Update on the technical progress at Boca Chica, preparing for the next Starship/Superheavy orbital test
Link here. Lots of progress had been made in getting the pad and the rocket ready for that next orbital test flight, with the first static fires tests of Superheavy using the launchpad’s new water deluge system are now expected in the coming week.
The company is also preparing additional prototypes of Superheavy and Starship for later orbital tests. even as it upgrades the assembly facilities, replacing temporary tents with actual buildings. More details, including videos, at the link.
Meanwhile, the only word from the FAA about SpaceX’s application for a launch permit has been a warning that it will not issue that permit until it is good and ready, suggesting the company should not expect to launch in August, as I have been predicting for months.
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Link here. Lots of progress had been made in getting the pad and the rocket ready for that next orbital test flight, with the first static fires tests of Superheavy using the launchpad’s new water deluge system are now expected in the coming week.
The company is also preparing additional prototypes of Superheavy and Starship for later orbital tests. even as it upgrades the assembly facilities, replacing temporary tents with actual buildings. More details, including videos, at the link.
Meanwhile, the only word from the FAA about SpaceX’s application for a launch permit has been a warning that it will not issue that permit until it is good and ready, suggesting the company should not expect to launch in August, as I have been predicting for months.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
My prediction last winter was that Starship would fly in May and dispense a few Starlinks before losing the upper stage on reentry. I was wrong on both counts. The after seeing the Pad damage I predicted return to flight in late June or early July. I was basing that on concrete construction techniques. Wrong again Maybe I’ll quit predicting.
John Hare: SpaceX never claimed it would be ready to fly again in June or July. When Musk finally hinted at a target schedule, he said August, based on the engineering and technical work that needed to be done.
None of that really matters, as the real obstacle to launch remains the oppressive federal bureaucracy.
This was in April that I predicted. Wasn’t basing it on anything SpaceX had said to that point. I was going by the time I thought it would take to work on the pad. My assumption was that the next booster and ship were ready to go. My prediction, not theirs
I was berated by an “experienced civil engineer and expert on concrete” for my ignorance online for stating I believed that the pad would be ready by the end of summer the way Musk predicted, “It would never cure that quickly” I was just a fan boi and member of “the Musk Cult” ( like the way the Left calls anything they don’t like a cult). Some expert. I wouldn’t buy an outhouse he designed.
Truth be told the FAA does have some legitimate concerns that need addressing before the next launch, primary among these being robust proof that the flight termination system has been improved and will with as much certainty as is possible Immediately destroy an out of control vehicle. Just think if there had been a control issue early in the first flight, like right off the pad, and flight termination had taken a full minute to actually work? Would that delay have happened with a near fully fueled vehicle? Probably not. But this IS a legitimate point to press on as at launch Starship is a 5000 ton bomb.
Beyond that Elon always sets aggressive schedules, and to be honest I am duly impressed with how quickly the Stage 0 re-engineering has come together. However, he also just threw Hot Staging into the mix and we only see the first physical test articles for structural validation just this past week. This is the real long pole in the tent I expect, and gates the Next Launch window out into October to November IMHO. I could be wrong and would be glad to see it earlier, but this is a non-trivial change that involves a lot of new uhgknowns to work through.
All that said I will guess Q4 CY2023 and believe a more specific date is to infer precision that is simply not possible given all of the variables and uncertainty in play.
MDN: I had a thought while reading your post. I suspect Musk added Hot Staging because he recognized that the FAA was going to stall him. Why not make some other improvements while he waited? This supposition fits the pattern SpaceX has followed in the past two years, since the Biden administration took over and test flights became difficult to get approved.
Robert and MDN – 3 things.
First, from a Texas perspective 400+ miles from the launch pad. The latest kefuffle that SpaceX has in Boca Chica involves their deluge test. They apparently have run afoul of Federal and Texas run off control regulations in their test.
Much shouting by Federal EPA appointees in the Southwest about “dangerous uncontrolled run-off” impacting local wetlands and “Actions to be taken!!” Texas regulators (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TECQ)) are more circumspect saying that regulations appeared to be violated but doubting much damage to environment occurred and that mitigation can be put in place relatively easily. Watch this kerfuffle for more delays at Boca Chica involving more concrete pouring and pipe / catch tank installation.
