Topic: Interesting stuff about SpaceX Starship (hate the name)

[Nemesis]

Fastest Falcon 9 booster turn around 21 days.  Part of that will be shipping time on the drone ship and part waiting for a launch opportunity.

Falcon 9:
160 successful launches
122 successful landings
98 reflights of previously flown boosters.  (some up to 12 times so far)

Launch cadence so far this year 1/week.

James Webb telescope hit by a meteor.  1 mirror damaged still supposed to be able to perform above specification.

New Shepard had another manned hop.  Wonder if it could achieve orbit on the moon or Mars and could it land on either from orbit?

[Nemesis]

A booster reached 13 launches and landings now.

[Nemesis]

Super Heavy booster #7 had an explosion of some size during testing today.  Details are still to come but to me it looked like the explosion might have been external from a methane leak or accidental release.  Amount of damage unknown.  Will #7 still fly at some point?  Who knows?

[Nemesis]

More explosion info. They were testing the turbines for pumping the methane/LOX.  They are powered by burning the methane/LOX BUT the ones pumping LOX use more LOX than needed to consume all the methane.  The ones pumping methane do the reverse.  The exhaust from each is pumped into the material pumped and since there is effectively none of the material not being pumped combustion doesn't happen till it reaches the combustion chamber and is burned with the rest of the propellant (propellant in this case is methane+LOX individually they are the fuel and oxidizer respectively).  Since they weren't pumping actual propellants the exhaust was not burned together in the combustion chamber and apparently there was not enough wind to disperse it.  Add a ignition source and you get the BOOM! that they had.  They won't try and test all 33 sets of pumps at the same time again. 

I'm speculating but since they were "spin testing" the turbines I think they were not actually burning it in the turbines and what was exhausted was still cryogenic keeping it liquid and not immediately entering the atmosphere stopping the methane testers and explosive mixture detectors from noticing it before significant amounts had been released.  Once they vapourized it was quickly an explosive mixture and a ignition source must have been present.

The booster (BN7) has been removed from the launch pad (with the chop sticks which obviously aren't too damaged to function) for inspection and possibly repair.  Ultimate fate unknown.

They have filed a flight plan for the first launch and apparently are indicating that it will launch satellites and allowing for the option of the booster landing.  It probably won't land the first time but they seem to be at least considering it (or getting the FAA ready for an actual landing test). 

[Nemesis]

The spin test that caused the explosion on the booster BN7 has now been done with SN24.  13 of the engines for BN7 have been removed for inspection/repair/replacement. 

[Nemesis]

Test fires with 1 engine have been done with both BN7 and SN24. BN7 is now having the center 13 engines reinstalled.

Blue Origin is scrapping the ship that New Glenn was supposed to land on and is buying a converted barge from the same people who make the landing barges for SpaceX.

[Nemesis]

SLS failed to launch due to the untested valves that allow fuel to be used to cool down the engines pre-ignition allowing one to fail.  May launch Friday if they can fix it.   If not then next window I believe is late September. 

Now Saturday afternoon.

[knightstorm]

And its been scrubbed again.  Its seriously baffling how Nasa keeps screwing the SLS up.  Its based on 40+ year old tech!

[Nemesis]

As I recall there was a delay of several months once because Boeing had altered the engines and to fix a problem they had to have a wrench specially fabricated.  So Boeing has "modified" the engines.  Wonder if that is where the problem is with the valves as their Starliner has had multiple issues with valves.

[Nemesis]

SLS launch for Artemis 1 is now sometime in October.  So Starship might launch first and if it does then SLS never gets the title of the most powerful booster in operation.

[Nemesis]

A New Shepard flight (experiments only no crew) just had a failed flight.  It started with the exhaust having bursts of different colours (debris in the chamber aka engine rich exhaust) and then the capsule abort activated.  The landing to me looked like the retros didn't fire.  If not then the landing was likely rough enough to hurt passengers if there had been any.  It looks probable that the rocket is debris across the landscape and likely (to me) that the capsule will be a write off as well.

