SpaceX (Vol. 2)
Discussion
RizzoTheRat said:
Didn't they damage the pad on the one of the earlier tests? 33 Raptors is going to take a lot of water to keep the pad in one piece.
Yes, on the 11 engine SF, they destroyed the concrete under the OLM.They replaced it with a different concrete formula.
Then they did the 14 engine SF and even with the new concrete it still damaged, so I would guess they are installing the Deluge system now for the 33 SF.
Hammersia said:
Clearly Elon didn't want to do all that work, water suppression, presumably tunneling, reservoirs, flame trench etc.? This seems a fairly major setback? No way he can launch in March?
Watch NASA Spaceflight, or one of the others on Youtube, they've already installed the tanks, most of the piping has arrived.They had it built up at 39A before changing the launch pad design, they've just moved it to Starbase.
I don't think the yare going for the full on KSC type trench. As they aren't using SRBs, there should be somewhat less damage.
Water deluge is surprisingly effective at absorbing shockwaves - I remember a video somewhere of someone demonstrating it using an air cannon or something similar.
Water deluge is surprisingly effective at absorbing shockwaves - I remember a video somewhere of someone demonstrating it using an air cannon or something similar.
Flooble said:
I don't think the yare going for the full on KSC type trench. As they aren't using SRBs, there should be somewhat less damage.
Water deluge is surprisingly effective at absorbing shockwaves - I remember a video somewhere of someone demonstrating it using an air cannon or something similar.
It'll be the most powerful rocket ever built.Water deluge is surprisingly effective at absorbing shockwaves - I remember a video somewhere of someone demonstrating it using an air cannon or something similar.
The base of the booster is twice the diameter of an SRB, roughly 5-6x the area (can't find the nozzle diameter) and 5x the thrust.
They want to avoid the trench due to cost, whether they can still get away with that remains to be seen.
Flooble said:
I don't think the yare going for the full on KSC type trench. As they aren't using SRBs, there should be somewhat less damage.
Water deluge is surprisingly effective at absorbing shockwaves - I remember a video somewhere of someone demonstrating it using an air cannon or something similar.
The flame trenchs on Pads 39A and B were designed to cope with the 7.5 million lbs thrust Saturn V.Water deluge is surprisingly effective at absorbing shockwaves - I remember a video somewhere of someone demonstrating it using an air cannon or something similar.
annodomini2 said:
Hammersia said:
Clearly Elon didn't want to do all that work, water suppression, presumably tunneling, reservoirs, flame trench etc.? This seems a fairly major setback? No way he can launch in March?
Watch NASA Spaceflight, or one of the others on Youtube, they've already installed the tanks, most of the piping has arrived.They had it built up at 39A before changing the launch pad design, they've just moved it to Starbase.
Perhaps they’ll do the full static fire without the beefed up water suppression system. Maybe even the first launch too. They already have this system. I believe they’ve also got an inert gas suppression system too (nitrogen, I expect).
The first Saturn V launch (Apollo 4) was done with no water suppression system, because it wasn’t ready yet.
It’s something they can add later as part of pad upgrades. Fitting it will likely mean tearing up the concrete apron so they can install all that pipework. 33 Raptors is likely to make a head start on that and rain lumps of concrete and grit all over the place anyway.
Looks like they will do another wet dress rehearsal in the next day or so. If that goes OK then they might do a few more, or start thinking about launching.
It’s 5 years today since the first Falcon Heavy launch. Hard to believe.
The first Saturn V launch (Apollo 4) was done with no water suppression system, because it wasn’t ready yet.
It’s something they can add later as part of pad upgrades. Fitting it will likely mean tearing up the concrete apron so they can install all that pipework. 33 Raptors is likely to make a head start on that and rain lumps of concrete and grit all over the place anyway.
Looks like they will do another wet dress rehearsal in the next day or so. If that goes OK then they might do a few more, or start thinking about launching.
It’s 5 years today since the first Falcon Heavy launch. Hard to believe.
Eric Mc said:
Flooble said:
I don't think the yare going for the full on KSC type trench. As they aren't using SRBs, there should be somewhat less damage.
Water deluge is surprisingly effective at absorbing shockwaves - I remember a video somewhere of someone demonstrating it using an air cannon or something similar.
The flame trenchs on Pads 39A and B were designed to cope with the 7.5 million lbs thrust Saturn V.Water deluge is surprisingly effective at absorbing shockwaves - I remember a video somewhere of someone demonstrating it using an air cannon or something similar.
Splitting the vehicle in two and sending just the lander to the surface halved the mass of the rocket
I guess there is a tradeoff between complexity and redundancy, SpaceX seems to prefer going to complexity, if you take complexity to be the number of components used.
Is Falcon heavy the rocket with the second largest number of engines? I am not well versed on the multitude of chinese designs.
Is Falcon heavy the rocket with the second largest number of engines? I am not well versed on the multitude of chinese designs.
ColinGreaves said:
I guess there is a tradeoff between complexity and redundancy, SpaceX seems to prefer going to complexity, if you take complexity to be the number of components used.
Is Falcon heavy the rocket with the second largest number of engines? I am not well versed on the multitude of chinese designs.
I guess the way they've always looked at it is that by having more engines they can be individually smaller and simpler, with economies of scale in their production. Is Falcon heavy the rocket with the second largest number of engines? I am not well versed on the multitude of chinese designs.
It's both, plus there's a sweet spot for rocket engine size, the bigger the engine the more likely it is to have control issues due to complex pressure interactions within the engine.
All the F1 engines on the S5 had to be "calibrated" because of this issue.
Tim dodd has a good video on this.
All the F1 engines on the S5 had to be "calibrated" because of this issue.
Tim dodd has a good video on this.
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