Thread: SpaceX - On to Mars

Woke up 3:00 AM for the presentation.

Some highlights.

If they get launch permit in Boca Chica soon, they may do the first orbital flight in maybe 2 months from Boca Chica. If not, they have already started building a launch pad at the Cape in Florida and may be ready to launch by end of the year. For Florida they have permit already. But they prefer to do at least R&D flights from Boca Chica. They are also building a sea based launch pad from an oil platform they have purchased at scratch material value.

The big item, exciting for me, is the new version of the Raptor engine, the Raptor 2.

Two engines displayed during the presentation. On the left the version 1, on the right the version 2 Raptor engine, more thrust, a cleaner build, also much cheaper to build. Raptor 2 cost ~$500,000. They presently build about 5 per week and will be at 7 per week next month. At that production rate they will be able to fly a significant launch rate even without reuse. However a lot of fast reuse will be required for cost to get as low as they want it to become. Elon is confident they can get to marginal cost of a launch with 100-150t to $10 million within a few years. Long term with high flight rate they want marginal cost as low as $1 million per launch. That would be for thousands of launches to build a City on Mars. Raptor 2 development is not yet finished. He said at a combustion chamber pressure of 330bar the combustion chamber really, really wants to melt. But he is confident they are getting there with a little tweaking.

He also said, at the involved propellant flow and pressures flanges to connect pipes with seals are a pain in the ass. They go with welded connections whereever possible for Raptor 2. They do not only want low production cost, they want extreme reliability, one booster may do many launches a day.

A few more things.

Elon believes for very long distances Starship will probably be competetive to commercial airplanes. One reason is that long haul planes can do little more than 1 flight a day, a Starship can do many flights a day. I think that will be a while yet. I won't probably see it unless I get a lot older than 80 years.

His goal is still a self sustaining civilization on Mars, a civilization that can survive, if contact with Earth is lost. His guess is it will need at least 1 million t of cargo to Mars, which would require 10,000 flights to Mars plus the refilling flights to fill up Starship in Earth orbit before departure. About 4 propellant tanker launches for each Starship to Mars. So at least 50,000 launches. I think it will take more, for cargo and the people who are going to settle there.

A good recap video from Scott Manley with a lot of video. Highly recommended and not too long. He does excellent presentations.

Just one info. Each of the future 33 booster engines has the power output of a major nuclear power plant, 1GW. That's 33GW on launch.

The best photo of the whole launchsite IMO.

Originally Posted by Takeovers

Each of the future 33 booster engines

When are they scheduled to be certified for launch?

Originally Posted by Takeovers

If they get launch permit in Boca Chica soon

How on earth does it get to the point where you set everything up but have yet to get approval? surely that stuff should be squared away almost from the start or is it due to schedule slippage.

Originally Posted by OhOh

When are they scheduled to be certified for launch?

Good question, next question.

FAA keeps shifting the due date, it is now March. At least the shifts get shorter.

SpaceX is now building a launch pad in Florida. At top speed. A Starship pad on the premises of LC-39A. 39A is also the launch pad for ISS crew and cargo and for Falcon Heavy. Both will exist there in parallel. Work is proceeding at top speed. Seems the foundations for the launch tower and launch mount are already done. At Roberts road, with easy access to the launch pad, they have prepared a facility to build segments for the launch tower. The 39A tankfarm is being upgraded to support frequent Starship launches.

They need this pad for NASA lunar missions with HLS Starship, the lunar lander system that is intended to land crews on the Moon in the NASA Artemis program. Also for launching Starlink sats. Starship will really help with launching 15,000 or more Starlink sats.

NSF Forum is going to do weekly helicopter flights for updates. Access is not as free as it is in Boca Chica.

Launch permit status update.

All of the agencies which need to prepare reports to the FAA, have now done so. Declaration is expected by end of this month. Expected result is a mitigated FONSI. FONSI is Finding Of No Significant Impact, which means permit to operate the launch site. Mitigated means SpaceX will need to do some additional work to mitigate possible impact.

SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said she expects the first Starship orbital flight in June or July, which may be optimistic.

NASA HLS, the group working with SpaceX for the Starship lunar lander expects launch before fall/autumn.

Today a new YouTube video by Everyday Astronaut was published. A tour through Boca Chica factory site with Elon Musk. More episodes coming. Worth watching IMO.

One funny info from Elon. They implemented a new simple and efficient system for attitude control of Starship and booster. Elon said, the idea for this change came to him during a previous tour with Everyday Astronaut through the facility. Some talk about the forward flaps of Starship. My impression, that the Starship engineers may not share Elons view on the future development.

