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  1. #151
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    Quote Originally Posted by Texpat View Post
    That Starship Hopper is looking a little worse for wear. The panels look like my mom's 78 Chevy Rambler after I smashed it into a dumpster at work and tried to repair it myself.

    O
    you are not following the way space x works. get to catching up

  2. #152
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    I've read the thread and understand its a mockup. Thanks for your concern.

  3. #153
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    Quote Originally Posted by Texpat View Post
    I've read the thread and understand its a mockup.
    It is not a mockup. It is not an orbital vehicle, that's true. The wrinkly outer skin is indeed without function, just to make it look shiny for a photo op. But it will fly for tests, beginning with little hops, just a meter or so. Then higher, permits have been received for up to 5km. The engine I posted yesterday, will be mounted on it. Propellant pipes are already connected for first tank tests with liquid oxygen and methane. A tank farm was set up behind a sand berm.

    Early december there was nothing in the area besides two large antennae for the manned spaceflight program of SpaceX. Then they started construction. First a construction and control center area, then the launch site. Three month later they have built this test flight article and are nearly ready for flight.

    I remember the discussions when people first talked about the possibility this may be a flight article. Space experts said the SpaceX fanbase is unbearable stupid, this is built by a company specialized for water towers and it is plain idiody to assume it is anything else than a water tower. But here it is, ready for flight.
    "don't attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence"

  4. #154
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    Right. The panels to which I referred, the wrinkly outer skin, are not functional. They are merely for appearance. Thanks for clarifying my point.

  5. #155
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    The Starship Hopper has had a tank test, fueling it with LOX and methane. First engine firing was planned for today but was cancelled due to bad weather. It is now planned for tomorrow. Keeping in mind that both the launch site and the production site were non existing early December 2018, this is a dizziying speed.

    They have decided, not to replace the destroyed nose section. It is not needed, was built for apperances and has done its part with the photo op that has been done before a storm blew it over.

    A photo of tank testing from a chinese fan site. You see some LOX venting on the right side of the Hopper.

    SpaceX - On to Mars-img-14e479d4952542de9f304a213b5a1361-jpg

    Elon Musk has announced that they have started building the first test version of the orbital Starship, expected to be finished in June this year.

    Being built in the same location as the hopper before, basically the same building methods. Using polished stainless steel and much thinner sheets this time. Legs and aerosurfaces will be built in Hawthorne California and mounted on site.
    SpaceX - On to Mars-d10n_lhwoaqrqb6-jpg
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails SpaceX - On to Mars-img-14e479d4952542de9f304a213b5a1361-jpg   SpaceX - On to Mars-d10n_lhwoaqrqb6-jpg  

  6. #156
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    We got the first render of the Starship as presently built in Brownsville, Texas. The steel version on Earth reentry.

    SpaceX - On to Mars-starship-reentry-earth-spacex-1-crop

    A picture of the beginnings of the actual build.
    SpaceX - On to Mars-boca-chica-orbital-starship-progress-031419-a

    From an article of Teslarati
    https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-sta...ficial-render/


    This is the second stage, called the Starship. Supposed to be finished in June this year.

    The first stage, called SuperHeavy, will begin building later this spring in the same location.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails SpaceX - On to Mars-starship-reentry-earth-spacex-1-crop   SpaceX - On to Mars-boca-chica-orbital-starship-progress-031419-a  

  7. #157
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    Maybe not very exciting for you but very exciting for me. The water tower test Starhopper had its first engine fire. Held down by ropes so it did not lift off beyond a few centimeters. Now they need 2 more Raptor engines for real flights. The second engine is presently testing at their test site in McGregor. The third engine is in production. They had several tries. With everything new, including the ground support, tanks piping, connections less than 2 weeks from first fueling to firing the engine is a very good result.

    Early December 2018 that site was just a pile of dirt. Not much more than that at the construction site. They just started welding the first panels.

    https://youtu.be/rEXccrcw_28

    this video brought to you by bocachicagal.

  8. #158
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    Not sure how accurate that is.

  9. #159
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    pipe dream, so bitcoin like

  10. #160
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    Quote Originally Posted by Luigi View Post
    Not sure how accurate that is.
    It may slip up to 4 years for their Mars plans.

    But seriously by end of next year we will know quite well if they can keep to their timeline. They are building the first Starship orbital prototype already.

    SpaceX - On to Mars-1560067-jpg

    They have a very important economic reason to push Starship. Just 3 days from now they will launch the first batch of their Starlink satellite constellation. Starship and Starlink are very much interdependent. Starship will allow to launch them quite cheaply and Starlink is expected to provide the revenue needed to finance the Mars plans.

