SpaceX (Vol. 2)

[Hill92]

Musk on Twitter: "Deck from SpaceX all-hands update talk I gave last week"

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/15334083138949...

Observations by a Reddit poster:
• ⁠first official animation of Starlink V2 deploy
• ⁠rendering of the planned Cape facility
• ⁠rendering of the starship factory under construction at Starbase
• ⁠B7 seems to have several Raptor 2s already installed. Specifically in a configuration that suggests to me that they plan on directly installing all of them. (Assuming those weren't just mounted for fit checks)

[Talksteer]

Beati Dogu said:

Starliner is also supposed to be a crew & cargo vehicle for the proposed Orbital Reef space station. This is a joint effort led by Blue Origin and Sierra Nevada. So either they’ll have to start human rating Vulcan, or New Glenn.

I did wonder if Starliner was incorporated into that for political purposes, jobs in every district. With the full knowledge that a capsule design on a none reusable rocket was a dead end and that they would drop it later.

A human rated Dreamchaser should in theory be rapidly reusable or at least have the potential to be developed as such. New Glenn should be massively cheaper to operate than a Vulcan once they start reusing first stages. Ergo a Dreamchaser/New Glenn combination would be a much better long term bet particularly if the engineering effort to human rated the boosters is comparable.

The wild card is also the outcome of project Jarvis at Blue Origin. This is essentially a 1/3 scale Starship on New Glenn. They haven't picked a flight mode yet, they are looking at runway landing or propulsive landing. Personally I would say if landing on Mars isn't a requirement runway landing is likely to be much easier to human rate.

The shuttle had quite a few anomalies on landing and never came close to crashing. Compare and contrast to propulsive landing. Runway landing has several billion previous efforts to base proceedures on and is inherently a lower energy slower process than either a suicide burn or a low level flip. Crash landings tend to result in paint scratching and metal bending rather than high energy impacts with vessels fully of fuel and oxidiser in gaseous form.

All the above is moot if the relative progress rates of BO and SpaceX remain similar.

Edited by Talksteer on Sunday 5th June 19:13

[annodomini2]

Hill92 said:

Musk on Twitter: "Deck from SpaceX all-hands update talk I gave last week"

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/15334083138949...

Observations by a Reddit poster:
• ?first official animation of Starlink V2 deploy
• ?rendering of the planned Cape facility
• ?rendering of the starship factory under construction at Starbase
• ?B7 seems to have several Raptor 2s already installed. Specifically in a configuration that suggests to me that they plan on directly installing all of them. (Assuming those weren't just mounted for fit checks)

B7 is likely to do limited static fires to begin with like they did with Starship on the first Vacuum runs.

Whether B7 does the first orbital is the subject of debate, I guess when they get there we'll know.

[Beati Dogu]

There are 4 Falcon Heavy flights due later this year as well. It's been a while - June 2019 was the last one.



27 engine goodness.

The first launch should be mid-August. The payload is the ViaSat-3 comms satellite and a smaller one called Arcturas.

[Beati Dogu]

The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida has a new exhibit opening on 15th June - "Gateway: The Deep Space Launch Complex". among the exhibits there's a Falcon 9 / Falcon Heavy side booster (B1023) and Dream Chaser space plane suspended from the ceiling. They've moved the Cargo Dragon in there too. This one was the first to resupply the ISS, 10 years ago. They also have the flight test Orion capsule and a mockup of a Starliner capsule on display.

Preview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll3oXocJ0p0

https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/landing-pages/g...

[Beati Dogu]

“Targeting Wednesday, June 8 for launch of Nilesat 301 to orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida. The launch window opens at 5:04 p.m. ET [10.04 UK time] and weather for liftoff is 60% favorable“ - SpaceX


This is a geosynchronous TV & comms satellite for Egyptian operator Nilesat. It was originally going to use an expendable booster, but that has changed recently to a landing out in the Atlantic instead. The landing ship will be quite far out - around 678km, so I expect the booster will be coming back faster than usual. This booster is B1062 and this is its 7th flight.

Edit: Launched, landed and deployed OK.

Edited by Beati Dogu on Thursday 9th June 21:55

[Hill92]

Part 3 of Tim Dodd's (Everyday Astronaut) tour with Elon Musk. Talking about the Merlin engines this time. The final video will be about the Raptor engine.

https://youtu.be/hIPLmZK3C1Y

[Smiljan]

I've really enjoyed his series but this episode was a bit light on content. It feels like Tim knows more about these rocket engines than Elon sometimes.

[Talksteer]

Smiljan said:

I've really enjoyed his series but this episode was a bit light on content. It feels like Tim knows more about these rocket engines than Elon sometimes.

He doesn't, Elon is an information sponge and had been doing this for 20 years. He spent the first 5 years of SpaceX grilling the experienced hires on every aspect of rocketry and actually working problems to further his own understanding.

