SpaceX Starship

billdacat said:
Any of you peeps going to grab some shares of Space X when it goes IPO?
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I'll be watching the insanity with a bucket of popcorn. It would be cool to own some SpaceX shares at some point, but it seems like it's going to be so chaotic and unpredictable right off the rip

rockmup said:
Thats a great place for this. There ain't **** out there, be interesting to see how the money and development changes it. Not a bad thing at all.
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Awesome. From what I've seen it isn't a sure thing yet, but sounds like things are trending in that direction. As you pointed out, if they do settle there, they'd bring a massive influx of cash to the economy like they have for the Brownsville area. Interesting stuff all around

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It looks like the cause for yesterdays scrub was tower side - a locking pin for the ship quick disconnect arm was stuck and unable to retract, so they weren't able to swing the arm away from the rocket as needed for clearance during launch



Here's the pin in question, half way through this video they circle it in red and you can see them retract and extend it a few times

 
Fuzzydog said:
Sounds like a good reason to duck out of work early today

It still amazes me that weather plays a part in rocket launches. I figure that something that massive and powerful would just punch through it and make mother nature it's bitch.
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Hell yeah lol.

I think the Starship will be the first rocket to start breaking some of the weather barriers, but the two restrictions I know about - they don't want rockets being struck by lightning, and they don't want them to get blasted with intense side-shear forces from strong upper level wind currents. Apollo 12 got struck by lightning during launch and IIRC caused them to have to take some actions (but otherwise OK). These days I bet it can probably be designed around like airliners, but I have no idea. The lateral forces changing abruptly from different wind levels at different altitudes might always be a challenge though, just because pushing sideways is where rockets are weakest
 
Clock is still ticking for today's Starship launch. Just under 2 hours 40 to the start of the launch window.

And some less exciting news popped up from Rocket Lab. They were testing the flight version of the interstage for their first Neutron rocket in a "can crusher" (they put a rigid top cap on it and pull the ropes around the perimeter with hydraulic rams to simulate the compressive loads from the weight of the 2nd stage and payload while the first stage is at full throttle. Well, the carbon composite structure buckled and failed. But that's why they test.

This comes a couple months after they popped one of their first stage carbon fuel tanks during testing as well, so they're learning a lot. In general no big deal because they're testing and iterating all new designs like SpaceX has with Starship and all of its failures, though it seems they felt these were going to be actual flight articles, so a bit of a timeline hiccup until their first launch.



 
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1 hour to the beginning of the launch window. And pretty awesome, Jared Isaacman flew by the launch site earlier with a pair of his jets he's been using to give NASA employees rides as gifts for excellence



Blue Origin has closed the investigation into why their last New Glenn flight failed the final 2nd stage burn after an otherwise successful launch, so they're good to get back to flying:





And this is a really cool older post from Chun, who will be taking that first interplanetary ride on Starship for a flyby of Mars. What if you had it spinning along its axis for gravity, and gave it a swimming pool...

 
AgitatedPancake said:
And some less exciting news popped up from Rocket Lab. They were testing the flight version of the interstage for their first Neutron rocket in a "can crusher"
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That's a bummer.

I sure do like the "leaf springs and 14-bolt" approach SpaceX has. Stainless steel and more power! Kinda of a Russian hammer attitude...
 
25 Minutes.

subybaja said:
That's a bummer.

I sure do like the "leaf springs and 14-bolt" approach SpaceX has. Stainless steel and more power! Kinda of a Russian hammer attitude...
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Agreed. What's crazy, Starship started life as a composite vehicle. They even built some molds and test tanks. But they were never going to be able to scale it to build them at any sort of high production rate like can be done with steel. And specific steels have great strength properties at cryogenic temperatures and intense reentry temperatures, while materials like carbon hate life a bit more in the super cold and super hot conditions. Per Elon, the steel ship actually ends up being lighter once you consider the mass of the heat shielding and thermal protections required for composites, so win all around

Rocket Lab will figure it out (their current Electron is composite also, but small)



 
10 minutes!

Also worth noting - with the new V3 setup, they don't need to light the booster engines in clusters like they used to, and the thrust to weight ratio of the whole vehicle is much better than the V2 ships, so this thing should absolutely fly off the pad compared to previous flights. And they're saying the boostback burn should use all 33 engines instead of the inner 13, which would be absolutely insane
 
Mostly good ascent from the booster - lost one engine on the way up. After the separation, it failed to light a lot of the rest of the engines, so it bailed on the boostback burn and is just going to come back in hot.

Ship has lost 1 of its Rvac engines, but has engine out capability so it's still chuggin along, still good to go
 
Looks like they're getting ready to deploy the mock satellites. If they get this far, the last two mock satellites actually have some power systems and cameras onboard so they have a chance to look back at the ship as they fly off

Here was the booster getting angry while trying to relight all of its engines after sep

 
All payloads deployed and we're in the coast phase. Sounds like they're still on track to attempt to land the ship in the Indian ocean using its Raptor sea level engines (the center 3).

Overall the flight was a bit rougher than I was hoping to see, but all brand new systems, gotta expect the unexpected. They've already got the next however many ships and boosters lined up so they'll get it dialed in, as long as the launch pad survived mostly intact for a quick turnaround.

Seeing the ship in the spotlight being pointed by he last 2 mock starlinks is a trip right now, while they're on the dark side of the Earth. Getting a heat shield inspection before hitting reentry

 
arse_sidewards said:
The ship ID letters are a nice touch.

I wonder if it's "space stickers" or just a vinyl sticker they'll burn up because fuggit the stainless underneath doesn't care. :laughing:
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That's a good question. I was of the feeling that they were actually stenciled and painted on, but I don't know if I've ever seen proof of the process one way or the other so I can't make any claims

The last mock satellites with systems, lights, and cameras turned out awesome!

 
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