    Though they designed their sats in a way that they can launch them quite efficiently on Falcon 9.

    SpaceX - On to Mars-starli10-png

    60 sats as IKEA flatpacks stacked on top of each other. In a few years you may get high speed, low latency internet from them in remote areas of Isaan.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails SpaceX - On to Mars-1560067-jpg   SpaceX - On to Mars-starli10-png  

  11. #161
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    Some update on the project. Lots and lots of interesting details for me. Again probably not so much for you. But anyway, some advances.

    SpaceX is building two starships in parallel, in two different locations. One as already shown in Texas, Brownsville, another one in Florida, near the Cape. They plan to do tests and launches in both locations.

    They have some problems with the Raptor engines. They are still in development and it seems they have upgraded their power. Two seem to be damaged on the test stand.

    Quote Elon Musk on Twitter: Raptor liberated its oxygen turbine stator (appears to be mechanical, not metal combustion failure), so we need to update the design & replace some parts. Production is ramping exponentially, though. SN6 almost done. Aiming for an engine every 12 hours by end of year.
    Liberated probably means that much of the engine disassembled into pieces. They have it well under control, no visible damage to the test stand. Very important because Starship needs to survive any possible failure of an engine. Things like this tend to delay development programs of other companies by a year or more. At SpaceX it is weeks. Elon Musk is obviously not worried. Destroying engines is part of the development process.

    Some pictures of the Boca Chica, Brownsville, Texas build site. Quite mysterious structures that rise there.

    Polishing the stainless steel surface of the Starship nose cone.
    SpaceX - On to Mars-1568350-jpg

    Nobody knows what this steel frame is for. Lots of room for speculation. At the right a cylinder that is probably the engine section of Starship.
    SpaceX - On to Mars-1568354-jpg

    The nose cone in Cocoa Florida. Somewhat cleaner welds. But they have not welded the more tricky seams yet.
    SpaceX - On to Mars-d965_kqxoaadk1y-jpg
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails SpaceX - On to Mars-1568350-jpg   SpaceX - On to Mars-1568354-jpg   SpaceX - On to Mars-d965_kqxoaadk1y-jpg  

  12. #162
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    SpaceX raises some more money. They sold a batch of shares at $314.2million. 3.142 is the value of Pi . I wonder if they chose that amount because the buyer is a canadian teachers pension fund.

    SpaceX is now valued at $35billion. Elon Musk still holds a majority, more than 50%.

  13. #163
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    SpaceX did a successful static fire of the Raptor engine ahead of the planned short flight.



    A short time later, about 1:50 in the video there was a minor mishap.

    SpaceX - On to Mars-hopper-mishap-jpg

    The planned flight is slightly delayed and will now happen some time next week.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails SpaceX - On to Mars-hopper-mishap-jpg  

  14. #164
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    Elon Musk seems to lose his patience with NASA. He always spoke about them with the highest respect but this seems to be changing now.

    He said going to the moon with Starship may be easier than convincing the NASA engineers of their ability to do it. So SpaceX may send a Starship to the moon in 2 years unmanned and do a manned mission in 4 years with or without NASA. I think the schedule may be somewhat optimistic. Bud add one year and it may be feasible. Still within the - unrealistic - timeframe of NASA to the moon.

    He also reconfirmed that going to Mars in 2022 unmanned and 2024 manned is still the aspirational plan. Again I think it is likely to slip by one synod of 2 years.

  15. #165
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    First step on the journey to Mars.

    The water tower has done its first flight. 20m up and a few meters sideways. If you look closely you see it in the clouds of fire.




    For next week they plan a flight of 200m and to a separate landing pad.

    Edit: A video on twitter, not yet available on YouTube but well worth watching. From a camera mounted on the Hopper, directed at the Raptor engine. Once it has enough altitude it shows a beautiful mach diamond pattern in blue from burning methane.

    http://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1154674872041103360


    Footage of the flight from a drone. You see a little better how it flies. We will see the flight much better when it goes 200m high.

    http://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=from%3Aelonmusk &src=typd
    Last edited by Takeovers; 26-07-2019 at 04:50 PM.

  16. #166
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    The ship is lifted off the ground and the rocket motors are angled slightly to induce a sideways motion, then centred again to stop the sideways motion and lastly throttled back to allow a soft landing, yes?

    All this done by pre-programmed onboard control systems?

  17. #167
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    Quote Originally Posted by OhOh View Post
    The ship is lifted off the ground and the rocket motors are angled slightly to induce a sideways motion, then centred again to stop the sideways motion and lastly throttled back to allow a soft landing, yes?