The org structure of SpaceX is that Elon basically runs their preliminary design function hands on, that then hands off the detail design to the functional areas.

Tim is a fan who has obviously done a fair amount of research on rocket types, he might struggle if you asked him to estimate the nozzle heat flux.

[Smiljan]

The engine was designed by Tom Mueller and the team at SpaceX. I wish people wouldn’t try to change history and make out Musk designed it from nothing.

I’ll stick with my comment that this episode was very light on details for a “deep dive” and that Musk has a lot more going on than just that rocket but he seemed to struggle to elaborate and Tim had clearly done his homework.

I have great admiration for Musk and his achievements with SpaceX particularly after reading Eric Bergers’ excellent book ok the early years but I don’t think he’s the same person with the same drive as he was. That channel is normally excellent that’s all, not up to the usual standard and Musk wasn’t on top form sadly.

Edited by Smiljan on Monday 13th June 17:28

[Beati Dogu]

The Merlin was based on NASA's Fastrac (MC-1) engine. I'm sure Elon was intimately involved with Merlin development at the time and he mentions Tom (Mueller) in the video, but it's 10+ years ago now mostly. I expect he's forgotten more rocket engineering than Tim will ever know. Elon has done enough public speaking to know not to go off into the weeds with intricate detail. Tim needs to learn not to do that as well.


Anyway, the FAA is due to release its environmental review into SpaceX operations at Boca Chica at 2pm ET (7pm UK time) today.

[Flooble]

Mitigated FONSI, which presumably means that they are now on the road to a licence and a launch.

The race really is on now between SLS and Starship.

[Beati Dogu]

Happy Days.

[Smiljan]

Beati Dogu said:

The Merlin was based on NASA's Fastrac (MC-1) engine. I'm sure Elon was intimately involved with Merlin development at the time and he mentions Tom (Mueller) in the video, but it's 10+ years ago now mostly. I expect he's forgotten more rocket engineering than Tim will ever know. Elon has done enough public speaking to know not to go off into the weeds with intricate detail. Tim needs to learn not to do that as well.


Anyway, the FAA is due to release its environmental review into SpaceX operations at Boca Chica at 2pm ET (7pm UK time) today.

I only said “it seems like” and it does, Musk was defiantly distracted and off form in that video. Hopefully the Raptor engine “deep dive” will actually be in depth rather than barely scratching the surface,

What’s the next step for Starship after todays report? Fingers crossed launch and hope for the best or full scale orbital attempt plus catch landing?

[RizzoTheRat]

Smiljan said:

I only said “it seems like” and it does, Musk was defiantly distracted and off form in that video. Hopefully the Raptor engine “deep dive” will actually be in depth rather than barely scratching the surface,

What’s the next step for Starship after todays report? Fingers crossed launch and hope for the best or full scale orbital attempt plus catch landing?

Surely the sensible first flight would be a simulated landing over the sea to check they can control the big booster properly, that tower is a big expensive thing to have to replace if it goes wrong...then again SpaceX do seem to have a policy of Go Big Or Go Home and will be pretty confident in the control systems after this many Falcon landings.

[Arnold Cunningham]

I seem to recall reading that first flight would include a landing over water.

I think they always have a "minimum target" on anything they do, but then rather than abort once that lesson is learnt, they keep going to see what happens. Which does sometimes produces a big bang.

That said, I'll be surprised if they go for a capture on the first landing - but if the rocket makes it to a controlled landing at sea and they demonstrate the level of precision and control they require, I could see them progressing to a capture fairly quickly.

[Beati Dogu]

I'm not sure they'd get permission to do anything other than water landings straight off anyway. A full orbital flight would mean the Starship comes back to Boca Chica from the west, which means overflying Mexico, or the southern US states (like the Shuttle did). For its initial flights, the Shuttle landed at either Edwards AFB in California or White Sands in New Mexico (once, because Edwards was flooded). They didn't land back at Kennedy Space Center in Florida until the 10th mission.

The big Booster will be coming back to the launch site from the east, over the sea. Much less of an overflight risk, although it hasn't flown before of course.

[Eric Mc]

How many orbits would they intend for a first orbital mission?

[Beati Dogu]

They seem intent on launching a few Starlink 2 satellites as part of the test flight now, so presumably that means a higher orbit than originally talked about. As far as I know the sea landing off Hawaii is still the plan. There's a missile test tracking facility on one of the islands (Kauai) that would prove useful. Don't know if it comes down on it's first, partial orbit, or does a few orbits and lords it around for a bit up there first.

The Booster it to boost back towards the launch site after separation and do a sea landing about 20 miles off the coast.

[Arnold Cunningham]

You can't help but be excited. This is such a step change in capability.