We’ve talked about the software that flies SpaceX rockets, the team that tests the code to ensure it’s airtight, and the code that helps Starlink satellites communicate with customers and one another. For our last piece, we’re diving into the work of a team that helps the vehicles get built.
They initially washed them down, but did not really clean them much. After a bunch of reflights (no clue when exactly this changed) they basically left tehm as is. Barely cleaned them. Turns out it did not matter as they determined experimentally.
Which is super cool.
Better shot in this tweet. Showing B1051 before first flight and after 10th flight.
Before/during reflight, the boosters look white and clean, but after, they don't. I'm not sure if that's soot and/or burned paint.
I looked but it doesn't seem to have been asked before.
Revised! Based on all of your helpful comments this has now been substantially shortened and rewritten. I'm hoping someone may have some insight or remember some other references to this. Thanks for your patience!
There is a passage/section called "Stranded in the middle of the room" in a book c...
A table, from which you launch? English is fun that way. But more seriously, those 6 tilted columns are built. The orange ring at the top, is assembled over in the build area. It is pretty big, heavy steel. The theory is as the video shows, the ring (10-15 feet high, 10-11 meters diameter) is to be mounted on top of the 6 tilted columns.
Then the SS/SH will be placed on top of the table, the engine exhauste will go through the hole i the ring, at least at first, and launch from there.
Keep up man! :) Times, they are a-changing! :) The stuff happening for Starship at Boca Chica change so mcuh it is hard to keep track!
Next to the 6 tilted legs, they built a concrete base/box, and mounted the first 4 columns of the integration tower on top. So that is about 100+ feet high right now. They have assembled two more tower segments (about 60 feet tall I think?) a bit away.
The idea is the SPMT's will drive them over, and the very very large crane will lift them up, and the tower will go up pretty fast. (450 feet is total height, people are suggesting 7-8 segments of towers, so 1 is in place, 2 are assembled waiting to be adde don top.)
Aand they have room to assemble 4 segments off site. Also, they probably cannot fly/test when the very large (and expensive, very expensive) crane is nearby.
@ymb1 I find the notion of catching a Booster an insane notion. And yet I cannot wait to see if they can do it! And I really want to see them do it! Wild stuff! Yet I cannot imagine how this would work.
In real life.
Looking forward to being shown how to do it.
At the Orbital pad... They built a pump building. Then a GSE pad, with 7 (?) mounts, for 9m tanks with 12m outer shells. That will hold the LOX/CH4 and water in 20-30m tall tanks, 9m wide, so lots of volume for launch events. Then the launch table with its 6 slanted piles. Then the integration tower.
So much happening, watch the RGV overflightvideos to get a feel.
@geoffc I'll be sure to watch that, thanks! -- regarding the catch-tower, I wonder if the tests will dummy-starships dropped from a crane and/or helicopter, in order to rapidly-test
hey I got 1,000 rep! I can edit unabated now, forgot its low for beta sites, which reminds me, how the heck is Space.SE still beta
re ninth planet, and being 0.9 Earths mass, I found this:
Initial estimates of Pluto's mass, post discovery, began at 1 Mearth. By the 1960s, the estimated mass had dropped to about 0.1 Mearth and by the early 1970s to 0.003 Mearth. via vanderbilt.edu/AnS/physics/astrocourses/ast201/…
@ymb1 Basically no one is ever getting out of beta, ever again. Which raises a better Q. Are new sites being opened still? Or are we just with the current set?
I do not pay attention, but that would make sense.
Who last exited beta?
Here is a great interesting post!!!
Starship Orbital Launch Attempt details per FCC exhibit: - Staging 170 seconds into flight - Booster will splashdown in the Gulf 20 miles downrange - Starship will perform a soft landing 62 miles northwest of Kauaihttps://t.co/2qBHS6pj73 pic.twitter.com/TlVae0YCBI — Michael Baylor (@nextspaceflight) May 13, 2021
I'll be testing tweet embedding as it used to work IIRC (in case you see a deleted post):
from meta.stackexchange.com/q/257614/392799: from now on, when a site starts to consistently receive ten new questions every day, we'll consider it for graduation -- space is at 10.1 but this figure fluctuates, using SEDE:
@ymb1 I think not even the SE knows, when will be a site graduated. Checking the list of all sites ( stackexchange.com/sites ), the median where they get an induvidual icon, as about at 10000 questions.
@ymb1 "we'll consider it for graduation" <- that means, it is a case-by-case decision on undisclosed (and probably not existing) requirements. If enough CM wants it so, it will be graduated, that is all.
I would not be surprised if many sites would not be graduated simply because the decision-makers forgot them.
Their sayings and statements are very clearly focusing to the SO.
The good side of the medal: probably lobbying on the MSE might help more as we would think.
@geoffc Twitter account suspended. And this guy: twitter.com/SheriffGarza/status/1391879212580032514 will be likely also suspended, in the physical reality, for trespassing SpaceX property without their consent.
@geoffc U.S. criminal law is a little bit "funny" (surreal punishments for nothing), but I think if he did not steal or harm anything, and there is no evidence that he wanted to, then prison is highly unlikely
I think the balance is that the youtubers are free to watch them with telescope cams and analyze their findings on the internet. Otherways, private property must be honored, that is among the most basic laws of a civilized country.
@ymb1 A51 nominally exists, but the count of the created sites/year nears zero. MSE community fails to recognize that it is problem, they think mentioning their stat is a problem: meta.stackexchange.com/q/296587/259412
@ymb1 Probably the majority of the SE employee does not even know what is A51
@geoffc To have a reusable super heavy launch, first the tower has to be built. I see no trace of it, do you?
@geoffc Btw, a quick check of the StarShip specific impulse and empty mass / gross mass ratio: I think a fully loaded StarShip could do a sub-orbital flight to Europe. It would be funny :-) Sad, that probably there is no landing pad here
@ymb1 Maybe 1-2 years ago, suddenly some betas got a graduation. This was only a re-labeling, actually nothing changed, except the removal of the "beta" label. Among them, many smaller sites were there, too
@ymb1 Of course not even an indirect hint happened from the decision makers, why the Space SE and Astronomy SE were missed.
@ymb1 But anybody worked by Big Companies (SE Llc is not a big one, but likes to play as if they would be big).... I think we all know, what can be done if there is no clear message from the decision-makers.
@ymb1 Then the message is their behavior. And that is this: 1) "we do not graduate the Space SE and neither the Astronomy SE" 2) "we do not say, why"
Before/during reflight, the boosters look white and clean, but after, they don't. I'm not sure if that's soot and/or burned paint.
I looked but it doesn't seem to have been asked before.
