totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[sevenperforce]

Finally some really good detail on the SN20 nosecone heat shield.

It looks like we have tiles that become progressively narrower (but do not taper) with each row, moving up, until you hit a seam and start over.

It's particularly visible at the top seam, between the very thin/narrow tiles and the much wider tiles above.

Also note curious square tiles on the flap fairing with hex tiles between them, custom-cut to fit.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, sevenperforce said:

Finally some really good detail on the SN20 nosecone heat shield.

It looks like we have tiles that become progressively narrower (but do not taper) with each row, moving up, until you hit a seam and start over.

It's particularly visible at the top seam, between the very thin/narrow tiles and the much wider tiles above.

Also note curious square tiles on the flap fairing with hex tiles between them, custom-cut to fit.

Interesting how the tiles go past the halfway point horizontally. 
 

anyone else really love how the tiles look?

[Beccab]

1 hour ago, sevenperforce said:

Finally some really good detail on the SN20 nosecone heat shield.

It looks like we have tiles that become progressively narrower (but do not taper) with each row, moving up, until you hit a seam and start over.

It's particularly visible at the top seam, between the very thin/narrow tiles and the much wider tiles above.

Also note curious square tiles on the flap fairing with hex tiles between them, custom-cut to fit.

They also already replaced the broken ones it seems

[CatastrophicFailure]

So, all of us fudging it with AIRBRAKES this whole time were actually ahead of the curve. 

[Scotius]

Soooo... give Starship a lifting body profile and stretch the airbraking\gliding phase? Something like a wingless Space Shuttle that still lands vertically.

[Rakaydos]

23 minutes ago, Scotius said:

Soooo... give Starship a lifting body profile and stretch the airbraking\gliding phase? Something like a wingless Space Shuttle that still lands vertically.

No, this is talking about making Superheavy more like Starship.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

2 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

No, this is talking about making Superheavy more like Starship.

Seeing as the flip is... fraught... Shouldn't they go for bigger fins and maybe a chute or two - and then land like falcon 

[Beccab]

 

Or three or four, we can't see behind B4!

[RCgothic]

27 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Seeing as the flip is... fraught... Shouldn't they go for bigger fins and maybe a chute or two - and then land like falcon 

Biggest is heavier and draggier is less payload.

[Beccab]

28 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Seeing as the flip is... fraught... Shouldn't they go for bigger fins and maybe a chute or two - and then land like falcon 

Why should they? They literally proved the flip works, and Starship can even hover. Chutes will never happen because it slows down recovering by a lot and really aren't needed, and it already lands like falcon. They already started making fins smaller by the way, the S20 ones are less huge than the SN8 to 15

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

How much gimbal does it take to flip a ship as long and heavy as SH? 

- won't that also limit payload b/c needing to save fuel for the flipslam? 

(My initial understanding was that SH would follow a similar flight profile as Falcon and it made sense to land in the 'proven over and over again' method rather than the - 'whew! We did it! ' method) 

[Beccab]

55 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

How much gimbal does it take to flip a ship as long and heavy as SH? 

- won't that also limit payload b/c needing to save fuel for the flipslam? 

(My initial understanding was that SH would follow a similar flight profile as Falcon and it made sense to land in the 'proven over and over again' method rather than the - 'whew! We did it! ' method) 

...yes, it's what they still want to do. Nobody is talking about flipping SH, Elon is simply spittballing on twitter how gridfins may not be the optimal design for maximum payload and using something that increases drag (i.e. aerobrakes) instead to use less fuel to land. However, keep in mind that when he writes stuff like this it's just throwing ideas that haven't been discussed, like when he wanted to consider catching the upper stage itself. Ideas, not plans

With that we are at least at 5 new raptor deliveries only today, which is possible to be higher as in the previous transportation Mary said she arrived when they had already started the unloading. Whatever the number of Raptors at Starbase atm, we're very close

[sevenperforce]

10 hours ago, The Doodling Astronaut said:

Interesting how the tiles go past the halfway point horizontally. 

anyone else really love how the tiles look?

Yes, it's a really good look.

The tiles go past the halfway point in certain areas to protect from plasma streaming around the elonerons.

46 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

How much gimbal does it take to flip a ship as long and heavy as SH? 

- won't that also limit payload b/c needing to save fuel for the flipslam? 

(My initial understanding was that SH would follow a similar flight profile as Falcon and it made sense to land in the 'proven over and over again' method rather than the - 'whew! We did it! ' method) 

I don't think there is any suggestion of doing a kick-flip with Superheavy. Superheavy's engine cluster is much much bigger and heavier than Starship's and so it will be VERY tail-heavy; there's no way they could get it to fall horizontally. Starship needed the LOX header tank in the nosecone just to get the right balance, after all.

I would more-expect to see them replace Superheavy's grid fins with conventional fins/canards like the ones on New Shepard and New Glenn. They could be fixed to vertical during ascent and then rotate to act like airbrakes on descent:

The canards/fins could turn in unison for guidance during initial re-entry and then turn opposite to each other to act as airbrakes and really slow down the booster.

 

[Beccab]

S20 now has an aft flap and more TPS tiles
Direct comparison between the pic @sevenperforceposted 12 hours ago before this one:

[sevenperforce]

22 minutes ago, Beccab said:

S20 now has an aft flap and more TPS tiles

Looks absolutely amazing.

I now think I know how they are tiling the nosecone, too. It's absolutely ingenious and I can't believe I didn't think of it.

