totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[MinimumSky5]

I'm guessing they're vents, to allow the air in the fairing to slowly escape during the ascent. 

[Racescort666]

+1 for vents to allow the fairing to be pressure compensated. It seems odd that there would be scoops forward as those would pressurize the air. They look like they're a soft material so may be they do something counter intuitive during launch. My buddy at NASA said they nitrogen purge the fairings of their payloads to prevent contamination but once the payload is in space, it doesn't really matter. Here's a nice high resolution picture showing them:

The other thing I was surprised by that video were the sparks coming off the tip of the fairing. I guess that explains the metallic nose.

[tater]

 

I was looking for a closeup from the front. Ninjaed!

From the inside:

Click to enlarge. One looks like a scoop, the other doesn't.

[StrandedonEarth]

The “scoop” probably pulls the covers off once it is going fast enough. The Shuttle had similar covers on the RCS ports. 

*disclaimer: I haven’t gotten a close look at these scoops yet

Edited July 4, 2019 by StrandedonEarth

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

Just parts clipping. This happens in KSP, too.

 

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, Racescort666 said:

+1 for vents to allow the fairing to be pressure compensated. It seems odd that there would be scoops forward as those would pressurize the air. They look like they're a soft material so may be they do something counter intuitive during launch. My buddy at NASA said they nitrogen purge the fairings of their payloads to prevent contamination but once the payload is in space, it doesn't really matter. Here's a nice high resolution picture showing them:

The other thing I was surprised by that video were the sparks coming off the tip of the fairing. I guess that explains the metallic nose.

Nitrogen purge + some simple one way valve like an flap who let nitrogen out but not air in would work.
Still putting this on the bottom of the fairing makes sense but it might be lots of turbulence here. 
Having an pipe before or after the flap would make this more secure as pipe would contain nitrogen flowing out 

[tater]

3 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

The “scoop” probably pulls the covers off once it is going fast enough. The Shuttle had similar covers on the RCS ports. 

*disclaimer: I haven’t gotten a close look at these scoops yet

This makes a lot of sense. It's a remarkably elegant way to pull a cover off something with likely 100% effectiveness, and zero tech to go wrong.

[Racescort666]

36 minutes ago, tater said:

This makes a lot of sense. It's a remarkably elegant way to pull a cover off something with likely 100% effectiveness, and zero tech to go wrong.

I used to try aerodynamic separation in KSP. Turns out, it's less parts and lighter to just use sepatrons but it was fun to experiment with.

Edited July 4, 2019 by Racescort666

[kerbiloid]

If take a look at the 5 side latches, it looks like a half of such latch, to insert something flat there. Say, an end of a belt.

Don't they hang it?

Spoiler

if yes - it's a "beltaloada"

 

Edited July 4, 2019 by kerbiloid

[magnemoe]

4 hours ago, Racescort666 said:

I used to try aerodynamic separation in KSP. Turns out, it's less parts and lighter to just use sepatrons but it was fun to experiment with.

Have put fins on some SRB for the same effect. 

However the fairing separates so high I'm not sure air resistance has any serious impact, if so it would most likely push the fairing downward instead as frontal cross section is way larger than the small ports. Again most likely they are not at the bottom because of turbulence. 

[Selective Genius]

On 7/1/2019 at 1:17 PM, mikegarrison said:

I think you are *way* over-estimating the maturity of this idea.

Maybe I am, maybe Starship will not succeed at all, maybe Elon will have a heart attack, there are tons of ways this program would fail. You mentioned quite a few credible points. 

But the future is not forged by overcautious people. If we were too scared to walk out of the caves, 50 thousand years ago, we would still have been in caves.

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

But happily now we build the caves from wood, clay, stone, and concrete.

 

[Cheif Operations Director]

11 hours ago, tater said:

This makes a lot of sense. It's a remarkably elegant way to pull a cover off something with likely 100% effectiveness, and zero tech to go wrong.

They would still need a latching mechanisms otherwise the fairing shell would just fall when pitched over. But yes I agree. It is a little risky though.

Also the atmosphere would be getting less and less dense as you go upward so Im not convinced that would really work. The rocket reaches super sonic speeds when it is pretty low. It seems more economical to use three pistons that push against each other. One at the top and two near the center the air would then enter the shell and blow it away from the rocket given the speed. 

43 minutes ago, Selective Genius said:

Maybe I am, maybe Starship will not succeed at all, maybe Elon will have a heart attack, there are tons of ways this program would fail. You mentioned quite a few credible points. 

But the future is not forged by overcautious people. If we were too scared to walk out of the caves, 50 thousand years ago, we would still have been in caves.

well we would not have nuclear weapons if that happened  

Edited July 5, 2019 by Cheif Operations Director

[Selective Genius]

5 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

  Hide contents

But happily now we build the caves from wood, clay, stone, and concrete.

 

 

Spoiler

Figure of speech, my friend. Figure of speech. 

 

[Wjolcz]

5 hours ago, Cheif Operations Director said:

Also the atmosphere would be getting less and less dense as you go upward so Im not convinced that would really work. The rocket reaches super sonic speeds when it is pretty low. It seems more economical to use three pistons that push against each other. One at the top and two near the center the air would then enter the shell and blow it away from the rocket given the speed. 

I was thinking the same thing. 

[Codraroll]

6 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

  Hide contents

But happily now we build the caves from wood, clay, stone, and concrete.

 

Off-topic question, but why do you use the spoiler tags so much? I can understand using it to hide pictures or longer paragraphs of text so the post can be scrolled over faster upon repeat page viewings, but for single lines of text I really don't see the purpose.

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

18 minutes ago, Codraroll said:

Off-topic question, but why do you use the spoiler tags so much?

The question contains the answer. I use spoilers to hide off-topic and non-serious or unnecessary things.
A casual visitor from google to read about, say, SpaceX, should not be forced to read everything around.

Also I hide pix because of traffic and mobile phones with tiny screens.

Also it allows to ignore me without bothering with the ignore list.

For same reasons I use invisible signature. (white on white, tiny font).

 

Edited July 5, 2019 by kerbiloid

[tater]

 

[tater]

Didn't know where to put this, but it was on FH so...

[CatastrophicFailure]

Mid-night twitter check update: Raptor drops the bass:

 

Or is it midrange at that point? Unce-unce-unce...

[Guest]

@CatastrophicFailure

woo! Excited 

[CatastrophicFailure]

ElonMom partying on-scene too:

 

[NSEP]

3 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Mid-night twitter check update: Raptor drops the bass:

 

Or is it midrange at that point? Unce-unce-unce...

Finally! I think this means that the delays are over and we will finally see some action.

[CatastrophicFailure]

3 hours ago, NSEP said:

Finally! I think this means that the delays are over and we will finally see some action.

Preferably the sort where all the relevant bits end up back where they started in more-or-less the same arrangement. Y’know, not that other sort of action often brought on by out-of-tune rocket engines... 

[KSK]

8 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Mid-night twitter check update: Raptor drops the bass:

 

Or is it midrange at that point? Unce-unce-unce...

Either way it needs go-faster stripes on the nozzle and a pair of fluffy dice hanging from the fuel manifold.

pimp ma rocket, yo.