Starship Development Thread #46B
Starship Development Thread #46B
FAQ
- When (first) orbital flight? First integrated flight test occurred April 20, 2023. "The vehicle cleared the pad and beach as Starship climbed to an apogee of ~39 km over the Gulf of Mexico – the highest of any Starship to-date. The vehicle experienced multiple engines out during the flight test, lost altitude, and began to tumble. The flight termination system was commanded on both the booster and ship."
- Where can I find streams of the launch? SpaceX Full Livestream. NASASpaceFlight Channel. Lab Padre Channel. Everyday Astronaut Channel.
- What's happening next? SpaceX has assessed damage to Stage 0 and is implementing fixes and changes including a water deluge/pad protection/"shower head" system. No major repairs to key structures appear to be necessary.
- When is the next flight test? Just after flight, Elon stated they "Learned a lot for next test launch in a few months." On April 29, he reiterated this estimate in a Twitter Spaces Q&A (summarized here), saying "I'm glad to report that the pad damage is actually quite small," should "be repaired quickly," and "From a pad standpoint, we are probably ready to launch in 6 to 8 weeks." Requalifying the flight termination system (FTS) and the FAA post-incident review will likely require the longest time to complete. Musk reiterated the timeline on May 26, stating "Major launchpad upgrades should be complete in about a month, then another month of rocket testing on pad, then flight 2 of Starship."
- Why no flame diverter/flame trench below the OLM? Musk tweeted on April 21: "3 months ago, we started building a massive water-cooled, steel plate to go under the launch mount. Wasn’t ready in time & we wrongly thought, based on static fire data, that Fondag would make it through 1 launch." Regarding a trench, note that the Starship on the OLM sits 2.5x higher off the ground than the Saturn V sat above the base of its flame trench, and the OLM has 6 exits vs. 2 on the Saturn V trench.
Quick Links
RAPTOR ROOST | LAB CAM | SAPPHIRE CAM | SENTINEL CAM | ROVER CAM | ROVER 2.0 CAM | PLEX CAM | NSF STARBASE
Relevant Reddit threads (though these likely won't be accessible during the blackout).
Starship Dev 46 | Starship Dev 45 | Starship Dev 44 | Starship Dev 43 | Starship Thread List
Official Starship Update | r/SpaceX Update Thread
Status
Road Closures
No road closures currently scheduled
No transportation delays currently scheduled
Up to date as of 2023-07-09
Resources
- LabPadre Channel | NASASpaceFlight.com Channel
- NSF: Booster 7 + Ship X (likely 24) Updates Thread | Most Recent
- NSF: Boca Chica Production Updates Thread | Most recent
- NSF: Elon Starship tweet compilation | Most Recent
- SpaceX: Website Starship page | Starship Users Guide (2020, PDF)
- FAA: SpaceX Starship Project at the Boca Chica Launch Site
- FAA: Temporary Flight Restrictions NOTAM list
- FCC: Starship Orbital Demo detailed Exhibit - 0748-EX-ST-2021 application June 20 through December 20
- NASA: Starship Reentry Observation (Technical Report)
- Hwy 4 & Boca Chica Beach Closures (May not be available outside US)
- Production Progress Infographics by @RingWatchers
- Raptor 2 Tracker by @SpaceRhin0
- Acronym definitions by Decronym
- Everyday Astronaut: Starbase Tour with Elon Musk, Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
- Everyday Astronaut: 2022 Elon Musk Interviews, Starbase/Ship Updates | Launch Tower | Merlin Engine | Raptor Engine
I'll attempt to keep this post current with links and major updates, but would be greatly helped by information supplied by the community. I hope this can be an alternate place to discuss Starship development. While the Starship Development Threads on Reddit are not party threads, Lemmy is still small enough that I don't imagine that strict moderation will be needed in the short term.
#To repeat, new pinned thread:
As @clothes on lemmy.world pointed out: for some reason, via lemmy.world, this 46B thread is still pinned and there's no sign of 47.
This is the finest FAQ in the fediverse. I come back to it, just to appreciate just how much data you fit in it, so easily accessible and concise for the experienced and inexperienced alike. It makes up for so many poorly written, ugly, inhuman FAQs across the years.
I was summoned out of my Christmas lair for an update. I see the cladding was already mentioned.
Starbase live- Yellow crane to the left of OLM has been lifting rebar over to the pit most of the day.
(I missed part of the morning but I’ve counted at least 12 loads so far)
Rover 2-
20:43 cdt- The large deluge pipe that we saw test fitted last night has now been painted white and is lifted back over to where the pipes go underground by the tanks.
