totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[sevenperforce]

1 hour ago, zolotiyeruki said:

Keep in mind there's a header tank in the nose of SS, which may explain why the door doesn't extend closer to the nose.

The header tank is only the diameter of the spherical cap at the tip of the ogive.

[sevenperforce]

10 minutes ago, tater said:

Look behind it in the tent:

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=52398.msg2266960#msg2266960

There's a huge pic there (first one).

That might be the SN20 nose, and it has tile studs to the nose. Look at the stud pattern, there are intentional gaps vs the usual alignment.

Looks like my guess about the tile patterning was pretty close to correct.

Moving from top to bottom, the rows of tile studs are as follows:

• Down
• Up x2
• Down
• Up x2
• Down
• Up x4
• Down
• Up x3
• Down
• Up x4
• Down
• Up x5
• Down
• Up x11

There is an alignment discontinuity between each downward-pointing tile stud row and the upward-pointing tile stud row directly above it.

It feels like the most straightforward approach will be to simply use pentagons with a flat side for each of those misaligned rows, but we will see.

Assuming that this is the nosecone for SN20, I wonder if we will see glue-on tiles for the very tip or if we will see a thicker single-piece nosecone.

[sevenperforce]

Some excellent person on NSF did a visual representation of the above:

It looks from this like the inverted (green) stud triangles are smaller than the rest, but it is hard to tell for sure. 

[magnemoe]

42 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Some excellent person on NSF did a visual representation of the above:

It looks from this like the inverted (green) stud triangles are smaller than the rest, but it is hard to tell for sure. 

It make little sense that the fasteners are of different size, unless they hold large tiles who they do not. My guess is image artifacts because of pixels and black spikes on an reflective background  also they are spikes. 
Weirder to me is the empty areas, you have an double one below the 3rd center green from top, another one two  greens down and another just below the crane left of the red line. Stuff the camera did not get because the tips was too reflective, I say its most plausible. 
The top one might be for an lifting lug but I guess they made something smaller for this like an screw in tile in the lug hole.
 

[sevenperforce]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

It make little sense that the fasteners are of different size, unless they hold large tiles who they do not. My guess is image artifacts because of pixels and black spikes on an reflective background  also they are spikes. 
Weirder to me is the empty areas, you have an double one below the 3rd center green from top, another one two  greens down and another just below the crane left of the red line. Stuff the camera did not get because the tips was too reflective, I say its most plausible. 
The top one might be for an lifting lug but I guess they made something smaller for this like an screw in tile in the lug hole.
 

Another possibility is that those are smaller to avoid accidentally placing regular tiles on those points, although I would think going upside down would fix that anyway.

[cubinator]

10 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

How was Hubble deployed

Hubble was grabbed with the robot arm and moved out of the bay with that.

[Nothalogh]

8 hours ago, cubinator said:

grabbed with the robot arm and moved out of the bay

How plebian.

The patrician method is to launch it out of the bay on explosive fasteners.

[tomf]

Or use the kerbal method of releasing the cargo stationary , then translating the launching vessel out of the way.

Ok that isn't the real kerbal method, the real kerbal method is releasing the cargo then time warping until it drifts out through the walls.

[Beccab]

 

[Deddly]

Larger? Why? 

[Beccab]

10 minutes ago, Deddly said:

Larger? Why? 

The infamous Starship Heavy, of course

For real, either to stack starship+superheavy prior to flight, to test extended starship/superheavy versions ala F9 block 5, or for the future 18 meters starship. I'd go for the second personally

Edit: Thinking about it, he said larger, not taller: a much more likely option that the previous ones would be to assemble many more superheavies/starships at the same time

Edited July 25, 2021 by Beccab

[RCgothic]

I'd go with additional processing space. Current high bay can basically manage one complete vehicle at once (Starship+Superheavy).

Honestly, the spending SpaceX is doing on Starship and Starlink is unprecedented. I really hope they survive.

[RCgothic]

 

 

 

[kurja]

8 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

 

 

 

Tomorrow? July 19?

[Minmus Taster]

1 hour ago, RCgothic said:

 

 

 

I'm still wondering why GSE 4 was scrapped.

