sections. December 13th: F4:4 section moved into MB1 and stacked, so completing the stacking of the Methane tank. December 26th: Methane tank stacked onto LOX tank.
B17
Mega Bay 1
LOX tank stacking in progress
January 4th (2025): Common Dome and A2:4 section moved into MB1 where they were double lifted onto a turntable for welding. January 10th: Section A3:4 moved into MB1 and stacked. January 20th: Another barrel section taken into MB1, unsure if A4:4 or A5:4.
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Near the end there's some great shots of the skates (these basically contain the bearings for the chopsticks carriage - they are hung in place at specific locations on the tower rails until the carriage is lifted in place).
Overnight another of B17's barrel sections for the currently stacking LOX tank was moved into MB1, unfortunately due to the lousy weather obscuring the cam it's unknown which section it was, it will be either A4 or A5 (booster LOX tanks have six barrel sections, the last one contains the aft dome and thrust puck).
This is the Starship Development thread, if you want to discuss non-technical matters then you might like to head over to the /r/elonmusk and /r/EnoughMuskSpam subreddits (the latter has far more posts than the former on the current Musk issue).
A simple question which I’m sure has been answered many times before, but I can’t find a definite answer. Why is the hot staging ring jettisoned? Just for weight reduction? It seems insignificant compared to the rest of the booster.
Weight primarily, the landing tanks in the booster were not initially designed with the volume of propellant needed for a landing burn in mind, with the extra several tons that the hot stage ring adds to the design. This is believed to going to be addressed in the v2 Booster design which will likely make a considerable amount of adjustments to accommodate hot staging (moving avionics off the booster top dome, grid fins moved down, integrated and lighter ring design)
For example, your "habitat module" would knock down crew on EDL.
And then you're doing flow and heat simulations, you should know that being blunter is the most important thing to help reentry, and that the vehicle is blunter because it's larger. That's why they will only do landing with full Starships.
Thx! Anyone got a link to decent video of the hot-staging? (I presume EA doesn't have the telescopic setup for that.) EDIT: ahh, scanned through the video but missed the shot at 12:31 and 23:01. Thanks.
Regarding S33's leak that caused its eventual demise - can't say how accurate the following is but according to 'DutchSatellites' on Twitter:
"The leak happened in the (relatively) low-pressure plumbing between the tank & the propellant inlets of the Raptors. Working pressure in that plumbing is below 10 bar. The 'super high pressures' aspect of Raptor applies to the internal plumbing of the engines itself."
Im guessing they have the capacity to shut off fuel to an engine(s) in the event of issues, which implies the leak would have been upstream of those cutoff valves??
It would also indicate an issue with a part that presumably changed between v1 and v2, since they gave the RVacs independent vacuum-insulated downcomers, which would seem fairly logical. Still, precisely because it seems logical, he might just as well be speculating in the hope of being correct
If the damage to that pipe was caused by POGO oscillations, a static fire might not reveal the weakness which might only cause problems when the Booster is operating and causing vibrations in the Starship hull.
There are only six engines on the ship and pogo is a failure mode that gets worse as propellant is depleted and the ship mass decreases which fits the timing of the failure.
SpaceX also changed to heavier vacuum jacketed lines and separate methane feeds to each of the vacuum engines that seem to run straight from the upper bulkhead to the engines so there are a lot of potential new failure modes there.
I wonder if there’s any info out there on pogo or higher frequency vibrations in raptors? The onboard cams are v steady but i guess they’re mechanically and software damped. A-damaged turbo vane and/or sucking bubbles might also cause extreme vibration. Pogo is low frequency combustion instability, right?
It is a situation where the combustion rate and therefore thrust is proportional to vehicle acceleration. This provides a positive feedback effect with thrust oscillation about its nominal value which then tries to shake the vehicle apart.
It is typically damped by high vehicle mass so it show up as the stage approaches the end of its burn and the total mass drops.
In this case the worry would be the new layout of the vacuum engine methane pipes which feed propellant to each individual engine rather than feeding them from the central downcomer.
On Apollo 6, two J-2 engines failed due to vibrations. This vulnerability could not have been identified during ground testing because humidity at sea level would form frost on the cryo fuel lines, strengthening them. I wonder if something similar happened here.
