totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[SunlitZelkova]

6 hours ago, Beccab said:

Looking at these images, I find it amazing how much stuff they are doing in such a compact space. Both of these will be static fired from where they are now, right?

[tater]

 

 

3 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Looking at these images, I find it amazing how much stuff they are doing in such a compact space. Both of these will be static fired from where they are now, right?

Can't see where S24 is right now:

Previous static fires were done at the stand way over on the left I think.

[tater]

6 hours

[tater]

 

[RealKerbal3x]

Live

[tater]

Music

[Beccab]

First and second stage loaded, t-1 minute. This is the 100th time an F9 first stage has been reflown!

Liftoff, max q, stage sep, S2 ignition & fairing sep completed. Entry burn in about a minute

Edited July 7, 2022 by Beccab

[RCgothic]

No successful landing callout...

[Beccab]

Landing confirmed

[RCgothic]

“You got a bunch of guys down here about to turn blue, we're breathing again!”

Edited July 7, 2022 by RCgothic

[RealKerbal3x]

The coverage seemed a little subdued today.

[Cuky]

1 hour ago, RealKerbal3x said:

The coverage seemed a little subdued today.

Probably because it started to feel like "been there, done that" now with SpaceX. Falcon 9 became super reliable, both in terms of launch performance and landing success. Starlink has been launched so many times now that there is basically nothing new to see there. We can notice this thread as well getting pretty quiet lately. Only when there is coverage of crewed missions there seems to be some buzz around Spacex. They made it seem like routine and people look for interesting stuff elsewhere.

 

My guess is once Starship/Heavy testing and flights resume there will be so much more noise around SpaceX.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

16 minutes ago, Cuky said:

Probably because it started to feel like "been there, done that" now with SpaceX. Falcon 9 became super reliable, both in terms of launch performance and landing success. Starlink has been launched so many times now that there is basically nothing new to see there. We can notice this thread as well getting pretty quiet lately. Only when there is coverage of crewed missions there seems to be some buzz around Spacex. They made it seem like routine and people look for interesting stuff elsewhere.

 

My guess is once Starship/Heavy testing and flights resume there will be so much more noise around SpaceX.

This is the true mark (and price) of success! 

[tater]

67k views for the launch today. SES-22 a week ago has 626k so far, and Globalstar 2 weeks ago has 368k. Dunno if there is a way to see views per day, maybe it's the same as others in terms of views.

[tater]

 

[tater]

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

I'm going to hazard the guess that when SX launches SS+SH that part of the exercise is testing their ability to control SH at landing and presumably set it up for capture via the tower, even though it will be over water at the time. 

 (ditch or possibly recovered??). 

Is there a 'ground effect' for a rocket that would make a practice 'hoover' over water different from what they'd see at the pad? 

Would you expect to see SH go for a hoover - and if it could, slide sideways to better align with the imaginary tower at the Gulf landing(splash) site? 

[magnemoe]

2 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I'm going to hazard the guess that when SX launches SS+SH that part of the exercise is testing their ability to control SH at landing and presumably set it up for capture via the tower, even though it will be over water at the time. 

 (ditch or possibly recovered??). 

Is there a 'ground effect' for a rocket that would make a practice 'hoover' over water different from what they'd see at the pad? 

Would you expect to see SH go for a hoover - and if it could, slide sideways to better align with the imaginary tower at the Gulf landing(splash) site? 

This is very likely, however on an real catch it would also be local sensors tracking the booster and probably cross talk. 

[cubinator]

3 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I'm going to hazard the guess that when SX launches SS+SH that part of the exercise is testing their ability to control SH at landing and presumably set it up for capture via the tower, even though it will be over water at the time. 

 (ditch or possibly recovered??). 

Is there a 'ground effect' for a rocket that would make a practice 'hoover' over water different from what they'd see at the pad? 

Would you expect to see SH go for a hoover - and if it could, slide sideways to better align with the imaginary tower at the Gulf landing(splash) site? 

I'm guessing the behavior over water vs over land wouldn't be significantly different.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

2 minutes ago, cubinator said:

I'm guessing the behavior over water vs over land wouldn't be significantly different.

That's what I'm leaning towards.  My 5th grade 'rocket science' class showed a diagram with contained pressure in every direction but one, resulting in a net thrust away from the opening.  But whether, like a helicopter, a rocket experiences ground effect - and whether that is mediated by the density of the surface.

[RealKerbal3x]

Thanks to the walls of High Bay 2 being decidedly opaque, we missed this completely on the live cameras:

 

Edited July 8, 2022 by RealKerbal3x

[cubinator]

Just now, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

That's what I'm leaning towards.  My 5th grade 'rocket science' class showed a diagram with contained pressure in every direction but one, resulting in a net thrust away from the opening.  But whether, like a helicopter, a rocket experiences ground effect - and whether that is mediated by the density of the surface.

Even if it does, larger vehicles tend to be less affected by that force and I'm assuming SH has high enough inertia to push through anything the atmosphere tries to throw at it.

[Beccab]

Interesting design - SPMTs carry the structure above under the launch mount, where then it opens to create a floor that allows workers to reach every Raptor mounted on SH

[mikegarrison]

4 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Is there a 'ground effect' for a rocket that would make a practice 'hoover' over water different from what they'd see at the pad?

Yes, there will be (is) a ground effect. Water likely shouldn't be significantly different from ground, because they are both incompressible and much denser than gas.

The classic easy way to model ground effect would be to pretend there is another rocket pointing the other way exactly as far below the ground as your rocket is above it. Then you superimpose the thrust from your rocket and the felt thrust from the impingement of the exhaust of the virtual rocket.

Edited July 8, 2022 by mikegarrison

[Pthigrivi]

Elon also abandoning the twitter deal. This comes as some relief to me as that never made sense and he can stay focused on all this^ cool stuff. I guess the lawyers will hammer out the termination settlement. 

Edited July 8, 2022 by Pthigrivi