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SpaceX Starship

Big day. SLS is leaving the VAB for what might be the last time today, rolling out to the pad in preparation for its launch attempt during this first attempt window. They have 3 launch dates to attempt within this window - August 29th, September 2nd, and September 5th. If it doesn't make it during one of those three windows, it gets rolled back to the VAB and geared up for the next opportunity, Can't wait to hear this thing roar to life



Something interesting on these cubesats in the below graphic - there are some murmurs going on that unfortunately a few of them might not be able to turn on after launch. The time between their initial integration onto the rocket a while back and the upcoming launch brings into question the health of the batteries on a few of them





And this one is just a fun fact. It's been over 11 years since a vehicle rolled out from the VAB for an actual launch - the last flight of the shuttle

 
So Elon made a post today about the fairing halves, they don't get nearly enough attention so I figured I'd add a little more.

Fairings have always been disposable, and it took SpaceX a while to get to a point of being able to bring them back and refurbish them. They are bus-sized composite structures so the surface area to mass ratio is crazy. The first steps were figuring out how to control them through reentry (which is what he talks about here), they essentially surf their way back into the atmosphere. There hasn't been a ton of footage of this except for one or two incredible clips I'll try to find for this post. Once they hit the atmosphere they pop a....parafoil (What's the term for a guided fully controlled parachute)? The initial plan was to catch them, and they had two ships with massive nets so they could line up under the fairings and catch them before they hit the water because seatwater sucks for reuse, but this proved to be too unreliable (only caught a handful with a not-great success rate). They ended up figuring out how to mitigate the salt water intrusion, and now land them in the water and scoop them out with a recovery ship.

I don't know how accurate this is, but I recall people saying that a complete fairing (2 halves) cost around 6 mil give or take, and as an example on todays flight they had one fairing half flying for the 5th time, and one for the 6th. Yet another aspect of the reuse that goes into Falcon 9's, making space cheaper for everyone.



Reentry video (also shows a catch on a ship at the end)


No reentry plasma on this one, but still a cool shot from a Starlink launch


And a couple catch views:


 
To me, that is actually going green. Why isn’t SpaceX getting a ton of subsidies for being so green? The amount of waste that they are currently preventing is astonishing compared to the SLS for example.
 
Honestly I completely agree. Especially when you consider that 90% of the rest of the worlds rockets first stages and fairings end up plunked into the ocean, whereas SpaceX doesn't put any trash in the water (they land boosters, retrieve and reuse fairings, and the 2nd stage burns up in the atmosphere (mostly). That is entirely overlooked by those who want to argue about the fuel they consume

A week away from Artemis 1, and as of today everything is a go.



You know I've heard all along that this flight was going to send a capsule farther than any human rated craft has gone to date (something like 40k miles past the moon) but never actually saw the planned trajectory. This is a super cool flight path





And Relativity is still kicking ass with the launch campaign leading up to the launch of their first 3d printed orbital rocket. Full 20 second static fire today (true full length coming soon if the data is good). Including some engine wiggle tests, cool stuff



 
This crazy fawking machine. Booster 7 rolled back out to the pad this morning with its inner 13 engines installed (last tests only had the outer 20). Then it was picked up and set on the launch mount via the chopsticks, "mechazilla". The booster is omewhere around 200 tons give or take



 
Alrighty, tomorrow is looking like it's going to be interesting down there at Starbase. Now that B7 is mounted, they pumped some cryo fluids around today which seemed to be checking everything out. They then switched attention to S24, they put some propellants in it and looked like they geared up for a test, but then reset with no action. But as of an hour or two ago, a notice went out warning about a static fire for local residents tomorrow which means at least one, if not both will be tested.

On top of that, SpaceX made a surprise tweet about an announcement with T-mobile tomorrow regarding service and connectivity. No one really knows what the ambiguous explanation means yet, but hopes are high that Starlink will start supporting cellular networks in some way or another. They are planning an actual show ("reveal"?) tomorrow evening down at Starbase, I'll be curious what they're ready to offer (and hopefully we get a sneak peek at some new hardware).

21 hours from now:





 
Testing so far has just been some engine purge tests, but at least the booster itself still seems active while the ship is winding down. Strange though, the event is starting soon enough it looks like there will be some time overlap (the event is at the construction portion of the site which is well clear of the launch site where the testing is from a safety standpoint, but it is past the public roadblock. Media is there and ready though



 
Well holy shit. Starlink V2s (big units, designed to be launched on Starship) are going to become cell towers using T-mobiles frequencies with an additional set of hardware on the satellites. Your average nothing-special phone will be able to connect straight through them with no other fancy receivers. T-mobile plans to offer it on their most popular plans for free (but it will be an add on for the cheapest plans), and plan/hope to start rolling out at least texting and email etc next year. While these will never be super high bandwidth connections, they completely eliminate dead spots. They also plan to offer it to other carriers for roaming data as needed, and want to work with international companies for global coverage.