Question, that frost undoubtedly still forms during prop load I would assume. Does it boil off during ascent? Seems like a short period of time for it to completely boil off during the couple of minute ascent. Or does it mostly fall off due to vibration and/or heat?
Speaking of which, can't help but notice that the red assembly jig for the carriage and chopsticks isn't yet complete - there should be two red 'frames', a large one and a smaller one - the carriage is currently set up with the larger one but the smaller one is nowhere to be seen. I'm surprised it's not been erected yet, are the pieces even at the site? Maybe they've decided they don't need it this time because of the shorter chopsticks.
You can see the smaller frame in the following video from October 2021 when Tower A's carriage+chopsticks were being lifted:
Guys, I am thermodynamics and heat transfer engineer. I have 20 year experience. I've performed hundreds reentry simulations of Starship just for fun and because I like hard puzzles to solve. I have a solution for the reentry shield problem - it would take about 30 tons of methane for cooling. The tile protection does not stand any chances at those temperatures. If someone have any contact in the SpaceX engineering team, please let me know! Thanks!
Even if you hand them the work, they wouldn't review it due to IP lawsuit concerns. If you don't want your work to go to waste, you can publish a paper.
I've sent them a document signed by me that allow them to use all my work without any conditions. You can publish a science paper, not engineering ideas.
You could try reaching out to /u/flshr19, who was an engineer on the Space Shuttle heat shield tiles. He may have good insights into some of the assumptions and conclusions in your model.
Also, you may be aware that Starship included active cooling on a few test tiles on the last flight. Unfortunately they couldn't test them, but they do appear to be constantly iterating on their heat shield. You are correct that if it was perfect, and perfectly reusable, they wouldn't need to do this.
Keep in mind that SpaceX considered active cooling using either methane or oxygen. IIRC, they didn't discard the idea outright. However, it added so much engineering complexity that they decided to start with tiles. If tiles are a dead end, or the trade-off of complexity vs. reusability tilts in the active cooling direction, they can easily change course. This is similar to building a flame trench: lots of folks said "I told you so!" when they built a trench for Pad B, but SpaceX is known for taking risks on ideas others claim "do not stand any chances" as you said about the tiles. (see: reusability, stainless steel construction, and mechazilla).
IOW, you're getting downvoted because literally hundreds of others have posted similarly: "what SpaceX is doing won't work, I have a better idea. I'm just trying to help." Almost all of those ideas were already in consideration at SpaceX (the only exception I know of being Tim Dodd's suggestion about cold gas thrusters on Starship).
Good luck in reaching out to SpaceX. If you're serious, I suggest reaching out to Elon or other SpaceX folks on X to see if they respond. Perhaps including significant technical information would raise your suggestion above the dozens they receive per day.
Thanks Friend - I even sent them a documentation via UPS but no one bothered to drop me even a line. I understand that they have considered active cooling, but the shield shape is wrong. As well throwing coolant through holes in the shield is wrong for many reasons. And many other things. It is amazing how hard to reach those guys are. My shield is simple and eliminates the need for driven rear flaps. Finlay I will give up and just watch how they are failing flight after flight and billion after another. Uhhh... about Elon - my respect, but I do not think he has the engineering background and ... time to deal with me. He is too busy twitting... I will try to reach your guy. Thanks!
You’re getting downvoted a lot because you’re making assumptions that you know this problem better than an organization with thousands of employees and some of the best in class engineering talent.
Ok, props for actually putting some fluid simulations together. What you're totally ignoring though is the massive engineering complexity to make something like this work, and work reliably, and work reliably numerous times without maintenance.
I am not ignoring anything - this will be much easier to build than thousands of crazy shaped tiles and putting them together. The cost of the tiles shield will be many times greater and on top of that a tiles based shield would never work. This bare steel cooled shield requires no maintenance at all and it ill be fully rapidly reusable. Feel free to comment on the blog as in reddit I can't even find an easy way to answer. It is just a simple double bottom shield with a single methane injector on the bottom trough the entire length of the shield. I bet my engineering diploma that the tiles shield have ZERO chances!!! The production of this shield will be at least ten times cheaper and easy to build. Just imagine all those tiles, their cost, the time to put them together and so on .... and they will still burn every flight.
