totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

44 minutes ago, Lewie said:

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

Thanks for this! 

[Lewie]

8 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

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.

welp I'm dumb

[StrandedonEarth]

1 hour ago, Lewie said:

I’ll post some pics soon-ish (need to figure out how to move pics from my phone to my computer) 

Ive fought with enough photo import tools that I find it easier to just email them to myself lol

[tater]

 

Also:

 

[sevenperforce]

2 hours ago, tater said:

Wait, are they installing the engines before they transport the booster??

I thought engine installation was going to keep happening on the pad!

[tater]

24 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Wait, are they installing the engines before they transport the booster??

I thought engine installation was going to keep happening on the pad!

Me, too.

[Beccab]

At the moment:

- 12/20 Raptor Boost rolled to B4

- 3/9 normal Raptors rolled to B4

 

Rest in peace BE4 and its 9 engines not fight capable made in the last 10 years 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

I would not land anything but a small helo on Deimos at this point.

3 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Rest in peace BE4 and its 9 engines not fight capable made in the last 10 years

I've been poking about and can't figure out what the problem is with those.  I read that ULA is losing patience... but why can they not, between them, figure the thing out?

[Beccab]

15 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I've been poking about and can't figure out what the problem is with those.  I read that ULA is losing patience... but why can they not, between them, figure the thing out?

BO has no experience making engines that complex. The only engine they were able to make fly is the BE-3, a simple combustion tap-off cycle design; BE3-U, which they offered to NASA for the lunar lander and according to HLS documents created severe doubts it would be flight ready by 2024 is an open expander cycle, with BE-4 being an even more complex oxygen rich staged combustion engine that they want to be reusable for 25+ flights. There's rumors that its development is sufficient or nearly for single use like it would be on Vulcan, but BO is really more focused on making it ready for New Glenn than completing the contract for its competitor. Also, it had problems with the preburner some time ago, but they should have been fixed by now

Edited August 2, 2021 by Beccab

[wumpus]

13 hours ago, Beccab said:

...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

I'd still want to flip the SH, although it might take some serious fins fore and aft (remember dry weight isn't that big a deal on the first stage).  While the landing record of Falcon 9 is great (recently), the landing record for Falcon Heavy (center) isn't, and I'm reasonably sure that getting more delta-v from SH than the Falcon 9 booster provided would be better.  I'm fairly certain the Falcon 9 booster was designed around the "expended" delta-v amount.

Of course a company as in love with "iterated design" may well choose SH 1.0 to be as close to F9 as possible, with SH1.x morphing into something else (which might surprise everyone).

[Beccab]

we're at 19 engines delivered now, 3/9 normal raptors and 16/20 Raptor Boost. Only 5 are outside which means at least 14 are inside being installed or already installed

[wumpus]

From the ULA discussion, but really belongs here:

On 7/29/2021 at 2:16 PM, mikegarrison said:

How many [rockets] have SpaceX built "on their own dime"? Zero, they hope. They intend to make a profit. Profitable companies build products for other people to buy.

Just out of curiosity, does anybody know how much NASA (or other potential customers) paid for Falcon 1 design?  I'm assuming something, because the friction between the "reckless new hotshots" and NASA existed before the Falcon 9 CSA contract, but I don't think much of the money came from NASA.  That and that's the type of thing NASA would throw some change at, if only expecting whitepapers or powerpoint as a deliverable item.

- as a disclaimer, I should note that every single "good job" I've ever had either was directly for the military industrial complex or was closely associated with it.  

[RCgothic]

IIRC from Liftoff, not much if anything. SpaceX did get an injection of cash towards Dragon and Falcon 9 that helped keep it afloat around the time of F1 flight 4, but before that it was completely on Musk's capital investment and their commercial contracts (for which they needed to put payloads in orbit to get paid).

[Beccab]

9 minutes ago, wumpus said:

From the ULA discussion, but really belongs here:

Just out of curiosity, does anybody know how much NASA (or other potential customers) paid for Falcon 1 design?  I'm assuming something, because the friction between the "reckless new hotshots" and NASA existed before the Falcon 9 CSA contract, but I don't think much of the money came from NASA.  That and that's the type of thing NASA would throw some change at, if only expecting whitepapers or powerpoint as a deliverable item.

- as a disclaimer, I should note that every single "good job" I've ever had either was directly for the military industrial complex or was closely associated with it.  

NASA paid nothing for Falcon 1, they became interested in SpaceX only when Falcon 9 and Dragon started being built. The only money came from customers, which were 2 DARPA satellites (failed), two NASA and one ORS satellites on the same launch(failed) as secondary payloads and RakSAT (only successful Falcon 1 commercial launch before being retired)

Edited August 2, 2021 by Beccab

[Spaceception]

There's a road closure this afternoon, possibly for BN4, at 3-7PM https://www.cameroncounty.us/spacex/

We might get a picture of Superheavy's underside relatively soon

[Beccab]

1 minute ago, Spaceception said:

There's a road closure this afternoon, possibly for BN4, at 3-7PM https://www.cameroncounty.us/spacex/

We might get a picture of Superheavy's underside relatively soon

We also likely have every engine installed now!

Everything appears to be ready if they want to do the rollout

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

7 hours ago, wumpus said:

That and that's the type of thing NASA would throw some change at

Got some early money from DARPA - but damn near bankrupted by Falcon 1 failures.  I just read through the Wikipedia article and can't believe how little I knew about the founding and early years of the company.   There is good mention of Musk's hiring and promoting key people - so it's nice to see that it is not just 'lucky boy genius makes good' . 

Looks to me like the early government money was get off the ground to break even stuff - but commercial contracts pushed them over the top.  NASA confidence has to be the biggest selling point for prospective customers, too. 

[RCgothic]

 

 

 

[Beccab]

10 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

 

 

 

Iirc at least 2 SN had the same thing, it went back to normal when they did a pressure test

Edit: already disappeared it seems!

Edited August 2, 2021 by Beccab

[Spaceception]

11 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Iirc at least 2 SN had the same thing, it went back to normal when they did a pressure test

Edit: already disappeared it seems!

Did someone take a hammer to it?

[RealKerbal3x]

B4 and its pack of Raptors appear to be coming out to play...

Edit:

 

Edited August 2, 2021 by RealKerbal3x
added tweet

[sevenperforce]

7 minutes ago, RealKerbal3x said:

B4 and its pack of Raptors appear to be coming out to play...

Fascinating that they installed the Raptors underneath the mobile mount. I was wondering how they were going to do the transport but that makes sense.

Note also that they are now using the catch points for the hoist lift. Just a single I-beam across the top, secured to the catch points.

And here's what looks like one of SN20's aft fins being carted past the base of BN4:

[tater]

7 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Note also that they are now using the catch points for the hoist lift. Just a single I-beam across the top, secured to the catch points.

That other beam they had on the crane by the launch site was stenciled with text that said:

Working Load Limit

63.77 for fixed configuration

216.57 with sling rigging

 

Makes me wonder what counts as sling rigging (I was assuming it was more of the spiderweb they have used before, but I'm completely clueless about cranes).

[RealKerbal3x]

[cubinator]

Woohoo! Now that's a Mars rocket!