Really close call on fairing catch test:
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1082469132291923968
Tony
screen shot:
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1082469132291923968
Tony
screen shot:
SpaceX Falcon 9 historic landing thread (1st landing attempt & most recent missions)
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RocketGeekInFL
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I am not sure if this is photoshopped, but it is from Elon's twitter, and I would not put it past him to actually have this sign there.
Yeah, it's photoshopped. Look at the lack of reflections on the base of the stand, not to mention the color. But still funny.
Tony
Elon replied in the twitter post that it is a real picture.
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Meanwhile, back in Boca Chica Texas Monday.....
So, a couple of days or so before, they attached the nose cone onto a newly-built middle section. Also over recent days, they began to add stainless steel sheeting to not only the leg struts to fill them out to also be fins, but to the "water tank" surface to make it all have the same stainless appearance.
So then.... TODAY:
But.... it wasn't attached yet, still supported by crane. End of day.......
"It was together but now it is back apart!" - Quote and Photos by "bocachicalgal", on Nasaspaceflight.com
No idea if it was a basic test fit to see what they needed to do before final attachment, or if it was supposed to be attached today and ran into some issue.
And then this 3D rendering by Kimi Talvitie , comparing the Hopper to the planned real Starship (which may not have so many windows as shown). https://twitter.com/kimitalvitie/status/1082424778810712064/photo/1
Oh, yeah, SpaceX was within a day or two of launching Iridium-NEXT 8, the last Iridium launch to complete their NEXT constellation. Original date Jan 7th, then pushed to the 8th. Then 9th or 10th due to uncertainty over weather. Now set for Jan 11th, at 7:31 AM PST (Vandenberg launch).... weather permitting. I decided not to post until it seemed more settled, figured I'd tack that on here while I'm posting anyway.
And after that, the next launch is supposed to be the DM-1 mission, first flight of the Dragon-2 spacecraft. Date "Late January"at the Cape, and it MAY be impacted by the government shutdown since it does involve a certain level of NASA interaction. If this goes well, and an abort test a few months later (abort from Falcon-9 at Max-Q), then the 3rd Dragon-2 flight will be with a NASA crew.
So, a couple of days or so before, they attached the nose cone onto a newly-built middle section. Also over recent days, they began to add stainless steel sheeting to not only the leg struts to fill them out to also be fins, but to the "water tank" surface to make it all have the same stainless appearance.
So then.... TODAY:
But.... it wasn't attached yet, still supported by crane. End of day.......
"It was together but now it is back apart!" - Quote and Photos by "bocachicalgal", on Nasaspaceflight.com
No idea if it was a basic test fit to see what they needed to do before final attachment, or if it was supposed to be attached today and ran into some issue.
And then this 3D rendering by Kimi Talvitie , comparing the Hopper to the planned real Starship (which may not have so many windows as shown). https://twitter.com/kimitalvitie/status/1082424778810712064/photo/1
Oh, yeah, SpaceX was within a day or two of launching Iridium-NEXT 8, the last Iridium launch to complete their NEXT constellation. Original date Jan 7th, then pushed to the 8th. Then 9th or 10th due to uncertainty over weather. Now set for Jan 11th, at 7:31 AM PST (Vandenberg launch).... weather permitting. I decided not to post until it seemed more settled, figured I'd tack that on here while I'm posting anyway.
And after that, the next launch is supposed to be the DM-1 mission, first flight of the Dragon-2 spacecraft. Date "Late January"at the Cape, and it MAY be impacted by the government shutdown since it does involve a certain level of NASA interaction. If this goes well, and an abort test a few months later (abort from Falcon-9 at Max-Q), then the 3rd Dragon-2 flight will be with a NASA crew.
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Well, here's a photo by bocachicagal which may indicate why they didn't attach it Tuesday. The blue arrows are blue tape to show where to align things.
Cropped view of attachment tabs:
The tabs left of the arrows are sticking outside. The ones at the arrows or right are inside. Hope it's not an out-of-round issue, though that mid-section may not be hard to "squeeze" round some way or another (apparently does not have a bulkhead). it may be something as simple as wind causing issues with not getting the alignment just right. Woulda thunk they'd have some sort of self-aligning angled guides inside.