Looks like the Ship Quick-Disconnect is back!
And being lifted in place as we speak. NSF coverage: https://www.youtube.com/live/mhJRzQsLZGg?feature=share
In a Twitter Space with @ashleevance, @elonmusk shares that Starship will hot-stage during the next flight, lighting engines on the ship with some engines still running on the booster, as to Never Stop Thrusting!™️
"Hot staging" is firing the upper stage engines while it's still nominally attached to the lower stage (like resting on or loosely attached). The advantages that I gather exist: It's fast. It takes care of stage separation without needing springs or little rockets or a flip or anything. Before firing a liquid-fueled stage that may have gases in a tank ("ullage"), you have to settle the contents so that the engine intakes suck only liquid (maybe using "ullage rockets"), but if you're still accelerating at separation, that's automatically taken care of.
But if you intend to reuse the first stage, well, I wonder whether six engines igniting will be too hard on it.
Apparently U.S. Titan rockets, a lot of Soviet / Russian ones (Soyuz, Progress, N-1), and (some?) Chinese Long March rockets were designed with hot staging.
Joe Barnard @joebarnard replies: "'okay so when I hot stage it’s “an anomaly” and I’ve “torched another flight computer” but when SpaceX does it it’s fine???'
Edit: There's now an article up at SpaceNews, "SpaceX changing Starship stage separation ahead of next launch", which includes
"We made sort of a late-breaking change that’s really quite significant to the way that stage separation works," Musk said, describing the switch to hot staging. "There’s a meaningful payload-to-orbit advantage with hot-staging that is conservatively about a 10% increase."...
Musk said that, for Starship, most of the 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster would be turned off, but a few still firing, when the engines on the Starship upper stage are ignited. Doing so, he said, avoids the loss of thrust during traditional stage separation, where the lower stage shuts down first.
Doing so requires some modifications to the Super Heavy booster. Musk said SpaceX is working on an extension to the top of the booster “that is almost all vents” to allow the exhaust from the upper stage to escape while still attached to the booster. SpaceX will also add shielding to the top of the booster to protect it from the exhaust.
“This is the most risky thing, I think, for the next flight,” he said of the new stage separation technique.
Besides the change in stage separation, Musk said SpaceX made a “tremendous number” of other changes to the vehicle, “well over a thousand.” He didn’t go into details about the changes, ...
SpaceX also made improvements to the Raptor engines, with Musk describing the vehicle launching in April as using a “hodgepodge” of engines built over time. The Raptors on the new vehicles include changes to the hot gas manifold in the engine to reduce fuel leakage.
Those changes, he said, gave him more confidence in the success of the next launch. “I think the probability this next flight working, getting to orbit, is much higher than the last one. Maybe it’s like 60%.” In an online conversation in late April, he estimated a “better than 50% chance” of success on the next launch.
In another note, Musk finally learned some caution!
Musk, asked about any plans for a Starlink IPO, declined to comment. “It would not be legal for me to speculate about a Starlink IPO,” he claimed. “I think it’s against regulations to talk with any kinds of specifics about a future public offering.”
Edit: Peter Hague PhD @peterrhague: Thus far Musk estimates $2-3bn invested by SpaceX so far in Starship. The price of a single SLS launch
Interesting, most of the Soviet rockets that uses hot staging had a truss between each stage to allow the exhaust to vent. As far as I know starship doesn't have anything like this yet, I wonder if they'll add some or if they're just gonna see what happens without it 😂
If it truly offers a >10% payload to orbit boost, I'm super curious to know how the internal debate went. Wonder what changed.
I linked to two possible pictures in my reply here.
Hot staging also eliminates the gravity loss that otherwise would occur during the coasting phase during and after separation.
They may ignite only three engines at half thrust for the first second or so.
At stage separation how horizontal is Starship? If there was no vertical moment then how significant would the gravity loss actually be?
AFAIK most of the gravity loss is in the first few second of a launch but I don't have any idea what you are losing by the time you get to stage separation.
Ship 25 completed a flight-like chill and spin of the Raptor engine pumps, stopping just before engine ignition. As a result of the test, cryogenic liquid oxygen formed a visible cloud beneath the ship. This checked out vital systems in advance of the upcoming static fire.
Ship 25 flaps were tested at 12:43 CDT
I'm leaving reddit permanently, so thanks for maintaining this!