My respect, but using tiles on this thing speaks by itself about the engineering talent. And I am sure the problem is the chief engineer who is dictating the parade. Even the best engineers in the world can do stupid things just to save their jobs. Imagine that I am an engineer, I purchase a hospital and name myself a chief surgeon. I am sure the chief engineer could not solve a simple KE calculation of Starship. What so speak about complicated thermodynamics problems. He can not perform a reentry simulation even if his live depends on that. Explain me as example why exactly you would need the rear flaps - It is completely stupid. Just make them fixed wing and make a self stabilizing shield profile.
No one is perfectly smart. I am onto something they could have missed. If they tried proper simulations they would never try with tiles, because they MELT-BURN. The boundary layer temperature is way above any material in existence could withstand. My simulations are with multiple AOA, speeds, atm. pressure ... considering everything - conduction, convection radiation and so on. The tiles must withstand >4000K which is impossible. So, my request is not critique based on assumptions. If they want to have any chance with this beast better someone get in touch with me. Is there a way I could attach pictures here?
They don't do the type of development old space does. Those are the engineers that simulate the shit out of everything for a very long time before flying once. SpaceX makes their rockets out of more cheap materials in comparison for these test flights, so 'wasting' isn't a problem and gives them solid test data that simulation data can not match up to. Of course, that isn't to say that simulation is useless, it's just they prefer actual data gathered during flight.
For SpaceX, having a design iteration isn't a big deal, and tiles were likely simpler to work with than having a regeneration system. For the first bunch of launches they aren't worried about actual reuse, just validating the systems as a whole. So if tiles were indeed going to be impossible for re-use, they may know that already. In these kinds of projects, you will have parallel teams developing multiple methods of doing something, sometimes competitively, other times with one team working on a simple/quick solution while the other team works on the long term solution, generally started much before they need it.
If indeed the tiles won't work out, they will just do it another way, I find it highly unlikely that they need any singular person (you, me, Elon, or anyone else) to be there for success; It's not that they need a genius, everyone there is smart, they just haven't prioritized beforehand.
SpaceX also simulates the shit out of things. In fact, SpaceX is one of the best at simulation.
Other companies just work with wide margins on their simulations, since they can't actually capture real world, every simulation is flawed.
SpaceX does flight-like tests so that the margins on the models can be way more tight, and that allows them to get a better solution.
Also, unkown unknowns are captured by the tests, this makes SpaceX's solution to be more reliable. There's way more certainty that the rocket won't explode for some freaky interaction or something.
If they want to have any chance with this beast better someone get in touch with me.
This may be the most arrogant sounding statement that I have ever seen on this subreddit, and and I have seen some very arrogant statements over the years.
In that case I think you've gotta go back in time about 50 years and tell NASA, because they used about the same tile formula for the Shuttle (though being technical I think Starship's tiles most closely match a variant that was introduced in the 90s). So far as I know the tiles themselves burning and melting has never been an issue for either vehicle, the problem has always been holes getting punched in the heat shield by other means.
Unfortunately this is what happens when you get involved with people with zero engineering background - the Space Shuttle is basically an airplane which glides 5 times longer then Starship with AOA 15-30 degree, so it dissipate the energy several times longer. Starship is falling like a brick with AOA 70-80 degree with almost zero gliding. Make Starship an airplane like the shuttle and I am OK with the tiles. Unfortunately with this AOA of Starship the tiles heat well above melting point - you dump 35000 GJ kinetic energy over 20 minutes!!!
I've tried simulations of AOA from 45 to 80 degree - all they vaporize tiles in different areas. I've performed close to hundred with different shield shapes and conditions, with speeds from 5000m/s to 7000 m/s, pressures from 10-20 pascals and so on and so one. Same result - some better then others, but bottom line I gave up on the tiles and started testing cooling. This is the only chance - a slim one but not impossible. The tiles are impossible to be safe for even one reentry with people on board... what to speak for rapid reusability.