This will be an absolute game changer for emergencies. Whether you're a back country explorer, or a natural disaster wiped out the local cell infrastructure, anyone who has a phone will still be connected
 
Everything is still a go for the Artemis 1 launch attempt on Monday, but the lightning protection system got a workout today. They've had some pretty intense thunderstorms, and apparently the lightning towers got 3 strikes within a couple hours earlier today. Sounds like everything is doing what it should so it was no big deal, but Florida doesn't want to let go of this rocket it seems hah.

Starlink launch in 2 hours as well, busy busy!



And here's one of Marcus House's good general industry wide (but SpaceX focused) weekly updates

 
AgitatedPancake said:
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1661708328936.png




:goofball:
 
muadib said:
Radio just said mission is scrubbed for today.
Are they right?
Click to expand...
yes, it was scrubbed almost at daybreak this morning. Fuel leak.

apnews.com

NASA scrubs launch of new moon rocket after engine problem

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA called off the launch of its mighty new moon rocket on its debut flight with three test dummies aboard Monday after a last-minute cascade of problems culminating in unexplained trouble related to an engine.
apnews.com apnews.com
 
I got to tour the Redmond SpaceX facility a few weeks back. Was really interesting seeing the satellites under production and the new model they're going to be using for Starship. Of course, no pictures allowed. Most everything is built in house. The amount of junk they're sending into space is impressive!:laughing:
 
Icono said:
1661708328936.png




:goofball:
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Honestly this diagram is so perfect haha, many within the industry have given KSP the recognition it deserves, even ULA's CEO Tory Bruno has talked about playing it, so good.

muadib said:
Radio just said mission is scrubbed for today.
Are they right?
Click to expand...
Yep it was scrubbed as Sceep noted. There was a decent probability of this happening, and still will be a probability on the next attempt - just how it goes with new hardware, and crossing all your t's and dotting all your i's. Sceep's link has good details as well. A little more info from what I gathered earlier - During their last wet dress rehearsal when they got through most of the desired parameters, the hydrogen leak that was present at a quick disconnect at that time stopped them from being able to test a few valves, including this one on engine #3 that scrubbed todays attempt. Sounds like we'll get an official update with more detail tomorrow at 6pm Eastern

Because these things are usually hashed out during wet dress rehearsals, here's the meme feeling circulating amongst many today:




Alpine4x4 said:
I got to tour the Redmond SpaceX facility a few weeks back. Was really interesting seeing the satellites under production and the new model they're going to be using for Starship. Of course, no pictures allowed. Most everything is built in house. The amount of junk they're sending into space is impressive!:laughing:
Click to expand...
I'm officially jealous, that is awesome man! They definitely like to keep their product lines as vertically integrated as possible. I can only dream of the production line they have in place for those Starlinks with the cadence they're manufactured at . And to know they have some of the big V2s around too...yeah. I've only seen glimpses of possibly mockups down in Boca Chica
 
Busy busy. Something interesting - Ship 26 and Ship 27 are looking like they may not get heat shielding, and possibly no flaps. That could mean either a maximum payload mass test with no return and landing, or the first renditions of a tanker

 
Starlink launch in two and a half hours, west coast launch tonight from Vandenberg



Also I didn't catch this until after the last Starlink launch, but they squeezed one more satellite on it, becoming the heaviest payload the Falcon 9 has ever launched in reusable fashion (I believe they may have launched heavier on earlier missions with the boosters getting expended

 
This is sweet, best view of a Starlink train I've ever seen, through northern lights in Alaska.



And tomorrow is the next attempt for the Artemis 1 launch! Window opens at 2:17PM eastern, but they may have pauses due to weather etc
 
Yuuup, scrub a dub dub. Hydrogen is a fickle beast, but I wouldn't have expected them to have so many leak issues. Their last two days in this launch window are Monday and Tuesday, which essentially means they can pick one of those two for one more attempt. If it doesn't get off the ground in the next attempt, the launch window closes and it gets rolled back to the VAB to wait for the October launch window to open up
 
There are murmurs that they may not attempt Monday or Tuesday, instead opting to roll it back to the VAB for more in depth inspection / analysis, then go for the October launch window. We should know more as the day moves on
 
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