It looks like fuel was venting under the rocket then the igniters did their thing.
It looks like fuel was venting under the rocket then the igniters did their thing.
They repaired Booster 7 and brought it back to the orbital launch pad for further testing. This time they installed only the 20 engines of the outer ring, not yet the 13 gimballing engines at the center. They can install those on the pad or bring Booster 7 back to the production site to do it. Starship is still on the suborbital test pad. They have begun an extended test campaign for both.
2 days ago they did a 1 engine static fire of the booster and a 2 engine test of Starship. Both short duration, about 3 seconds.
Starship test fire 2 days ago
Booster 20s test fire today. Elon Musk tweeted this is a test of the autogenous tank pressurization
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1557815777654235136
Video of the test today by NASASpaceflight forum
"don't attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence"
Explanation of autogenous pressurization. Tanks of rockets need to be pressurized for stability and to provide head pressure for the engines to operate. Usually helium is used for the purpose. But helium is expensive, the cost can easily exceed the cost of the propellant. Also Starship is to go to Mars and come back. Mars has no helium. So they chose autogenous pressurization. Pressurize the oxygen tank with hot gaseous oxygen, the methane tank with hot gaseous methane. The gas is heated by the firing engine and moves to the tank through pipes. A very tricky system. Some early Starship tests failed for not performing as planned.
So a 20 second firing to prove the system working is a very important step.
Occupy Mars
Inspirational SpaceX YouTube video with a few interesting sequences.
The size of it.
When they do all the weight measurements, do they allow for the weight of the balls of the people strapped on top of the thing?
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Last edited by Takeovers; 15-11-2022 at 11:08 PM.
Yesterday they did the biggest static fire of the booster so far. 14 out of 33 engines. It was a full success, the burn lasted for the planned duration. The thrust of this test, with less than half the engines, already exceeds the launch thrust of Saturn V and the Shuttle. The Soviet N1, their intended Moon rocket, had more thrust but never launched successful and was canceled after several early explosions that all destroyed the launch pad. The late Soviet Energiya rocket, also had more thrust. It launched 2 times, first a failure, second a success. Then the program ended because of extremely high cost and the coming end of the Soviet Union.
Unlike other launch pads SpaceX does not pour a huge amount of water under the rocket. They spray out a fine mist of tiny droplets. Much more efficient in water use but unclear yet if that's good enough. Watch for the mist before the engines ignite. There was a little damage to the pad. If they want a high launch cadence they will need to improve the pad infrastructure more. They do constant improvements all the time.
More tests coming up. They still hope for orbital launch this year, dependent on how well the test sequence goes.
On every test of this kind NASA teams of the NASA HLS, human landing system for the Moon, are present. They are very pleased with the progress. No comments on the latest tests so far, but they should be pleased again.
An interesting critique of Elon Musk's Mars project.
A humorous, interesting interview, hitting many topics and his life so far.
Elon Musk Sits Down With The Babylon Bee.
FULL INTERVIEW:
Last edited by OhOh; 16-11-2022 at 08:32 PM.
She's on the way.
A quite interesting video about the physics of a flight to Mars. The theme is Starship to Mars but actually most of it is general information, not Starship specific.
After a long time with small steps for Starship, yesterday a big step forward. A full wet dress rehearsal with the full Starship stack, Starship on top of the Booster, both fully fueled with methane and liquid oxygen(LOX). Previous tanking tests were using liquid nitrogen to reduce risk. For engine hot fire tests they filled in only small amounts of methane and LOX, as needed for the test duration. For that much propellant some of the people in nearby Boca Chica village were evacuated, in case of explosion.
Video of the fully fueled Starship from SpaceX on twitter.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1617676629001801728
Starship completed its first full flight-like wet dress rehearsal at Starbase today. This was the first time an integrated Ship and Booster were fully loaded with more than 10 million pounds of propellantVideo copied to YouTube by someone. With very annoying background music.Today’s test will help verify a full launch countdown sequence, as well as the performance of Starship and the orbital pad for flight-like operations
Starship will be taken down to be prepared for first orbital flight.
Some more engine tests for the booster, including the first test firing of all 33 booster engines. A hell of a lot of power.