(well, actually I kind of DID think of it, nearly...it was my first render a few months ago)

I went through and pixel-counted the average width of each tile in each row. What I found is that they step up very very gradually. The way the math works out, it appears they are using just two extra tile widths in addition to the regular hexes. They are narrower, but they don't taper.  

EDIT: Here's an earlier wide-angle shot of the flap being lowered into place.

[Beccab]

2 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Looks absolutely amazing.

I now think I know how they are tiling the nosecone, too. It's absolutely ingenious and I can't believe I didn't think of it.

(well, actually I kind of DID think of it, nearly...it was my first render a few months ago)

I went through and pixel-counted the average width of each tile in each row. What I found is that they step up very very gradually. The way the math works out, it appears they are using just two extra tile widths in addition to the regular hexes. They are narrower, but they don't taper.  

Now I'm curious how they will fill in the gap between hexagons and squares, most likely it's going to have to be custom ones for that

[sevenperforce]

3 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Now I'm curious how they will fill in the gap between hexagons and squares, most likely it's going to have to be custom ones for that

I'm assuming they will just use hexes cut to fit. That's what we see on the flaps.

[RealKerbal3x]

7 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Now I'm curious how they will fill in the gap between hexagons and squares, most likely it's going to have to be custom ones for that

Yeah, they'll probably glue custom filler tiles in the gaps as there aren't any tile attachment pins there.

[Beccab]

3 minutes ago, RealKerbal3x said:

Yeah, they'll probably glue custom filler tiles in the gaps as there aren't any tile attachment pins there.

Good catch!

[Spaceception]

BN4 is almost stacked.

So at this point, I suppose they'll roll the booster out in the next day or two (would it need to be rolled to the pad now, or could it sit outside until the OLP is ready?) so they can stack SN20 in the high bay, and finish the GSE tanks in the midbay. This week is going to be busy.

 

EDIT: I don't know if anyone has noticed, but SpaceX updated the images at the bottom of the Starship page https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/

Edited August 1, 2021 by Spaceception

[tater]

1 hour ago, Spaceception said:

EDIT: I don't know if anyone has noticed, but SpaceX updated the images at the bottom of the Starship page https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/

[Lewie]

Doesn’t anybody else think the gridfins are gonna look real scuffed?

kinda disappointing, to be honest. But that’s just me whining

[tater]

22 minutes ago, Lewie said:

Doesn’t anybody else think the gridfins are gonna look real scuffed?

kinda disappointing, to be honest. But that’s just me whining

Early grid fins don’t need to actually survive, they are going to be fish habitat.

[Lewie]

So...for anybody that didn’t see my status update last week I was in Texas on a mission trip. We left from San Juan (from where we were working) to South Padre island. Last winter (while we were planning the trip) I managed to convince Sean (youth director+coordinator of the mission trip) to take us to Starbase. (Didn’t have to do much lol everyone thought it’d be awesome!) So, we were driving down the highway to Starbase....tall shrubs+trees were blocking our view on every side. We went around a bend, the shrubbery cleared...and across the wetlands I could see Phobos+Deimos. Heh...At this point I was pretty much screaming ‘GUYS! THAT’S PHOBOS AND DEIMOS! THOSE SUCKERS ARE GONNA BE FLOATING LAUNCH PLATFOOOORMS!!!’ 

Excited, to say the least.

A little bit longer....and we saw Starbase. Still a Few miles out, but we could see the highbay, we could see SN15+16 standing proud. Beyond that, the launch site was in view....man, the tower was something to see!! We could see BN3...that shiny, shiny skyscraper booster. (Just MASSIVE!) we pulled over, and got out of the cars (two minivans+suv) I was really lightheaded at this point (couldn’t believe I was actually there!!) we started taking pictures...and we all started walking down Rocket Road (they had a sign for it lol) to SN15+16 

You see the things in videos 

you see them in pictures 

but you don’t get a true sense of scale until you see it up close

We were able to get so close toSN16 (<50 feet) (I got pictures galore of the two!) lemme tell you this-

Elon Musk is one crazy SOB. He got a team that managed to make this Steel beast fly+bellyflop+land....I have full confidence that Starship will be successful. What they've done so far with this vehicle is absurd...I know they can make this thing work! Seeing that beast up close...was amazing. I’ll post some pics soon-ish (need to figure out how to move pics from my phone to my computer) 

the entirety of the time we were there...I was telling my comrades all about the Starship program, the vehicle, and that I’m gonna ride one to Mars someday. It was the best day of my life, no doubt about it. It’s gonna be hard to top it! 

Also, it is SHINY!! It’s a heck of a lot more shiny in person then in pictures. Cheers!!

-Lewie 

4 minutes ago, tater said:

Early grid fins don’t need to actually survive, they are going to be fish habitat.

Lol good point

Artificial reefs! SpaceX really does care, see?

[Rakaydos]

28 minutes ago, Lewie said:

 We went around a bend, the shrubbery cleared...and across the wetlands I could see Phobos+Deimos. Heh...At this point I was pretty much screaming ‘GUYS! THAT’S PHOBOS AND DEIMOS! THOSE SUCKERS ARE GONNA BE FLOATING LAUNCH PLATFOOOORMS!!!’ 

Excited, to say the least.

 

not to dull your enthusiasm, but those weren't phobos and deimos.

Deimos may be in the port of brownsville being worked over by a dozen cranes, but Phobos isnt even in Texas right now- it's in Pascagulla, Mississipi, because there was an open berth with the facilities needed for the refit.