Another item in the video worth mentioning. Elon said landing 1t of payload costs presently ~$1 billion. He intends to bring that down to $100,000. A difference of 1/10,000.

The aim is frequent, airline like reuse of launch vehicle and launch pad. Processes highly automated. To the extent, that propellant becomes a major cost factor. Methane is cheap, LOX even a lot cheaper. They don't use Helium to pressurize the tanks, Helium is expensive and would drive up launch cost.

Of course it will be hard to achieve and not realized very soon.

Finally!

The FAA has approved launching Starship from Boca Chica. Only 5 full orbital launches per year, but that may change. It is the number SpaceX requested. A large number requested might have caused problems.

The result is a mitigated FONSI. A finding of no significant impact, but requires a number of actions to minimize impact.

There are 75 required actions. Sounds like a lot but most of the things are already done or are sensible. Much of it is about protecting sea turtles and SpaceX is doing already a lot, have an excellent relation to the local turtle protection group. Careful handling of hazardous materials is understood, naturally. Remove debris in case of explosions, also understood. Provide a shuttle bus to bring employees from Brownsville to the production and launch site.

I understand, they need to contract a biologist to monitor wildlife. Install a livecam to observe birds. A lot of people will appreciate it.

SpaceX is moving forward to the first orbital flight. Booster 7 has been transported back to the launch site, this time with all 33 Raptor engines installed. It was placed on the orbital launch mount in preparation for hot fire tests. They placed booster using a crane so far. This time they used the chopsticks, for the first time. Pad infrastructure is being completed. Things look solid and professional now. Not improvised like before.

Methane for test firing is already in the tanks of the orbital tank farm.

Lifting

33 Raptor engines

Placing booster 7 on the orbital launch mount.

Elon Musk says, they are aiming for orbital launch in July. But only if testing goes very smooth, which it never does.


NASA HLS, the NASA Moon landing team, expects orbital launch of Starship this summer.

Originally Posted by Takeovers

33 Raptor engines

Is there a reason they're numbered 53, 41, 63, and not 1-33?

Originally Posted by Edmond

Is there a reason they're numbered 53, 41, 63, and not 1-33?

They have blown up a lot of engines on the test stand. Full flow stage combustion engines are a challenge. None has ever been built and flown before Raptor. Soviet Union has designed them but never flown, probably due to their collapse. Once the system is mastered, the are excellent, the best engines ever. But just yesterday they blew one up again at their test site McGregor.

BTW, similar to Merlin engine development. Tom Müller, their chief engine developer told that story from early SpaceX. He had suggested a number of possible engine designs for their Falcon rocket. But Elon Musk was not happy with any of them. So Müller suggested another design, but there is a reason, why that design has never been built. He said, if they can make it work it will be cheap and reliable. But for sure many will blow up on the test stand during development. Elon said, this is what they are going to do. Result is the very reliable Merlin engine.

Makes sense cheers

Twitter video of the Raptor engine blowing up. There is a test campaign going on in McGregor with several test firings a day.

https://twitter.com/nextspaceflight/...715795968?s=21

A video of Elon Musk by Tim Dodd about the Raptor 2 engine. I love it but not sure if any of you will. Elon is talking about engines blowing up. He said, at least 20 engines blown up. Many more engines had the combustion chamber and nozzle blown up, but the complex turbopumps survived and can be reused.

Present engines are optimized for robustness. Many iterations in the future will probably bring thrust from present 230t to 250t. Chamber pressure is presently at 300 bar. The highest pressure of any production engine ever.



The Raptor 2 has lower weight, higher thrust, many components eliminated, much easier and cheaper to produce compared to Raptor 1. Also much higher reliability.

Something happened today at Starbase Boca Chica. Not clear yet what it was and what the consequences are. It is certainly a setback. Watch if you like a big fireball. But booster is still standing.



Elon Musk tweet

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1546639772621365248

Yeah, actually not good. Team is assessing damage.

Originally Posted by Takeovers

But booster is still standing.

Is the "booster" a different engine to the "Raptor 2"?

Originally Posted by OhOh

Is the "booster" a different engine to the "Raptor 2"?

no no no no, you have to be kidding me.

Originally Posted by aging one

no no no no, you have to be kidding me

Thank you for your answer.

So it's the same engine, which is being test fired and "problems" are being, understandably, found.

Originally Posted by Takeovers

Yeah, actually not good. Team is assessing damage.

Musk having a bad hair week. The many test failures here, tesla and twitter stocks tumbling add up to a very big sum even the world's richest man can ill afford.
Likely the main reason he decided to breach agreement to buy Twitter.