Wiki Super Heavy/Starship - General Development Discussion

[JB47394]

Booster 13 completed its tanking tests at Massey's and has been brought back to the production site.

A reminder of the likely pairings for coming flights:

Ship 29, Booster 11 on IFT-4
Ship 30, Booster 12 on IFT-5
Ship 31, Booster 13 on IFT-6

A great source of information on the status of the various vehicles can be found at

Starship SpaceX Wiki

This wiki is dedicated to providing information about the activities of SpaceX, with a particular focus on the development of the Starship program. It aims to serve as a resource for both new members of the space community and veterans, offering relevant information about SpaceX's programs. We...

starship-spacex.fandom.com

 

[JB47394]

A bit of a funny moment when work crews cracked the port on one of the big vertical tanks to access the perlite insulation. The stuff is inert, and about as light as styrofoam, so it was just messy.

And here's a picture of the reinforcement stringers that are found on recent boosters. Notice that the stringers below the lift point have been raked or sloped, apparently to avoid the tower arm from snagging on them during a catch. I assume that the pipe will be either moved or shortened by the time they make their first catch attempt.

Marcus House reported that SpaceX is dumping a lot of fill dirt to level an area in front of the Gateway to Mars wall, suggesting that SpaceX will turn that area into a parking lot. The old parking area has been taken over for construction of the second launch tower, just on the other side of the Gateway wall. It will not be used as a Park and Ride area. Nyuk, nyuk.

 

[ecarfan]

A bit of a funny moment when work crews cracked the port on one of the big vertical tanks to access the perlite insulation. The stuff is inert, and about as light as styrofoam, so it was just messy.

There are gardeners everywhere who would happily accept a free shipment of SpaceX-approved perlite! I’ve spent a few hours rototilling it into poor soil to improve drainage.

The old parking area has been taken over for construction of the second launch tower, just on the other side of the Gateway wall. It will not be used as a Park and Ride area. Nyuk, nyuk.

I think carpooling to your Mars-bound Starship launch site is entirely appropriate.

 

[JB47394]

I forgot to mention that the white cap structure that we saw earlier is indeed for sealing the top of a booster against the elements. They also have inserts for the grid fin mounting holes. They aren't white because they aren't exposed to the sun.

 

[ecarfan]

Go to 7:05 in this video. Falconer for pigeon abatement?

 

[scaesare]

Go to 7:05 in this video. Falconer for pigeon abatement?

View attachment 1044409

View attachment 1044410

Or mascot for the current workhorse rocket?

 

[JB47394]

Ship 26 is the one with all those additional external stringers, but no flaps or tiles. It's been sitting idle for quite a while. SpaceX has now moved it into megabay 2 and onto an engine stand. It already has engines, so they may be removing the engines, followed by scrapping of the vehicle. Speculation is that it was an HLS prototype. The stringers would serve as reinforcement for the landing engines. The most advanced test on Ship 26 was a single engine static fire which SpaceX stated was to demonstrate a deorbit burn.

 

[DanCar]

Elon says the heat shield is the biggest issue.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1787285438434005104

Elon: Starship will grow to 140m tall over time.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1787247622891143281

 

[JB47394]

Elon says the heat shield is the biggest issue.

I predict that they'll create a huge vat of heat resistant material and dip entire ships. Because SpaceX.

 

[ecarfan]

Elon says the heat shield is the biggest issue.

My entirely non-expert rocket scientist opinion is that this is a solvable engineering problem and SpaceX will figure it out by 2025.

 

[DanCar]

My entirely non-expert rocket scientist opinion is that this is a solvable engineering problem and SpaceX will figure it out by 2025.

It is not even a big issue since it has been solved before. The problem is one of optimizing for light weight which isn't a killer if it is not solved. I predict they will continue to optimize into the next decade.

 

[scaesare]

It is not even a big issue since it has been solved before. The problem is one of optimizing for light weight which isn't a killer if it is not solved. I predict they will continue to optimize into the next decade.

Not sure I agree it's been solved.

While the Shuttle had a reusable heatshield, it was fragile, and required extensive refurbishment between flights. The filght cadence of the shuttle allowed for this (or perhaps was in part because of this).

With the plans for Starship reuse, minimal refurbishment is needed (the best refurbishment is no refurbishment). And we've already seen tile attachment issues with Starship. So, while SpaceX has a good chance of eventually solving it, that's still a future thing.

 

[ecarfan]

The OLM and GSE underwent testing, and S26 was moved inside the Megabay.

I’m a bit confused by this; S26 placed on the “static fire stand”? I thought that until the next Ship static fire facility at Massey’s was ready, the remaining suborbital pad was used for Ship static fires. How is this new stand going to be used?

 

[mongo]

The OLM and GSE underwent testing, and S26 was moved inside the Megabay.

I’m a bit confused by this; S26 placed on the “static fire stand”? I thought that until the next Ship static fire facility at Massey’s was ready, the remaining suborbital pad was used for Ship static fires. How is this new stand going to be used?

View attachment 1045334

That is the Massey stand, it's mobile.

 

[JB47394]

That is the Massey stand, it's mobile.

Being a little more expansive, the idea is that they put a Starship on a stand like that, run the SPMTs under it, drive it over to Massey's, then right over the flame trench. They set the whole thing down, Starship and stand, on mount points, then back the SPMTs away. To allow the SPMTs to drive over the flame trench, there is a platform that slides to cover the opening. Once the SPMTs are clear, they move the platform out of the way and the whole thing is ready for a static fire.

Well, after connecting up the plumbing, fastening down the launch stand, filling the water tanks, etc.

 

[mongo]

Being a little more expansive, the idea is that they put a Starship on a stand like that, run the SPMTs under it, drive it over to Massey's, then right over the flame trench. They set the whole thing down, Starship and stand, on mount points, then back the SPMTs away. To allow the SPMTs to drive over the flame trench, there is a platform that slides to cover the opening. Once the SPMTs are clear, they move the platform out of the way and the whole thing is ready for a static fire.

Well, after connecting up the plumbing, fastening down the launch stand, filling the water tanks, etc.

Ok, in the style of H2G2, "it's mostly mobile"

 

[ecarfan]

That is the Massey stand, it's mobile.

Oh right, thank you. So that is the new stand and maybe they are doing a fit test?

On another topic, there was a S30 static fire test attempted yesterday but it was aborted.

 

[JB47394]

On another topic, there was a S30 static fire test attempted yesterday but it was aborted.

They completed the Ship 30 static fire today just before noon, central time.

We're a week into May and there's no word on the IFT-3 mishap investigation. I wonder what's going on. SpaceX may be hung up on a regulatory hurdle. Then there's the continuing work on Ship 29's heat tiles, so they may also have a technical issue - and the two may be related.

 

[ecarfan]

In typical NSF fashion there are numerous varying camera views. But oddly, no slo-mo.

 

[scaesare]

They completed the Ship 30 static fire today just before noon, central time.

We're a week into May and there's no word on the IFT-3 mishap investigation. I wonder what's going on. SpaceX may be hung up on a regulatory hurdle. Then there's the continuing work on Ship 29's heat tiles, so they may also have a technical issue - and the two may be related.

I was thinking the same now approaching a third of the way thru the month...

As mishap investigations include planned remedial actions, I wonder if it's often that the root causes of the issues are (thought to be) understood, but the potential remedies need to be worked out and lab tested, and that's the majority of the time it takes to complete the report...