RCgothic

Officially delayed. Not just the parachute links, but wiring harnesses covered in flammable tape.

If we're dropping SLS/Orion, is there a better lunar rendezvous point than NRHO?

They've knocked down the lowbay / windbreak.

The FAA launch license always turns up not long after the rocket is ready. I can't recall a significant delay waiting for a launch license - only for the environmental assessment. And SpaceX used all of the time that took and more getting the rocket and launch site ready. Given what happened to B7, probably just as well they didn't try to fly B4.

That really is a vastly superior design. With reusable landers we get refilling, depots, and transshipment of cargo, all key exploration techs. Plus obvious alternatives to the money pit that is SLS/Orion. Still finding it hard to get over how much a win this is. Now for maximal effectiveness of refilling ops they just need to sort out their reusable second stage for New Glenn.

Several Moonship pieces spotted.

Old spacecraft shed pieces. It's safer to deorbit them.

So... Both of these commercial landers are committing serious personal funds to the development of these landers. The only way this makes sense commercially is if the investment can be recouped on operational flights. But now those operational flights, already glacial in pace thanks to the gatekeeper of lunar space, now have to be split between two providers. Either one or both of these providers is going to fail hard, or they're going to have to develop an alternative way of getting commercial crews into lunar space. I wonder if the oldspace lobbyists protesting sole sourcing a lander realised they were going to end up slaying SLS/Orion?

I've seen speculation that the living area is a torus with the BE-7s and downcomers in the middle, which I think seems plausible.

First R3 sighting?

Vast improvement on their previous effort. Crew cabin at the bottom, no disposable crasher stages, vastly cheaper, and enables refuelable hydrolox architectures. SLS/Orion with two refuelable architectures in play:

I think the idea is that the through-pipes feed the next plate section along, and the vertical pipes feed this plate section.

Like this

I don't think that's right. It's been modelled in a few videos by people who should know as two plates spaced by girders with circular holes through them. I think you'd have to custom-order plates that thick from a foundry, and the machining costs would be ridiculous compared to just fabricating it.

Most of what we've been told about Raptor's reliability is that it "super wants to melt". Heat flux goes with the 4th power of pressure, so 350 would be generating nearly twice as much heat flux as 300. If the problem with reliability is indeed heating, then firing an engine successfully at 350bar for 40s demonstrates significant progress. That B7 took off at only 90% throttle is evidence that reducing power helps nurse the engines.

Bottom lines: Even if Raptor V3 can't operate reliably at 350bar chamber pressure, it'll operate at 300bar far more reliably than Raptor 2. Even if SpaceX can't get full reuse to work, the disposable elements of a Starship would only be a few million more per launch than an F9 upper stage plus fairings. It'll be cheaper per kg by at least a factor of 2, guaranteed, and they don't even have to drop prices because SpaceX have already captured 90% of the market at their current prices. And if they can get full and rapid reuse to work, they win full stop. Private capital never has to be amortised. As long as the interest payments are affordable and there's always someone willing to lend when the old loans come due, development costs are irrelevant. The owner's behaviour could be where SpaceX comes unstuck and it's hard not to be aware of his latest escapades, but discussing the details of those is against forum rules, so. Gwynne Shotwell has always run a tight ship and there's no reason yet to think that won't continue. Kathy Leuders' hiring to run Starbase is a good sign IMO.

Raptor was already the record holder, so yes. 350bar completely blows away the 2nd placed RD-180 (267bar).

Wow! That's seriously impressive. Officially more powerful than BE-4. Edit: A little caveat, it wasn't expected to survive that. And yet it did. And also Raptor V3 may be even cleaner than V2. Still uses a throat film cooling manifold though:

Ariane 6 was defined at concept level in 2012 about a year before Falcon 9 v1.1 had its first flight, and they faffed about a bit before settling on its final layout in 2014 about a year after F9 v1.1. Arianespace knew at the time they had to cut costs in half, and even so planned to launch two sats for every 1 on Falcon 9, and use their better 2nd stage for precise orbital insertions with engine relights. Times have moved on. Falcon 9 now has more payload total than Ariane 6 even without counting Falcon Heavy. It is regularly reused, can fly for under $20m internal cost, has an accurate restartable 2nd stage, and holds the record for most payloads deployed at once. And have Arianespace responded to that at all? No. Their Ariane 6 design hasn't moved with F9's developing capabilities and is now a full decade behind the times. The only thing worse for them than choosing this design would be sticking with Ariane 5.

Short of putting the launch site at the tip of Florida in Southern Glades Wildlife & Environmental area, there's basically no eastern seafront that isn't densely populated. Boca Chica was an ideal location and it's frankly miraculous they got a site as good as they did.

Wow:

It's Thrust Vector Control as @SunlitZelkovasuggested.

Read the whole of this thread: 3 engines out at Liftoff was intentional. Explosion at t+28 wasn't. Loss of comms. Loss of TVC leading to loss of control. FTS took too long to function, needs requalification. Didn't expect to destroy pad. Would have made it through staging with TVC operational. Next flight will be a repeat profile with no payload.