[tater]

 

[wumpus]

10 hours ago, Beccab said:

The infamous Starship Heavy, of course

For real, either to stack starship+superheavy prior to flight, to test extended starship/superheavy versions ala F9 block 5, or for the future 18 meters starship. I'd go for the second personally

Edit: Thinking about it, he said larger, not taller: a much more likely option that the previous ones would be to assemble many more superheavies/starships at the same time

It cost ~$300 million to develop Falcon 9 (v1.0).  It cost over a billion to develop Falcon Heavy.  I doubt they want to do that again.

But I can't help but think that it needs two RTLS air-augmented boosters and a "Starship inspired" center booster that goes to the maximum delta-v/height possible that can land without ceramic tiles.  I'd think they already go that high/fast with superheavy, but it still seems so low I can't believe it.

Note that I'm quite aware that developing such a rocket makes zero sense *now*, but the way SpaceX moves, they might well have reduced enough costs elsewhere to make this needed by the time it could be done if you started now.  It would take a long time to develop (also taking their time should ease the cost a bit, but that isn't Elon's style).

[Beccab]

24 minutes ago, wumpus said:

It cost ~$300 million to develop Falcon 9 (v1.0).  It cost over a billion to develop Falcon Heavy.  I doubt they want to do that again.

There's a reason that pic comes from r/spacexmasterrace 

[mikegarrison]

On 7/24/2021 at 7:13 AM, sevenperforce said:

Looks like my guess about the tile patterning was pretty close to correct.

Moving from top to bottom, the rows of tile studs are as follows:

• Down
• Up x2
• Down
• Up x2
• Down
• Up x4
• Down
• Up x3
• Down
• Up x4
• Down
• Up x5
• Down
• Up x11

There is an alignment discontinuity between each downward-pointing tile stud row and the upward-pointing tile stud row directly above it.

It feels like the most straightforward approach will be to simply use pentagons with a flat side for each of those misaligned rows, but we will see.

Assuming that this is the nosecone for SN20, I wonder if we will see glue-on tiles for the very tip or if we will see a thicker single-piece nosecone.

If they need a boost, they can change this to 

• Up x2
• Down x2
• Left
• Right
• Left
• Right
• B
• A
• Start

Edited July 25, 2021 by mikegarrison

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, wumpus said:

It cost ~$300 million to develop Falcon 9 (v1.0).  It cost over a billion to develop Falcon Heavy.  I doubt they want to do that again.

But I can't help but think that it needs two RTLS air-augmented boosters and a "Starship inspired" center booster that goes to the maximum delta-v/height possible that can land without ceramic tiles.  I'd think they already go that high/fast with superheavy, but it still seems so low I can't believe it.

Note that I'm quite aware that developing such a rocket makes zero sense *now*, but the way SpaceX moves, they might well have reduced enough costs elsewhere to make this needed by the time it could be done if you started now.  It would take a long time to develop (also taking their time should ease the cost a bit, but that isn't Elon's style).

Simply make an larger superheavy would be easier.  You could either make an thicker starship or go for an wine bottle design with an tappering as between Saturn 5 second and 3rd stage. The point with 18 meter was mostly to reduce the number of tankers you need to launch. An optimal tanker will move the common dome up and the upper dome well into the curved part of the nose cone so it would be heavier than standard starship, 

[RCgothic]

Extra-big bay details:

 

 

[RyanRising]

35 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

Extra-big bay details:

 

 

 

So they’re not trying to give the VAB a run for its money just yet.

[RealKerbal3x]

10 minutes ago, RyanRising said:

So they’re not trying to give the VAB a run for its money just yet.

Well, I don't think they have the room...

 

[RCgothic]

Certainly if all Superheavy/Starship stacking had to happen away from the launch site and SpaceX still wanted to pursue their aggressive flight cadence they'd need something as tall as the VAB with at least 4 bays.

Probably a good reason for doing the stacking on the launch pad.

I'm curious though as to what the payload integration facility for Starship will look like.

[Beccab]

1 minute ago, RCgothic said:

I'm curious though as to what the payload integration facility for Starship will look like.

Would it be possible to do that just in a high bay? It will certainly happen before the stacking, and the high bay has all the space needed for that