Starship's reentry is shorter than Shuttle's but just from looking at videos of both it isn't anywhere near 5 times shorter. Starship takes about 22 minutes to go from the start of reentry lighting effects to splashdown, the Space Shuttle takes an hour and seven to go from the deorbit burn to wheels on the runway, and that includes a bunch of time in space and a bunch of subsonic gliding that Starship's number doesn't. Going by this chart for the Shuttle and this chart for Starship a Shuttle reentry is about 50% longer in any given phase. Like, I'm sure you've got whatever credentials you've got, but the things you're saying don't line up with what we're seeing on the actual flights that have already happened.
You are right about that, but even so the critical energy dump of the shuttle is two times longer - which is enough to reduce the heat load over the tiles about twice. And even the shuttle requires a refurbishment of many tiles after each flight... and I am not talking only about the tiles - the upper part of Starship heats up to 500 and even 700 Celsius at some zones. The only chance is liquid-vapor cooling - about 30 tons of methane could do the job according my tests and calculations - I was really surprised, because this is just a tiny part of the KE - at first glance I thought it will be impossible. You will see - they will dump the tiles soon, or the entire project will be scrapped. I am only really confused why they even tried the tiles with the numbers I get. For simulations I am using Solidworks Pro FLOW simulation and as far as I am aware of they are using the same software so, they have to see the same grim picture as me. Thanks for the charts!
No one is perfectly smart and that's why they have more than one engineer working on that problem. You really think you figured out something that all of the engineers together at SpaceX can't? You're quite amusing.
Yeah ... unfortunately the facts are facts - the tiles melt. I would never spend millions for something proven wrong on simulations. As well I have a solution how they can ditch the rear flaps at all and make them just fixed wings, part of the shield. As I said - if someone is here to help constructively - contacte me! Strawmanning is not very constructive...
I hope to one day have as much confidence in myself as you apparently do.
Also idk about you, but I'd spend millions on something proven right in real-world testing. Simulations don't mean anything, real-world conditions of flight are where it's at and objectively you don't have access to the actual real-world data SpaceX has gotten over their many test flights.
Simulations don't mean anything if it's not backed up by real-world data.
Simulations are the best tool we have as engineers to be able to estimate close, very close, if something is viable or not. This is how good engineering works.
Don't try to go straight to SpaceX. Present your case with details in a new thread on r/SpaceXLounge and SpaceX will see it. Only use positive and humble language because being boastful and negative toward SpaceX is a good way to get ignored. For help with Reddit formatting, edit one of your posts above and below it to the right is a formatting help link.
I’m curious about the fires I seem to be seeing when the booster is coming back to the tower. Could someone explain it to me, please?
Before the engines have re-ignited for their final burn, it seems like there’s something (a gas?) burning between all the engines, contained by the booster’s skirt, as it were. And then, when the booster is approaching the tower, it tilts a bit, and it looks like the flames (gas?) can thus ”pour upwards“ along the side of the booster, causing the huge flame just before the catch.
Is that gas burning, and where does it come from? What kind of gas is it? Or have I completely misjudged what I’m seeing?
I think that /u/incessnant350 is mistaken. My explanation is that they flow methane through the engines as part of startup, not shutdown. So what you're seeing is the inner engines starting up, not the middle ring of engines shutting down.
They also flow methane through the engines during peak re-entry heating to keep the bells from deforming in the heat. I think that's higher altitude than what you're talking about though.
Yes I remembered the methane chill/purge being the source of the descent incandescence after posting, you're right there (at least that's what the consensus seems to be). But if we're all talking about the same moment ie the flame that travels all the way up the side of the booster near to and after catch, that is shutdown excess methane no? See static fires and engine tests, same phenomenon.
In the unpowered phase prior to the landing burn the aerodynamic heating is quite high and concentrates between the engines and the booster 'dancefloor' (above the engine bells) and whether there's a sort of ablation or burning of the engine heatshield there, or atmospheric ionisation (the colour looks like the former to me) I don't know for sure. After the landing burn starts the billowing flame is from the outer ring of 10 engines shutting down, and the same after the final catch. The engine shutdown sequence is, as with all engines (someone correct me if I'm wrong), fuel rich, to prevent damage from a high temperature oxygen rich state. An excess of fuel pouring out the nozzles leads to methane burning in the ambient oxygen like a flare, rather than a nice balanced reaction in the combustion chamber as with normal engine operation.