Would have been a wild ride if there were passengers, good chance of injuries though.

[Nemesis]

Looks like Starship is still slipping into the future.  The launch date is now November.  No actual day just the month.

[Nemesis]

Firefly had their first successful flight this week.  2nd attempt.  So another company out performing Blue Origin.  Just 5 years old and already in orbit.  Blue Origin 22 and counting with no scheduled orbital launch attempt

NASA, SpaceX and the people behind the Crew Dragon Polaris mission  are studying to see if they can dock with the Hubble and move it to a higher orbit and extend its life.  If this is done it will be at no cost to NASA.  Paid for by the Polaris mission backers (and possibly SpaceX - I'm not sure).  Maybe one day Starship can pick it up and while holding it in the cargo bay be able to overhaul it for an even greater life.  If not then as long as Starship is successful it will be able to launch bigger and better successors eventually.

The DART mission had its successful  collision with an asteroid.  Just waiting now to see if the orbital change matches the theoretical adjustment.  Should take about 2 months for details.  The asteroid is about 5 million tons and orbits a larger asteroid.  It is that orbit which is being changed, I haven't seen anything to indicate if the combined path of the 2 asteroids is expected to change.

Rocket Lab gave some updates on their projected Neutron reusable rocket design changes.  They included a image of a Crew Capsule but stated it isn't an announcement but they are looking at it.

Ariane is looking at a fully reusable upper stage with a powered landing.

[TAnimaL]

I've read the pervailing wisdom on asteroid deflecting is to not try to hit it out of the way like a billiard ball, but to use gravity to deflect it's course. I imagine, since placing a large mass in orbit is expensive, DART is able to test both - impacting Dimorphos (the smaller one) to see how it changes, and how that affects Didymos (larger one). There's a follow up missions planned by ESA called Hera, launching in 2024.

[Nemesis]

A New Shepard flight (experiments only no crew) just had a failed flight.  It started with the exhaust having bursts of different colours (debris in the chamber aka engine rich exhaust) and then the capsule abort activated.  The landing to me looked like the retros didn't fire.  If not then the landing was likely rough enough to hurt passengers if there had been any.  It looks probable that the rocket is debris across the landscape and likely (to me) that the capsule will be a write off as well.

Would have been a wild ride if there were passengers, good chance of injuries though.

One of the experiments on the New Shepard recorded 15g acceleration.  With humans this would be severe injuries possibly death if it was not a VERY short term.  So is it accurate?  Now was this from the escape system or the landing?  Did the retros fire or not?  What happened to the booster?

[Nemesis]

Starship 24 is now stacked on Booster 7 at the launch tower.

Possible purposes:

1/ mass test to see if it can handle the weight of the full stack with propellant (or equal mass of LN2)

2/ more mass to allow static fire of more engines at one time without take off (again full of propellant for BN7 and either propellant or LN2 for SN24)

3/ to allow launch after static fire testing.  November is a tentative launch time.  So maybe.

BN8 and BN9 are well under way as are SN25-SN28 (varying degrees of course)

The Florida site is well along with the launch tower fully erected (not complete with fittings just the tower itself).  A 3rd towers structural elements are under construction but no foundations are in place or info on where they are going.


Thanks to BE4 still not being ready the Vulcan won't launch this year.  New Glenn has no projected date.  No new info on the New Shepard "anomaly".  Not even confirmed destruction of the booster though it is pretty clear it didn't land on the pad and almost certainly crashed explosively.  So Blue Origin still a 22 year dud as far as orbital flight is concerned. 

[Nemesis]

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[Starfox1701]

nice
someone got lucky

[Nemesis]

Falcon Heavy had a successful launch yesterday with the side boosters landing (center expended as planned).

A large meteor struck Mars.  Its impact measured on a landers seismometer and the crater plus debris shows water ice boulders near the equator.  Assuming this is a typical result it means there is water ice underground all over the place.  This makes manufacturing methane (and LOX) much more likely to succeed.

[Starfox1701]

nice we got any pics of the impact site?