SpaceX - great at rockets but failed their second publicly known "docking" test (nose to mid-section was the first).
(Dragon spacecraft are grappled and "berthed" to the ISS, do not dock).
Cropped view of attachment tabs:
The tabs left of the arrows are sticking outside. The ones at the arrows or right are inside. Hope it's not an out-of-round issue, though that mid-section may not be hard to "squeeze" round some way or another (apparently does not have a bulkhead). it may be something as simple as wind causing issues with not getting the alignment just right. Woulda thunk they'd have some sort of self-aligning angled guides inside.
SpaceX - great at rockets but failed their second publicly known "docking" test (nose to mid-section was the first).
(Dragon spacecraft are grappled and "berthed" to the ISS, do not dock).
The way that they've attached the stainless coverings makes the whole thing look like aluminum foil.
boatgeek
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They'll need to improve manufacturing processes to get a perfectly smooth and shiny surface like the renderings. I'm sure that's in process, but it's a lot of work. I'd be curious HOW they intend to do that, since mechanical fasteners (as shown here) obviously have issues and welding tends to distort very thin sheet like this. Maybe the real Starship sheeting will be thicker?
I'm also curious how much work will be needed to return the surface to its mirror finish after a flight. Every time I've gotten stainless really hot, it's turned all sorts of fun colors. If they have to polish/buff that out, it'll be a turnaround nightmare.
I'm also curious how much work will be needed to return the surface to its mirror finish after a flight. Every time I've gotten stainless really hot, it's turned all sorts of fun colors. If they have to polish/buff that out, it'll be a turnaround nightmare.
I was thinking something similar. Making stainless steel smooth(ish) isn't a huge deal, but making it shiny is a LOT of extra labor, time, and money. I doubt that it's worth doing in the first place.
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Realize that this "hopper" is NOT built like the real BFS/Starship will be built. After all, the main body was literally built by a Water Tank construction company. And the real thing will use an active cooling system that SpaceX is still trying to design. BTW - Musk has said that the real thing will use thicker steel than say Atlas, it can stand under its own weight without pressurization
This hopper is built mainly to test out launch and vertical landing using the new Raptor engines, with a rocket far bigger than they have built before and far heavier for landing. According to paperwork approved by the FAA, this one will fly at most 5 kilometers high (3.1 miles). Lacking the proper shape, CP/CG, canard, and articulated fins, it won't even be testing for the aerodynamic transition between belly-flop re-entry mode to fall in a controlled aerodynamic tail-first descent before the landing burn. But this will give them a lot of useful info early, and if there's an accident, it won't be as devastating as losing the "real" first prototype.
The nose shape on the real one will be like a curved ogive. This one is built with a crude set of multiple angular transitions, as with a paper model. They built it with flat sheets of stainless steel, with a lot of wrinkles because flat sheets do not like to be forced into a curve, and doesn't look like they tried to use bending equipment to curl them much, if any, as they were simply attached to the outside of bare-bones internal structures more to hold the shape than to be super-strong (only the main section [water tank] with the engines, fuel, and landing legs needs to be very structurally sturdy).
The REAL thing will have the stainless segments pre-formed in compound curves before welding, or however the panels are joined together (perhaps friction welding).
The Atlas Missile (above) did not have a compound curve on it, but did have separate segments that were pre-bent before being welded. The above photo shows the different segments pretty well.
For this hopper, it won't be flying very fast, the wrinkles won't matter for what they are testing for. Looks don't matter for a low altitude hopper vehicle. Here's NASA's first low altitude Hopper for the Lunar Module, which made the real Lunar Module look like the Mona Lisa by comparison. But it provided invaluable data on how the real one would handle (only later was the LLRV for R&D revised as the LLTV for training astronauts).
As for today (Wednesday), it seems they did attach the mid-upper section to the main body.
Oh, some other work being dome. I mean, done.
I saw another pic where those brown-ish rectangular things turned out to be attachment points for a curved ladder.
BTW - on Jan 5th, Musk tweeted that this would fly in 4 weeks. Then admitted maybe 8 weeks. So..... by early March, perhaps (unless this turns into another Falcon Heavy "6 months" game, but with all this work it looks like they're serious about getting this thing flying soon and not BS-ing). The real Raptor engines are still being tested, although it looks like the first flight may only use a single Raptor. The engines mounted now are development engines or inoperative assemblies that are stand-ins for installing all the interface parts and alignment.