Orbital flight maybe late February, more likely March. NASA HLS team is closely watching because successful flight of Starship is needed for their Artemis Moon landing program. Starship will be the Moon lander for their astronauts.
BTW, a reddit user calculated the effect of cooling on the Starship booster. Getting so cold the booster shrinks by ~40cm in height.
Probably not that. There is an insane amount of deep piling in the ground which is mostly mud, clay and gravel. Question is how much of concrete base rework will be needed after the static fire.
Just found an excellent time lapse of the whole tanking process, over 1 hour in a few seconds. NASAspaceflightforum has excellent high quality video coverage.
Wet Dress Rehearsal at Starbase #shorts - YouTube
^ Thanks TO!
Gwynne Shotwell announced an attempt of the 33 engines static fire for Thursday, Feb. 9. She also said, prime objective is not to blow up the pad!
They performed a very impressive static fire. Info from Elon Musk, the test team switched off one engine ahead of the test. Another engine shut itself off. So the test was with 31 engines. As Elon commented, that would be enough to go to orbit.
I recall early test campaigns for Falcon 9. Back then they also frequently shut off some engines. Usually this was because they set shut off parameters very strict. After data evaluation they just edited the parameters slightly and the engines were just fine. The same may or may not be true for yesterdays engine shut offs. We do not know at this time, if they will repeat the full 33 engine static fire or only do some tests on the failed engines.
There is a great video of the test released by SpaceX with multiple angles from multiple cameras, including angles from drones in the air.
The NASA HLS team was invited and was present in Boca Chica for the test. That's the team for the Artemis lunar landing project, where Starship does the actual lunar landing with a modified Starship.
^ Damn!! The launch is going to be something else.
First Starship orbital launch is near.
https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/statu...91943241515012
Jeff Foust is an aerospace analyst, journalist and publisher. A senior aerospace analyst with the Futron Corporation in Bethesda, Maryland, he is the editor and publisher of The Space Review and has written for Astronomy Now and The New Atlantis.
Gary Henry, senior advisor for national security space solutions at SpaceX, says at a Space Mobility panel that both the Starship booster and pad are in "good shape" after static fire test earlier this month. The test was the "last box to check" before the first orbital launch.In the meantime SpaceX is already testing hardware for the next flight.He adds the company still needs an FAA launch license but expects that in the "very near future." Tells the audience to expect some "must-see TV" sometime in March.
Still waiting for the FAA to issue a launch license.
Elon Musk tweet today
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1644944993499357184Starship is ready for launch Awaiting regulatory approval
SpaceX tweet April 6
Open the tweet for some amazing pictures of the full stack.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1644044484026716160
Elon
Video of the stacking procedure.
Launch license by FAA is issued. Launch planned for Monday, April 17th.
Article by Eric Berger, ArsTechnica
Green light go: SpaceX receives a launch license from the FAA for Starship | Ars Technica
More info in the articleOn Friday afternoon—after much angst and anxious waiting by the spaceflight community—the Federal Aviation Administration issued a launch license to SpaceX for the launch of its Starship rocket from South Texas.
"After a comprehensive license evaluation process, the FAA determined SpaceX met all safety, environmental, policy, payload, airspace integration and financial responsibility requirements," the agency said in a statement. "The license is valid for five years."
Receiving this federal safety approval is the final regulatory step the company needed to take before being cleared to fly the largest rocket ever built. Now, the only constraints to launch are technical issues with the rocket or its ground systems. SpaceX is expected to hold a final readiness review this weekend before deciding to proceed with a launch attempt.
This could occur as soon as Monday. The company has a slew of road closures, temporary flight restrictions, and notices to mariners set up for April 17. The launch window is expected to open at 7 am local time in Texas (12:00 UTC). Backup launch opportunities are available on Tuesday and Wednesday.
YouTube link for the launch is active.
Still on time for liftoff about 2 hours from now.
Stream with comments and infos from NSF forum is already online for a while.
If this goes reasonably well, SpaceX is on time for a manned Moon landing in 2025 for NASA and 2030 for crew on Mars.
I'm watching as well...though I only give it about a 20% chance of launching...
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