RGV Sneak Peek shows some nice shots of the steel plates, as well as the pour under the OLM. Looks like a lot more concrete is needed though, wonder when that’ll happen.
The steel plates look ready for transport, so I bet this next pour will be soon — it seems to be the main hold up.
So the big news of the day and night was what is believed to be the center plate of the water deluge system. It is thought that it will be placed directly under the Orbital Launch Mount.
@LettuceTurnipTheBeet@lemm.ee already posted (at top level) "CSI Starbase video on new Deluge system", a deep dive part 1. The URL I see for the post is https://lemmy.world/post/879748 , because that's how I access this. The canonical one is https://lemm.ee/post/530280 .
CSI Starbase SPMT Tracker @SpmtTracker posted a tweet with a picture of what is very likely to be a vertical stand for the center plate. The image is on Imgur. The tweet is here. Ryan Hansen Space @RyanHansenSpace tweeted a rendering of how it might look under the OLM. This should be the image:
@LettuceTurnipTheBeet@lemm.ee posted below (if sorted by new) a link to a 13-minute video by Starship Gazer, of people working in the tent on the center plate. https://lemm.ee/comment/534238 . Someone commented that, from 4 minutes on, it's comedy gold. People were grinning around them. I'm told that someone is standing on top of the cheater pipe at one point.
NASASpaceflight posted a video of the rollout of the center. It's about 1 hour 26 minutes long. The stand / jig was on the first truck; the center plate with some people on it was on the next truck. The clearest views are about 17 minutes on.
As Zack Golden said, looks like a very tight fit. I'm very excited to watch this whole operation live on NSF
Thanks for your updates @pigeonberry@lemmy.world. I know our community here is small so I'm glad some of us keep putting in the effort :)
Same to you, bud! I figure I'll keep blowing on the embers. Either the flame will catch (& I get to boast "I was into Lemmy before it really took off"), or my lungs will get too tired.
Unrolled tweet thread at threadreaderapp.com by Ryan Hansen Space @RyanHansenSpace. It's a look at the details of the steel plate parts and assembly under the Orbital Launch Mount.
I’m really impressed by how quickly the plate is getting assembled. I didn’t expect the manifolds to get added for another week or so, and now they’re at 2 / 3.
I’m not sure what the bottleneck is at the moment. Once everything is lifted in place they can move B9 over, but they might want to wait until they hit stage adapter is added.
B9 could go through spin prime tests without the plane being ready, and the plate can get tested without all deluge water & gas tanks present. We’re also it sure how far along the other OLM repairs are (cryo pipes are still being replaced). So there’s a ton of stuff happening in parallel.
Musk said that he thought that FAA approval of a new FTS design was likely to be the long pole.
Yooooo
Road closure is now scheduled for tomorrow!
Ship 25 completes a six-engine static fire test at Starbase in Texas
11 seconds. In the audio, only a little bit of HONK at the end.
Someone pointed out that the flames start out as a triangle, but then switch rotated 60 degrees when the vacuum engines start - V to ^.
A comment in The Other Place mentioned that it looks like a little spalled concrete at 4 seconds in.
In a later tweet, Musk called it a "Key milestone completed for flight 2".
The Other Place
The Place That Shall Not Be Named
This is great thank you, I started following spacex Reddit in the echologic (was that his name?) Days, but the sub got a bit, I dunno, it started to lack a certain something. Just got too big maybe.
I'm happy to see this here! Thanks for starting it, sorry for the off topic 😂
More pour info, this time from tweets from Zack Golden @CSI_Starbase. The truck counts basically match those from @LettuceTurnipTheBeet@lemm.ee's post earlier.
SpaceX has received their final load of concrete for today's Orbital Launch Mount foundation work. Here are the totals after the 15.3 hour marathon:
June 25th - 132 Truck loads
July 3rd - 171 Truck loads
Total Volume = 2,302 m^3 = 3030 yd^3
Total Weight = 5,411 Tons
For reference, a Fully loaded Starship ~ 5,000 Tons
Note: There were 4 additional trucks that showed up but were turned back around without offloading.
Shoutout to agents @VickiCocks15 and @SpmtTracker for keeping track of all these.
4:11 PM · Jul 3, 2023
and
Obviously this number is significantly greater than we predicted. For those who asked, that previous number was not considering the area in yellow, which were also completed today. This area is technically outside of the true foundation of the OLM
with a picture by RGV Aerial Photography.
So am I understanding this correctly that today's pour was a) directly under the OLM (where the showerhead is going) and b) in the yellow area?