This hopper is built mainly to test out launch and vertical landing using the new Raptor engines, with a rocket far bigger than they have built before and far heavier for landing. According to paperwork approved by the FAA, this one will fly at most 5 kilometers high (3.1 miles). Lacking the proper shape, CP/CG, canard, and articulated fins, it won't even be testing for the aerodynamic transition between belly-flop re-entry mode to fall in a controlled aerodynamic tail-first descent before the landing burn. But this will give them a lot of useful info early, and if there's an accident, it won't be as devastating as losing the "real" first prototype.
The nose shape on the real one will be like a curved ogive. This one is built with a crude set of multiple angular transitions, as with a paper model. They built it with flat sheets of stainless steel, with a lot of wrinkles because flat sheets do not like to be forced into a curve, and doesn't look like they tried to use bending equipment to curl them much, if any, as they were simply attached to the outside of bare-bones internal structures more to hold the shape than to be super-strong (only the main section [water tank] with the engines, fuel, and landing legs needs to be very structurally sturdy).
The REAL thing will have the stainless segments pre-formed in compound curves before welding, or however the panels are joined together (perhaps friction welding).
The Atlas Missile (above) did not have a compound curve on it, but did have separate segments that were pre-bent before being welded. The above photo shows the different segments pretty well.
For this hopper, it won't be flying very fast, the wrinkles won't matter for what they are testing for. Looks don't matter for a low altitude hopper vehicle. Here's NASA's first low altitude Hopper for the Lunar Module, which made the real Lunar Module look like the Mona Lisa by comparison. But it provided invaluable data on how the real one would handle (only later was the LLRV for R&D revised as the LLTV for training astronauts).
As for today (Wednesday), it seems they did attach the mid-upper section to the main body.
Oh, some other work being dome. I mean, done.
I saw another pic where those brown-ish rectangular things turned out to be attachment points for a curved ladder.
BTW - on Jan 5th, Musk tweeted that this would fly in 4 weeks. Then admitted maybe 8 weeks. So..... by early March, perhaps (unless this turns into another Falcon Heavy "6 months" game, but with all this work it looks like they're serious about getting this thing flying soon and not BS-ing). The real Raptor engines are still being tested, although it looks like the first flight may only use a single Raptor. The engines mounted now are development engines or inoperative assemblies that are stand-ins for installing all the interface parts and alignment.
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boatgeek
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Realize that this "hopper" is NOT built like the real BFS/Starship will be built. After all, the main body was literally built by a Water Tank construction company. ...
Oh, some other work being dome. I mean, done.
I saw another pic where those brown-ish rectangular things turned out to be attachment points for a curved ladder.
...
Mercilessly snipped... Do you have a cite for the "water tank construction company" building the body? From earlier pics, it looked like really heavy welding on the joints, which indicates a thick wall. That makes sense for LNG, since LNG tanks this size in the marine world are often more than an inch thick. If I had to guess, I'd say that it was a specialty welding company that handles cryo tanks. They certainly exist in that part of the world. With the oil price bust, they're probably a lot hungrier for work than the aerospace companies. The picture of the dome looks like Cajun steelwork at its finest. It's amazing what they can build in a sandlot in the bayou.
If the construction methods are going to be a lot different, it's a little surprising to me that SpaceX decided to paper the sides in what appears to be a step or two up from sheet metal from Home Depot. But the man at the top is known for odd whims, so...
Charles_McG
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I thought we’ve already seen pictures of composite tanks of this size being floated out to sea for full scale pressure testing. I sort of assumed they’d drop those tanks inside the Test Big Elon Daddy.
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They have radically changed the design from using composites to "heavy metal" (A special alloy of stainless steel). Composite tanks are gone.
For reentry, the steel skin will be actively cooled in some manner. As opposed to composites which would not take the heat and needing some form of TPS (shuttle-ish tiles?) added. That's also when the design shape changed to add a canard up front and for two of three fins to be hinged to say go from 120 degrees apart from the "top" fin to less than degrees from the "top" fin (sort of like dihedral), for a "belly flop" re-entry (a 90 degree angle of attack, as compared to shuttle orbiter's 35-40 degrees or so angle of attack).