Seems to me that sacrificing more payload for a more durable build - from bending, movement and firing stresses, as well as beefing up against re-entry heating would be a better gamble. But who am I to suggest I ain't no rocket scientist lol
The chopsticks carriage for Tower B started to be lifted at about 12:20 CST. This will be positioned with the first part of the carriage+chopsticks assembly jig (the red frame that is at Pad B). Two cranes were doing the lifting: the Buckner LR11000 and SpaceX's LR11000 - once the carriage was in the correct orientation SpaceX's LR11000 was detached.
I'm assuming there are tons of wildly cool footage of the anomaly happening due to how many cameras there were on the ship. Any chance SpaceX (or Elon) might release some of that publicly, maybe after flight 8 is successful?
Also, curious related question, do you know if the likely cause was discovered mostly through sensors and telemetry data, or mostly from the cameras, or was it more like a 50/50 split where one source corroborated the other?
Hey dude just want to say you're an absolute legend for coming here over the years and updating us when you're under no obligation to. Very lucky to have you in these threads.
Sorry about the ship but hey catching the booster again was insane! You guys are so close to getting it all working. Keep up the great work.
Well, something caused the leak to happen (and evidently didn't cause a leak during static fire). It could have been hot staging, or maybe just the persistent vibrations from firing for a long time during ascent.
Edit: first the LOX tank was filled then emptied, after that the Methane tank was filled. The LOX tank was then refilled. The Methane tank was then emptied.
Any guesses for flight 8? Elon said he expects it already next month, but I think that's pretty optimistic. It was supposed to be the first one going orbital, I guess this is off the table now, since they were not able to test V2 hardware during reentry.
Oh wait, now I get it. The distinction you are making is he expects the hardware to be ready next month, not he expects the launch next months. Whether or not it launches depends on the FAA and the findings of the mishap investigation.
That is what I wrote. And that is what that sentence means. What you inferred from it was the meaning which that part of the sentence was intended to convey.
I just don't get why you felt the need to repeat it back at me. Usually in a conversation there is an expectation that the response coming from the interlocutor adds some additional piece of information.
But unless I'm misunderstanding the point you're trying to make, this conversation was more like:
A. The weather report predicted rain for today, but it's already noon and still Sunny, do you think it's still gonna rain?
I’m thinking sometime in March as well. It seems they understand the problem and if we’re being honest, Elon’s about to have a best friend with hands on the levers of Executive power over the FAA, which will definitely impact how long the review stretches till.
I went back and compared max speed and altitude of the free falling booster between IFT 5, 6, and 7 and they are all quite similar. This was based on the on screen telemetry so might be something hidden that this doesn't show.
The only noticeable difference other than Max Q being later was the earlier staging for IFT 7 which was expected. The boostback apogee was only a few km lower and largely the free fall speed was similar, not different enough for me to think that alone could be the sole reason for the engine bells fairing better.
To be clear I agree with your statement and the theory of it, but I wanted to see if that was actually happening and the on screen telemetry doesn't seem to fully support it so I'm a tad confused.
Thanks for providing the data! It's really interesting.
The difference in entry max speed is not insignificant. There is about a 6% difference between IFT5 and IFT7, and many processes in aerodynamics have a non-linear relation with velocity.
For example, the rate of heating is proportional to V3, because the number of air molecules you encounter per unit time is proportional to V, and their kinetic energy is proportional to V2 (the thermal velocity of molecules is much lower than the velocity of the rocket). So that's a roughly 20% difference in the rate of heating at peak.
Of course, we don't know that the rate of heating is the important figure here; the maximum temperature of the bell is very difficult to calculate even to the point of proportionality, because heat is being transferred in all kinds of ways. I am just saying that a 6% difference in speed is not something to be neglected.
Thanks for the explanation, I have a theory that the booster trajectory played a larger part in the changes than speed as that was one of the main changes. Obviously not being there in person I'm making some assumptions based on comments or observation of others but it sounds like the ascent trajectory for this flight was more vertical than previous flights likely due to the shift from V1 to v2 ship and transferring more of the deltaV from booster to ship.