Yes that's right
What about it!? @FelixSchlang tweet from 3:03 PM - Jun 29, 2023:
It happened!!!
SpaceX opened the wall to the inventory tent and revealed one of the water deluge plates to us up close and countless other things in there!
High res pictures for supporters on all platforms coming soon!
In a reply, they said it looks to be upside down.
In The Other Place, u/warp99 wrote,
Looks like the segments are around 400mm thick and constructed from 40mm (38mm=1.5"?) steel plate The overall shape is a hexagon about 10m across the flats with each corner notched out.
They also speculated on how to weld the edges together: maybe put them on a stand above the final location, weld them from above and below, attach cranes and remove the stand, lower into place.
Starship Gazer (as seen on Nitter) had more pictures.
Starbase live-
9:15am cdt- 11 more loads of rebar have been lifted over to the OLM since midnight. LR11000 still holding the deluge pipe in position to be welded.
Edit-
10:48am- Deluge pipe is moved to the side of the underground pipe bunker and laid down on the ground.
11:50am- 8 more bundles of rebar have been lifted over to the OLM. Some presumably extra bent pieces have been lifted away as well.
1:11pm- Deluge pipe raised again and moved back to join the pipe that goes underground.
5:00pm- Since noon there has been 15 more loads of rebar craned over to the OLM. Most loads appear to be multiple pieces but there are several large bent pieces that have been moved one at a time.
9:00pm- 10 more loads of rebar have been moved over. (44 for the day so far and 56 in the last 40 hours)
Exciting stuff happening right now (See Starbase Live).
- Launch site movement with the SPMT that transported the steel plate for the water deluge system and the SPMT with the Jig!
- Jig is being moved into position and now a crane is being raised! Things are getting exciting this morning.
- At the same time S28 is getting a payload door.
edit: And here’s the latest RGV Flyover video, which is the flyover from last week. Interesting content, but already heavily out of date.
Check out this RGV picture from the plate in the tent from above: https://twitter.com/rgvaerialphotos/status/1674925187437928450?s=46&t=Mj914Aam14loAYQOISZ9zQ
I know Twitter links are kind of impossible to follow right now, but don’t think I can embed an image in a comment. Anyway, that plate is huge, will be interesting to see them lift and transport it.
I also saw this in The Other Place:
[Meta] Twitter is now throwing up a nag screen to force users to log in to view content, supposedly on a temporary basis. Since a lot of the content here links to Twitter, this could be inconvenient to those without an account.
A simple solution is to link to the embedded version of the Tweet, like so. Simply type:
And replace xxx with the Tweet id.
The other solution is to link to an archived version of a tweet.
(I think the last is like Internet Archive.)
Vehicle Status
As of June 9th 2023
Follow Ring Watchers on Twitter and Discord for more.
Ship Location Status Comment Pre-S24 Scrapped or Retired SN15 and S20 are in the Rocket Garden, the rest are scrapped. S24 In pieces in the ocean Destroyed April 20th: Destroyed when booster MECO and ship stage separation from booster failed three minutes and 59 seconds after successful launch, so FTS was activated. This was the second launch attempt. S25 Launch Site Testing On Feb 23rd moved back to build site, then on the 25th taken to the Massey's test site. March 21st: Cryo test. May 5th: Another cryo test. May 18th: Moved to the Launch Site and in the afternoon lifted onto Suborbital Test Stand B. S26 Rocket Garden Resting No fins or heat shield, plus other changes. March 25th: Lifted onto the new higher stand in Rocket Garden. March 28th: First RVac installed (number 205). March 29th: RVac number 212 taken over to S26 and later in the day the third RVac (number 202) was taken over to S26 for installation. March 31st: First Raptor Center installed (note that S26 is the first Ship with electric Thrust Vector Control). April 1st: Two more Raptor Centers moved over to S26. S27 Rocket Garden Completed but no Raptors yet Like S26, no fins or heat shield. April 24th: Moved to the Rocket Garden. S28 High Bay 1 Under construction February 7th Assorted parts spotted. March 24th: Mid LOX barrel taken into High Bay 1. March 28th: Existing stack placed onto Mid LOX barrel. March 31st: Almost completed stack lifted off turntable. April 5th: Aft/Thrust section taken into High Bay 1. April 6th: the already stacked main body of the ship has been placed onto the thrust section, giving a fully stacked ship. April 25th: Lifted off the welding turntable, then the 'squid' detached - it was then connected up to a new type of lifting attachment which connects to the two lifting points below the forward flaps that are used by the chopsticks. May 25th: Installation of the first Aft Flap (interesting note: the Aft Flaps for S28 are from the scrapped S22). S29 High Bay 1 Under construction April 28th: Nosecone and Payload Bay taken inside High Bay 1 (interesting note: the Forward Flaps are from the scrapped S22). May 1st: nosecone stacked onto payload bay (note that S29 is being stacked on the new welding turntable to the left of center inside High Bay 1, this means that LabPadre's Sentinel Cam can't see it and so NSF's cam looking at the build site is the only one with a view when it's on the turntable). May 4th: Sleeved Forward Dome moved into High Bay 1 and placed on the welding turntable. May 5th: Nosecone+Payload Bay stack placed onto Sleeved Forward Dome and welded. May 10th: Nosecone stack hooked up to new lifting rig instead of the 'Squid' (the new rig attaches to the Chopstick's lifting points and the leeward Squid hooks). May 11th: Sleeved Common Dome moved into High Bay 1. May 16th: Nosecone stack placed onto Sleeved Common Dome and welded. May 18th: Mid LOX section moved inside High Bay 1. May 19th: Current stack placed onto Mid LOX section for welding. June 2nd: Aft/Thrust section moved into High Bay 1. June 6th: The already stacked main body of the ship has been placed onto the thrust section, giving a fully stacked ship. S30+ Build Site Parts under construction Assorted parts spotted through S34. Booster Location Status Comment Pre-B7 & B8 Scrapped or Retired B4 is in the Rocket Garden, the rest are scrapped. B7 In pieces in the ocean Destroyed April 20th: Destroyed when MECO and stage separation of ship from booster failed three minutes and 59 seconds after successful launch, so FTS was activated. This was the second launch attempt. B9 High Bay 2 Raptor Install Cryo testing (methane and oxygen) on Dec. 21 and Dec. 29. Rollback on Jan. 10. On March 7th Raptors started to be taken into High Bay 2 for B9. B10 Rocket Garden Resting 20-ring LOX tank inside High Bay 2 and Methane tank (with grid fins installed) in the ring yard. March 18th: Methane tank moved from the ring yard and into High Bay 2 for final stacking onto the LOX tank. March 22nd: Methane tank stacked onto LOX tank, resulting in a fully stacked booster. May 27th: Moved to the Rocket Garden. Note: even though it appears to be complete it currently has no Raptors. B11 High Bay 2 Under construction March 24th: 'A3' barrel had the current 8-ring LOX tank stacked onto it. March 30th: 'A4' 4-ring LOX tank barrel taken inside High Bay 2 and stacked. April 2nd: 'A5' 4-ring barrel taken inside High Bay 2. April 4th: First methane tank 3-ring barrel parked outside High Bay 2 - this is probably F2. April 7th: downcomer installed in LOX tank (which is almost fully stacked except for the thrust section). April 28th: Aft section finally taken inside High Bay 2 to have the rest of the LOX tank welded to it (which will complete the LOX tank stack). May 11th: Methane tank Forward section and the next barrel down taken into High Bay 2 and stacked. May 18th: Methane tank stacked onto another 3 ring next barrel, making it 9 rings tall out of 13. May 20th: Methane tank section stacked onto the final barrel, meaning that the Methane tank is now fully stacked. May 23rd: Started to install the grid fins. June 3rd: Methane Tank stacked onto LOX Tank, meaning that B11 is now fully stacked. Once welded still more work to be done such as the remaining plumbing and wiring. B12 High Bay 2 (LOX Tank) Under construction June 3rd: LOX tank commences construction: Common Dome (CX:4) and a 4-ring barrel (A2:4) taken inside High Bay 2 where CX:4 was stacked onto A2:4 on the right side welding turntable. June 7th: A 4-ring barrel (A3:4) was taken inside High Bay 2. June 8th: Barrel section A3:4 was lifted onto the welding turntable and the existing stack placed on it for welding. June 9th: The next 4-ring barrel (A4:4) was taken inside High Bay 2, later in the day the incomplete LOX tank stack was hooked up to it and placed on the welding turntable for stacking and welding. B13+ Build Site Parts under construction Assorted parts spotted through B17. So relieved to see a Starship Tech thread here. It's the only thread I check daily without fail. Thanks @threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works
Elon thinks the next launch will be in 6 to 8 weeks
8 weeks to resume testing on the OLM perhaps, but there will be a lot of new stuff to test before launch