totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[Beccab]

14 hours ago, tater said:

 

Yay! Correct me if I miss anything:
- Mega Bay is about 34 feet taller than the High Bay but much wider, to allow for much more parallel stacking of Starship parts (2-3 work stations in the high bay, 10-12 in the new one); this means that booster and ship construction rate can ramp up
- The booster that was being stacked during the tour (later in the video confirmed as B7) has as attitude control system the ullage thrusters that use excess gas, the working of which was mentioned in the last tour; a symilar system is implemented in the ship
- The new chines on the booster are 120 degrees apart, and are used to increase the surface area coming down for landing as well as to contain the COPVs. The current design is pretty rudimental and expected to change in future iterations, for example they would work better by being larger at the base than at the top
- Whether it's better to continue with grid fins or switch to normal aero surfaces has been discussed frequently, just like grid fins positionment and design; advantages of the grid fins is that they are more consistent during transonic than a flat surface, experience gained with F9, and smaller actuator size compared to a more traditional flat surface. Another thing that could change is the number of grid fins, as two or three (like the original ITS) could also work, and size has already shrank a lot with improvements in the design
- Plans for S24 deployer (payload etc) are not definitive. There's now yesterday's extract on fairing pressurization
- A big hinged door can be added on future ships, but the smaller it is the better as long as it the mechanism doesn't jam up
- The B4/S20 plan to land just shy of an orbit in front of Hawaii seems to have been inherted by B7/S24; there's little need to do more for the test launch, considering the low probability that reentry succeeds (and not too high chances for the overall flight) EDIT: rewatching this part, it's actually unclear what they are talking about - it either means it's the same plan as 4/20 or it will do a very little longer burn to go for one full orbit
- Reentry angle will be similar to the Shuttle, ~170 degrees
- S20 is now retired, no more tests or flights are planned for it. They've learned enough from the SN test flights, now it's time for orbit
- TWR will be quite high for a vehicle this size, 1.5
- The current ship lifting points are unoptimal, they will need moving to a non-heat shielded part
- Catching the ship too is still in the future plans; to do that, you're going to need to have something coming out of the ship, and how that will work is still being debated. There's also discussions about moving the forward flaps more to the leeward side, since while they do work the way they are now they are very suboptimal - the perfect forward flaps would be in a different location, size and position. They could potentially be removed entirely in one scenario (like in ITS and BFR) - think Mig-105
- The permanent building that is beginning construction (called Starfactory or something like that iirc) will fully replace tents, but not the high bays.

Next part will be about (and on) the launch tower, raptor 2s and also Merlin engines

Edited May 15, 2022 by Beccab

[Beccab]

Raptor R57 was also delivered

[CatastrophicFailure]

48 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Correct me if I miss anything:

Welp... guess I don't actually need to watch the thing now... 

[tater]

go for launch

Liftoff

 

MECO

Sep

SES-1

Fairing

[Geonovast]

Is it just me or does 1073 have a better camera than its older siblings?

[tater]

Never gets old.

3 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

Is it just me or does 1073 have a better camera than its older siblings?

Think they have a rotating cover that moves after entry burn to deal with soot?

 

[Geonovast]

That could be.  Did clear up awful fast.

But I mean even before that.  Just seemed like higher quality footage.  Maybe I just haven't seen a bright daytime launch in awhile.

[tater]

Now we have to wait 4 whole days for another one.

Course I will be asleep:

May 18

Falcon 9 • Starlink 4-18

Launch time: Approx. 0900 GMT (5:00 a.m. EDT)
Launch site: LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida

Edited May 14, 2022 by tater

[Brotoro]

Nice view of the booster's shadow on the ocean as it was dropping down to the recovery ship.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

111 

That's a lot of not wasted rockets/boosters.

[StrandedonEarth]

Somewhat surprised they used a new booster for Starlinks, you’d think they’d use it for a Crew flight or other outside customer…

Oh right, but it wasn’t “flight-proven” yet… 

Edited May 14, 2022 by StrandedonEarth

[Beccab]

2 hours ago, Geonovast said:

That could be.  Did clear up awful fast.

But I mean even before that.  Just seemed like higher quality footage.  Maybe I just haven't seen a bright daytime launch in awhile.

Actually, given that it's 1703's first flight it seems plausible - they've updated coverage with Starlink as well recently, which gave a lot better signal on the way down

[Beccab]

That's almost every surviving starship in one picture

Edit: also, there's this

Reportedly, this part of the escorting cars of Indonesian president Joko Widodo, who met with Musk very recently and is rumored to be attempting to make Indonesia the first non-US Starship spaceport. This is all speculation and unconfirmed informations of course, so make of that what you will

Edit 2: looks like at least the first part is correct

 

Edited May 15, 2022 by Beccab

[Scotius]

Indonesia, eh?

Straight on the equator. Plenty of open water westward. That's a plus.

Unfortunately, there are internal issues that should make any high - profile investor wary. That's a minus.

[GuessingEveryDay]

5 hours ago, Scotius said:

Unfortunately, there are internal issues that should make any high - profile investor wary. That's a minus.

Don't forget its close proximity to China. One cute nuke, or one of the volcanoes could stop SpaceX from launching from there for a long time, plus the ITAR fun.

[darthgently]

11 hours ago, Beccab said:

 

Are Pinoy and Indonesian related?  They look a lot a like in roman characters anyway.  I don't know either, for what it is worth

[tater]

 

[mikegarrison]

3 hours ago, tater said:

 

Um... Electron is a "US launcher"?

[RealKerbal3x]

Just now, mikegarrison said:

Um... Electron is a "US launcher"?

Rocket Lab is a US company, despite currently only launching from New Zealand. I think it's set up that way so that they're eligible for US government launch contracts.

[mikegarrison]

1 minute ago, RealKerbal3x said:

Rocket Lab is a US company, despite currently only launching from New Zealand. I think it's set up that way so that they're eligible for US government launch contracts.

OK, thanks for the info.

[Beccab]

1 minute ago, RealKerbal3x said:

Rocket Lab is a US company, despite currently only launching from New Zealand. I think it's set up that way so that they're eligible for US government launch contracts.

They also have quite big expansion plans in the US, starting to launch there later this year (and I think with Neutron being solely from the US)

[Beccab]

 

[RealKerbal3x]

 

[tater]

1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

Um... Electron is a "US launcher"?

As said above, the company name is Rocket Lab USA (see URL —>): https://www.rocketlabusa.com/

And yeah, it was a savvy choice so they could secure US government launch contracts.

 

[tater]