Secondly to MDN comments about Starship being a 5,000 ton bomb.
I am not a propulsion or explosives engineer, although I led aerospace teams in government and industry that had them on the team. The statement that a fueled rocket is the equivalent to a bomb of the same weight is often made and is not correct. That is not to say that they are not destructive. The following link gives you a qualitative response to MDN statement based on studies NASA did in preparation for Saturn 5 launches.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/591/1
Bottom line on this issue: More likely that Starship stack yields about a tenth of that “bomb capability” or about 550 tons. Not to be trifled with but much, much less than a 5,000 ton bomb. Musk has enough on his plate without coming up with non-existent problems.
Thirdly to Roberts comment about hot staging. A point that I never considered. Lots of ground testing could be done while waiting for all the strap hanger kerfuffles to be resolved and could still get real progress made. Key to our initial space future is efficiently maximizing mass to LEO.
Thanks
Doubting Thomas
** Analysis to support yield conclusions follow for those inclined. **
Key points: 1) Fully fueled S5 weighed 5.5 million pounds; 2) Equivalent Starship 11 million pounds (about double).
Study referenced at link concluded following:
1) Based on existing data, the study’s authors felt that it was unlikely that all of the fuel in the Saturn 5 would be consumed in an explosion. In previous on-pad explosions of other liquid-fueled rockets such as the Atlas and Titan, significant amounts of fuel fell to the ground and burned long after the initial explosion.
2) Due to this, the study’s authors suggested that the likely yield of a S5 explosion was probably only around 400 tons (800,000 pounds). Rocco Petrone, the Saturn launch director, estimated that the real figure was more likely to be 300–400 tons. This is a ratio of 11% to 15%.
3) Therefore by simple ratio analysis, Starship equivalent would be about same giving a yield equivalent of 550 to 750 tons or 1.2 to 1.6 million pounds of TNT.
Doubting Thomas: My thought stems from Musk’s track record. He does not like to sit on his hands. If someone else is delaying him in one area, he always appears to find real work that can be done in the interim in other areas.
Doubting Thomas’s analysis still seems excessive, to me. Keep in mind that a Falcon 9 is 1.2 million pounds, or 0.6 kilotons. Nuclear bombs are measured in kilotons, so a falcon 9 would be falsely compared to a small nuke, but the explosion that we saw seven or eight years ago was much, much smaller. Much smaller. The damage was nothing, compared to what a small nuke would have done to the pad and surrounding swampland.
Doubting Thomas mentioned that some people are concerned that SpaceX added some water to the surrounding swamp. I would be concerned about that, too, except that wet is the natural state of many swamps (not the DC swamp, for example). It seems that those who are concerned with this water in the swamp are unaware of the natural state — and they may be the same ones who complain when someone wants to drain the swamp. Water or no water, they are so hard to please.
I concur with Bob’s conjecture wrt why Elon may have added in hot staging. The same thought crossed my mind. WRT my “bomb” analogy I was not trying to equate Starship in formal explosive units, simply noting that it weighs in at 5000 tons and that is 90%+ volatile fuel and oxidizer that would make a spectacular boom. And as such maximum assurance that the flight termination system is 100% up to its task is quite warranted. The Starbase is only 2 miles from the launch pad after all, so in an early flight emergency any delay between a flight termination command and the system actually effecting that result is quite important.
MDN wrote: “Just think if there had been a control issue early in the first flight, like right off the pad, and flight termination had taken a full minute to actually work? Would that delay have happened with a near fully fueled vehicle? Probably not.”
I have a different take on this. The upper stage, Starship, also took forty seconds or so to rapidly disassemble itself. Venting had been seen at locations where the termination system should have worked, so it is thought that the tanks had been breached but that they didn’t ignite until much later. Although Super Heavy was mostly empty, Starship was still full, yet it didn’t explode right away, either but took just as long as the nearly empty Super Heavy booster.
NSF has it that some type of spin-up test went well.
I was worried the milkstool was knocked out of alignment.
Hot staging ring here
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2023/08/starship-booster-9-critical-testing-phase/