    All this done by pre-programmed onboard control systems?

    Yes. It is only one engine at the moment with two more expected to be added so they can fill up the tank with propellant and do much larger hops. They have also installed a few groups of cold gas thrusters to provide roll control.

    They have perfected the control software for the Falcon 9 boosters to land. They need to adjust parameters and test out exact responses of the Raptor engine which is quite different from the Merlin engines. Next hop 200m high in 1 or 2 weeks. We can expect much better video footage of the flight once the vehicle gains some altitude and is no longer obscured by clouds and flames. At some time soon the test program will be continued with prototypes of the real vehicle, not a flying watertower. Timeframe for that app. 3 months give or take.

    Elon Musk has said as soon as they see this Raptor performs as expected they will ramp up engine production. They may need about 80 of them by end of the year.

  18. #168
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    This is to enable landing the rocket stage and re-use it, yes?

    Are there other reasons?

    Presumably prior to this landing technology being developed, for say a moon landing module, it was "just" calculating a ballistic trajectory and firing the engines to attain the acceptable landing speed, yes?

    I understood the main engines were on gimbals but not utilised as a "steering" tool, weren't side thruster used to alter the rockets orientation and once achieved the main engines just accelerated the rocket onwards and upwards to the stars ?
    Last edited by OhOh; 27-07-2019 at 03:34 PM.
    A tray full of GOLD is not worth a moment in time.

  19. #169
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    Quote Originally Posted by OhOh View Post
    All this done by pre-programmed onboard control systems?
    Probably just using DJI drone software.

  20. #170
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    Quote Originally Posted by TizMe View Post
    DJI drone software
    One hopes 'arry has checked all the code and signed it off, otherwise "mysterious" behaviour will have an oriental taint

  21. #171
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    Quote Originally Posted by OhOh View Post
    This is to enable landing the rocket stage and re-use it, yes?

    Are there other reasons?

    Presumably prior to this landing technology being developed, for say a moon landing module, it was "just" calculating a ballistic trajectory and firing the engines to attain the acceptable landing speed, yes?

    I understood the main engines were on gimbals but not utilised as a "steering" tool, weren't side thruster used to alter the rockets orientation and once achieved the main engines just accelerated the rocket onwards and upwards to the stars ?
    It was already needed for launches before. But much more critical for landing. On ascent the main engines can be used for steering. But coming down is free fall most of the time. So they need other means for control, like the grid fins.

    Roll control was an issue early on, not that easy. Roll being the rocket spins around its long axis. Remember the distinct black&white pattern of Saturn V? It was used so you could see the body spin easily.

    You are right that rockets early on used smaller thrusters for steering instead of gimbaling main engines. A gimbal system that can handle the huge thrust of main engines is not trivial. But modern rockets use it. Gimbal is now easier than the plumbing of additional smaller engines called Vernier engines. The very old design of the Soyuz rocket still uses them.

    When already in space very small low power thrusters are used to orient the stage in the right direction before the main engine is fired again. Those are called RCS thrusters, reaction control system. It is common to use just cold gas under high pressure, usually nitrogen. They are very low thrust but very simple and reliable. But under main engine power the steering is done by gimbaling or Vernier engines. The small thrusters are also needed to give the stage some acceleration to settle the propellant where the main engine can use it instead of floating around as bubbles.

  22. #172
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
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    ^ Thanks, your explanations are very welcome and clear

  23. #173
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    Last night SpaceX did a 150m hop of their Hopper, the "watertower". Don't be fooled. The video does not give proper feeling of the size, this thing is huge. 9m diameter and 20m high. Also heavy, welded of thick steel sheets by a water tower company.



    The Hopper will be retired after this flight. The prototypes of the real Starship are coming along fast.

    SpaceX - On to Mars-wasserturm_fliegt-jpg
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails SpaceX - On to Mars-wasserturm_fliegt-jpg  

  24. #174
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    Quote Originally Posted by Takeovers View Post
    9m diameter
    Yes, that's pretty bladdy massive.

    Thanks for the update.

  25. #175
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    Building the Starship prototypes. Beginning of building the first stage, the booster called SuperHeavy. This is the build in Cocoa, Florida. SpaceX is building two of them, one in Cocoa, one in Boca Chica, Texas.

    SpaceX - On to Mars-ec0v0nbxkaiufeb-jpg

    The two big cylinders combined will be the Starship, the second stage.

    The rings in front are the beginning of SuperHeavy, the booster.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails SpaceX - On to Mars-ec0v0nbxkaiufeb-jpg  

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