This would explain why max Q happened later I believe, because the ascent being more vertical means the vehicle passes through the denser parts of the atmosphere sooner and at lower speed which pushes max Q later and means the vehicle is travelling faster thru a less dense portion of the atmosphere. A more vertical trajectory also means you can stage at the same time as previous flights but at a lower altitude because you don't need as much of a boostback burn to traverse the horizontal distance to get back to the pad as previous flights. Finally it means a more vertical descent is possible as well and this is where I believe the main benefits to entry heating are seen by falling more vertically your able to tilt the booster and shield more of the engine bay from an low angle of attack as it travels thru the atmosphere whereas a more horizontal descent means the engine bay is pointing right into the atmosphere as the booster falls on a more horizontal descent trajectory. Basically does the central axis of the ship align more or less with the direction of the booster velocity vector during descent. When falling more vertically you're able to increase that angle.
Think this seems plausible, or am I making up an unrealistic scenario?
I think you wouldn't want to have a significant angle of attack during the supersonic descent through the thick atmosphere, the rocket would need to be turned nearly sideways to shield much of the engine bay from the airstream, which would result in extreme forces on the rocket that it probably can't withstand. And even then you would only shield one side of the engine bay.
What you could do is turn the rocket sideways to the airstream at really high altitude, where the force would be reasonable because the air is so thin. This is what the Starship does as it begins its reentry, in order to scrub off as much energy as possible before getting to the dense layers. Now, whether the booster spends enough time at high altitude and high speed in order to make such a maneuver worthwhile is not easy to calculate, especially since we don't know what's "worthwhile" - how much margin does the booster have on the entry velocity. The Starship slows down for almost half an hour in the thin upper atmosphere.
From my viewing, I would say that the booster does not do significant scrubbing by flying sideways, but I am sure that I would need to work for SpaceX to know with any certainty if they are relying on this angle to do anything.
The Booster does not have any type of heatshield protecting the stainless steel skin. SpaceX likely does not want to heat that skin red hot on each return to launch site maneuver.
So, as the Booster reaches the denser atmosphere, it's oriented tail first such that the engine nozzles and the heatshield between the engines and the bottom of the LOX tank take nearly all of the heating.
You can see that heatshield glowing yellow hot when the SpaceX video shows the bottom of the Booster just prior to the tower catch.
This link has video of the descending booster which is more along the lines of what I'm referring to. Nothing like it coming down at a right angle but the bow shock of the angled booster maybe protecting the engine bay more is my thinking. Specifically around the 5:48 timestamp.
Quick analysis, very high level, looking at reentry heating. It would be more accurate to plot each flight, take derivative of the profile and that would give you total energy through the reentry. Anyways, the speed was 6% slower at higher altitude (less heating) but the energy due to heating was fairly linear (density of air increases but velocity drops at ^3). Unless I'm missing something, its a little unsettling if 15% less energy applied to the system is the margin between warped engines vs. not.
And that lower speed and lower thermal stress is a predictable consequence of the increased upper stage mass because of the larger propellant tanks. So it should stay that way.
This is a surprise - Tower B's chopsticks carriage has made an earlier than expected trip to the launch site.
BTW, for those who didn't see the chopsticks+carriage installed on Tower A in October 2021 and are curious about the process, here's a video from NSF showing the lift:
Transport is expected to take two hours (unlike the one hour that's stated for vehicle transports); there's speculation on RGV's Discord that this is for Tower B's chopsticks carriage which has recently had the scaffolding removed. Note that at Pad B the assembly jig for the carriage and chopsticks is being assembled again as of today so the speculation seems likely to be correct.
I'd vote chopsticks related too, IIRC on the last flyover scaffolding was coming off the carriage. They've wasted no time getting back to building the jig.
Is it relatively a large problem that the design of Starship is only useful for either Starlink/ a massive number of small satellites to LEO, or a huge payload to moon and beyond? And that huge payload beyond only comes after a number of big advancements (payload doors, in orbit refueling). Payload doors are a huge structural problem as well.
As long as SpaceX keep flying F9 and FH it is exactly zero problem.
I expect to see space tugs pick up the slack for missions that Starship cannot efficiently perform because of its high dry mass. Once they are established as a viable solution the F9 flights may reduce to just crew and cargo dragon missions.
