SpaceX Tuesday...

[Beati Dogu]

It's the Space Stig.

[annodomini2]

Beati Dogu said:

It's the Space Stig.

[MartG]

Yay

[Beati Dogu]

The centre booster will (hopefully) land way out from the coast - about 600 miles. The furthest by far they've had to send the landing ship flotilla.For the first FH flight, the landing ship was about 220 miles off the coast. Most geosynchronous transfer orbit Falcon 9 launches have the ships waiting at around 400 miles out.

Unlike last year's test launch, this Falcon Heavy will be made from 3 new Block 5 boosters. Furthermore, they plan to reunite them and relaunch just a month or so later.



Meanwhile. fairing catcher boat, Mr Steven, is said to be heading for the Panama Canal and Florida. It'll get a lot more practice over there, especially as the Iridium launch contract has now finished at Vandenberg.

[GTO-3R]

I lost the link to a website that had all the scheduled spaceX flights, does anybody have it? Sorry I cant remember the name of it either

[LivingTheDream]

very near miss for Mr Steven in catching practise - I'll try to find a link

[LivingTheDream]

here ....

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1090400806703001...

[Beati Dogu]

So close. It's proving not to be that easy.

GTO-3R said:

I lost the link to a website that had all the scheduled spaceX flights, does anybody have it? Sorry I cant remember the name of it either

I use this one, which has SpaceX and other launches listed:

https://spaceflightnow.com/launch-schedule/

[RobDickinson]

I use the SpaceXNow app

[MartG]

Photos released of first 'operationalised' Raptor engine

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-ceo-elon-musk-off...

Scott Manley video discussing the engine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sdwy9fzQzl4&fe...

[Beati Dogu]

Nice to see the full size version after all this time:




Hard to tell for sure, but looks quite a bit larger than the Merlin engine on the Falcon 9.


"Initially making one 200 metric ton thrust engine common across ship & booster to reach the moon as fast as possible. Next versions will split to vacuum-optimized (380+ sec Isp) & sea-level thrust optimized (~250 ton)." - Elon Musk


So, over twice as powerful as the current Merlin 1D engine. With more to come.

And since they'll be burning methane instead of kerosene, they won't put a load of black soot all over the nice shiny rockets.

Edited by Beati Dogu on Friday 1st February 23:35

[RobDickinson]

its 2-3 times as long

[Beati Dogu]

The launch tower at Pad 39A is getting the rest of its new cladding attached:





More photos here:

https://twitter.com/Cygnusx112/status/109174301381...

[Beati Dogu]

Here's a video of a full size Raptor engine doing a 2 second test fire at McGregor, Texas:

WARNING: Don't listen with headphones on, or with your speaker volume on high or RIP eardrums. I kid you not:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAAzbjG_Duc


SpaceX say it reached 170 bar and ~116 metric tons of force – the highest thrust ever from a SpaceX engine
That's actually about 60% power.


The green tinge isn't the TEA-TEB chemicals they use to light RP-1 engines like the Merlins on the Falcon 9. They start these beasties with a spark plug, which ignites some pyrotechnics, which in turn light the main fuel. The green is probably due to the camera struggling to adjust or some copper residue burning off according to Elon.

Edited by Beati Dogu on Monday 4th February 23:52

[MartG]

[Beati Dogu]

With the in-flight abort some time in June probably. Maybe. Perhaps.

[RobDickinson]

Elon Musk
‏Verified account @elonmusk
Raptor just achieved power level needed for Starship & Super Heavy
Design requires at least 170 metric tons of force. Engine reached 172 mT & 257 bar chamber pressure with warm propellant, which means 10% to 20% more with deep cryo.

[Beati Dogu]

And they want 31 of them on the booster alone.

[rovermorris999]

Beati Dogu said:

And they want 31 of them on the booster alone.

A bit worrying. That must increase the chances of failure compared to fewer, larger engines. I'd assume cheaper to produce though.

[RobDickinson]

Similar to the Fh really. Redundancy..