Update on SpaceX’s work leading to next Starship/Superheavy test launch
Link here. A static fire engine test program has begun for Starship prototype #25, which will fly on top of a Superheavy prototype. Also, work on the launchpad, badly damaged by the first test flight in April, has proceeded quickly.
During the first integrated test flight of Starship, Super Heavy Booster 7’s 30 working engines dug a sizable hole under the OLM [Orbital Launch Mount] during liftoff. The first images of it pictured a dramatic scene and pointed at some tough repair work ahead for SpaceX teams. Over the last two months, the hole was covered and reinforcements have been installed deep into the ground to strengthen the soil.
More recently, teams have been installing several tons of rebar underneath the OLM. While some rebar remains to be installed, as seen from aerial pictures captured by NSF, this work is expected to be finished soon and should be followed by a convoy of concrete trucks to fill up the pit. SpaceX will then install water-cooled steel plates over this concrete which will help support them and serve as an anchor for them.
The update also describes the numerous additional prototypes SpaceX is building at Boca Chica for further flight tests. It also notes this disturbing fact about the company’s planned Starship/Superheavy launch facility in Florida:
Work on the second set of tower sections, chopsticks, carriage system, and QD arm at SpaceX’s Roberts Road facility has come to a halt. Contractor equipment has visibly disappeared and other construction equipment has been removed. The Florida Mega Bay parts have also made their way to Starbase, becoming the second Mega Bay at the Texas facility. The two big cranes that were previously at Roberts Road were also moved to Starbase to aid in the construction of that new Mega Bay.
On top of this, SpaceX has changed the use of the building previously thought to be the factory for Starship sections. This facility is now being used to process Starlink payload integration with Falcon 9’s fairings.
This slow down is probably because NASA has forbidden Starship/Superheavy launches from this launchpad because it is near the launchpad SpaceX uses for NASA’s manned missions. The agency wants SpaceX to be able to launch Dragon from its other more distant pad, and that work needs to be completed first before the Starship/Superheavy pad can be used.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Link here. A static fire engine test program has begun for Starship prototype #25, which will fly on top of a Superheavy prototype. Also, work on the launchpad, badly damaged by the first test flight in April, has proceeded quickly.
During the first integrated test flight of Starship, Super Heavy Booster 7’s 30 working engines dug a sizable hole under the OLM [Orbital Launch Mount] during liftoff. The first images of it pictured a dramatic scene and pointed at some tough repair work ahead for SpaceX teams. Over the last two months, the hole was covered and reinforcements have been installed deep into the ground to strengthen the soil.
More recently, teams have been installing several tons of rebar underneath the OLM. While some rebar remains to be installed, as seen from aerial pictures captured by NSF, this work is expected to be finished soon and should be followed by a convoy of concrete trucks to fill up the pit. SpaceX will then install water-cooled steel plates over this concrete which will help support them and serve as an anchor for them.
The update also describes the numerous additional prototypes SpaceX is building at Boca Chica for further flight tests. It also notes this disturbing fact about the company’s planned Starship/Superheavy launch facility in Florida:
Work on the second set of tower sections, chopsticks, carriage system, and QD arm at SpaceX’s Roberts Road facility has come to a halt. Contractor equipment has visibly disappeared and other construction equipment has been removed. The Florida Mega Bay parts have also made their way to Starbase, becoming the second Mega Bay at the Texas facility. The two big cranes that were previously at Roberts Road were also moved to Starbase to aid in the construction of that new Mega Bay.
On top of this, SpaceX has changed the use of the building previously thought to be the factory for Starship sections. This facility is now being used to process Starlink payload integration with Falcon 9’s fairings.
This slow down is probably because NASA has forbidden Starship/Superheavy launches from this launchpad because it is near the launchpad SpaceX uses for NASA’s manned missions. The agency wants SpaceX to be able to launch Dragon from its other more distant pad, and that work needs to be completed first before the Starship/Superheavy pad can be used.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Hasn’t SpaceX heard of the saying about the source of value: “Location, location, and location!”? Locating stuff too close together seems to be a common flaw in their plans!
And the time to switch the TEL from standard fairing to Dragon and back, plus the time to switch the launch table partof the TEL from F9 to FH is killing thier launch rate out of LC-39A!!
They launched three times (one more tomorrow) from SLC-40, twice from Vandy, and only once from LC-39A. Had LC39A Performed like SLC-40 then the 100 launches a year could be in the cards.
(And ya, the ASDS availability is the other major limiting factor)
“(And ya, the ASDS availability is the other major limiting factor)”
Perhaps not as much as one might think however, since any Starlink launch can be converted from an ASDS recovery to RTLS with a moderate reduction in payload “headcount”. Not ideal, but perhaps an acceptable alternative?
geoffc and RayVan Dune: Look, I am I think reasonably educated on the subject of commercial space, but even I can’t decipher all of your acronyms. If you must use them (something you should try to avoid), it is proper editing to always give the full term the first time used, every time. (Have you noticed how in my cool image posts I always, always, spell out Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and add (MRO) afterward.)
RTLS – Return To Launch Site recovery
I’ll leave the rest to geoffc.
I found drone ship (ASDS) here https://spacexfleet.com/booster-recovery/
Extra work to see if that is what SpaceX engineers actually call ot.
Hot staging now…some have suggested tiles atop SuperHeavy’s dome?
Although Jeff Wright is once again unclear as to what he means, It seems to me that he believes that Starship’s stage separation is to be performed similar to the technique that many Russian rockets use to separate stages. The Russians often ignite the upper stage while the lower stage is still undergoing thrust, because this prevents the propellants in the upper stage from forming bubbles near the plumbing connections to the pumps and engines. Bubbles in the lines can cause serious trouble and damage. Because the upper stage ignites before separation, the Russians have an open interstage on these parts of their rockets, which can be seen as a framework rather than an enclosed interstage.
Almost all American launch vehicles shut down their lower stage before stage separation, forcing the use of reaction control systems or small solid ullage motors to settle the propellants to the bottom of their tanks before igniting the upper stage’s engines.
Jeff is certainly referencing this decision by SpaceX to use the Russian model of stage separation:
https://spacenews.com/spacex-changing-starship-stage-separation-ahead-of-next-launch/
Although I don’t know whether anything in the following video is correct, it seems consistent with what the SpaceX announcers said when they thought Starship was about to perform its staging procedure, so it may be the method they would have tried during the April flight test:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yesni8HUEA4 (11 minutes, “Starship’s innovative stage separation”)
For those who still don’t understand the difference between development test flights and certification flights, an excellent indicator of the difference is the number of design, methodology, and technique changes that are made between tests:
https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/06/spacex-making-more-than-1000-changes-to-next-starship-rocket/