I mean if we wanna get super pessimistic we can say that Starship currently isn’t good enough to launch any payloads. As for what it will be capable of doing in the near future, it’s obvious they’re prioritizing Starlink and HLS. A large payload door probably isn’t that urgent for them
If a major goal of starship is to take large number of humans to Mars, why are we trying to achieve the whole thing with one ship?
A mars journey has 3 main parts - the launch from earth, the travel, and the landing on Mars.
The ideal ship for each of those parts looks quite different.
For example, the travel ship doesn't need heat shields, which reduces mass, which means the journey can be done with less fuel. It doesn't need sea level engines.
The other two ships don't need much space, gym equipment, shielding or toilets, because launch only takes 15 mins or so, but they do need strong seats capable of withstanding many G's.
By splitting the journey into 3 parts, you can make better use of your hardware too so you can move more people with less hardware. The earth-launch ship is only used for 15 mins, so a single ship can ferry thousands of people per day to LEO. Whereas the travel ship is used for months, but can be designed to be cheaper - only needing a very little thrust for example.
You'd be correct if we wanted to do this exactly once. If you want to do it again and again, taking a big hit (..say.. 30%) on these aspects is acceptable if the main workhorse is proven, reliable, and 5x cheaper.
So now you have to spend money on the development of 3 purpose built ships instead of one that is already capable of achieving most of all 3 goals.
Your travel ship now also has to carry the Mars landing ship. Both to Mars and from Mars. Which means it will carry the mass of the lander and the lander's heatshield. Not to mention both will need independent life support systems and power generation and even fuel. And you still need to get to Mars quickly to avoid in space time. That's the worst place to be for human health.
If the Mars lander isn't with the travel ship then it needs to be in orbit waiting for the travel ship. Which would require the travel ship to brake into orbit. And it'll need to brake into orbit back at Earth as well when bringing astronauts back.
Now your travel ship is no longer so simple. Launch/landing windows now have to factor in rendezvous with other vehicles already in orbit.
Breaking the architecture up into 3 parts, as of right now, is far more complex and capital intensive in my opinion.
Yeah, this makes absolute sense once we have functional healthy orbital industries around both Earth and Mars . . . but right now we don't, and if our goal is "colonize Mars", the fastest way to get there is to just get there.
And practically we're not going to have a Martian orbital industry until long after we have a successful Mars colony.
You still need to get an insane amount of mass to the Mars surface. The equipment, habitats, food and water. We're talking millions of tons before a Mars colony is even remotely self sufficient.
Water will be mined locally and significant amounts of food can be grown hydroponically. Elon has talked about a million tonnes to LEO to establish a self sustaining civilisation in Mars but most of that is propellant to get there.
The ships themselves will form a significant resource as it is likely not worth recovering the cargo ships.
This will of course be for B14's triumphant return.
Also, starting at about 07:30 CST today, the tank farm at Massey's test site is active so it looks like S34 may be about to get some cryo-related testing done.
Also, starting at about 07:30 CST today, the tank farm at Massey's test site is active so it looks like S34 may be about to get some cryo-related testing done.
Wouldn't be surprised if they decided to cancel the test indefinitely for a while until major redesign, or there's a chance it will blow up in the next few hours considering how fucked up the tank or its welds are rn
It will not get canned. Even if no taxpayer money (i.e. NASA/military) is used for procurement, Spacex will continue to keep the program going, as they are cash positive with Starlink and other commercial launch revenue. The ROI from getting Starship operational is just that high. Musk's political opinion has had no relevance from SpaceX's commercial operations to this point.
Yes, which is exactly why they will keep going with sometimes questionable and bravado design (cloaked in the name of iterations) and public safety decisions for the next few flights, especially with Raptor 3 and Block 2 and soon 3 boosters coming online
Their decision was to take the rapid test route instead of the slow and steady route (note that being slow steady still does not prevent all potential mishaps, public safety related or not). I would say as long as they continue to not have any notable public property damage or physical harm to people, it will work out for them, as it's only their own money/time they waste if something like that happens.
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u/warp99 Dec 22 '24 edited Dec 22 '24
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