That is where rocket science takes a back seat to thermodynamicists, aerodynamics, plasma flow specialists, and brute-force mechanics (those two hinged fins are going to need a hell of a lot of strength for the hinges and mechanical force to move them in the desired position form moment to moment). It is both fascinating and scary, both the re-entry, and how this thing will go from belly-flop mode to "fallng down tail first mode", under precise control by aerodynamic steering like the Falcon-9 as when using the deployed grid fins.
So,it'll be impressive when this Hopper flies. But I'm intrigued how long it'll be before they build and fly something to test the transition from belly-flop to tail-first descent with aerodynamic steering. In theory they will wait to do that with the first "real" prototype of Starship.
But I have sorta wondered the last few days that if the tests for well and it survives, if they might replace the mid-upper section with a stronger on that is the same length and shape as the real thing is supposed to have, add a canard to it, and replace the fins/legs with a new set that are shaped correctly and have hinges and mechanisms for moving them. Probably not. But then a month ago it was nuts to think that the "water tank" being built was actually the main structure for the hopper.
Charles_McG
Ciderwright
I wondered if they would keep the ballon tank model (pressurized tank as structure) with the steel, actively cooled body, or put composite tanks inside a rigid body.
Sooner Boomer
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Back to the original topic...
Launch scheduled from V-berg Friday. The instantaneous launch window opens at 10:31am ET (15:31 UTC). They are launching 10 of the Iridium NEXT satellites to a low Earth polar orbit. Polar orbit = V-berg. The booster will attempt to land on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in the Pacific Ocean. I don't think they will make the launch, due to weather; back-up window available on Saturday morning at 15:25 UTC.
Launch scheduled from V-berg Friday. The instantaneous launch window opens at 10:31am ET (15:31 UTC). They are launching 10 of the Iridium NEXT satellites to a low Earth polar orbit. Polar orbit = V-berg. The booster will attempt to land on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in the Pacific Ocean. I don't think they will make the launch, due to weather; back-up window available on Saturday morning at 15:25 UTC.
Nytrunner
Pop lugs, not drugs
I'm pleased to see that this new big "hopper" (I want to call it bullfrog for some reason) is shaping up to be just as janky as grasshopper
I'll be going back home to the RGV for a wedding this summer, so I may just have to swing by South Padre and see how things are going.
I'll be going back home to the RGV for a wedding this summer, so I may just have to swing by South Padre and see how things are going.
Sooner Boomer
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Nice morning for a launch! Weather did not appear to be a problem. Booster down almost exactly in center of circle on drone ship. No word on fairing recovery.
The announcer mentioned that they didn't have a parachute on the fairing so they wouldn't even try to catch the fairing this time. Probably was already planned that way before the near catch earlier this week.
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Just saw pics at work of CRS 16 Dragon nosecone washed up in the Bahamas. Pretty cool to see it survived so well.
Do they have a "Mr. Steven" out west? Or is Mr. Steven west only and that's where they do their attempts?
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West coast only. They won't need any other ships until and unless they work out how to catch the fairings reliably. Have to admit that upon seeing the video of the "close call", I was unimpressed at the crudeness they are apparently using for this. "Mr Steven" had to make a near 90 degree turn, shortly before trying to catch the fairing, indicates they may not be doing very much automation-enhanced or computer-asssited coordination. If it's all manual, no wonder they haven't caught anything.
Meanwhile, in Boca Chica, SpaceX posted this image:
Ar first, I thought that was a computer rendering or photoshopped image. Indeed they had released a rendering of that very view before. But this turns out to be real. The angle and sun lighting do not make the wrinkles appear so distinctly.
And it turned out that some time back they apparently poured three small rectangular areas with concrete, let it harden, and then when the tail section was moved, set it down with the three leg-fins sitting on those three rectangular concrete areas. There were reports of some concrete trucks near there last week, and from the above photo they apparently poured concrete in the other areas surrounding the first three. BTW - there are also (seemingly accurate) reports of concrete trucks out at the launch pad area 2 miles away, pouring a launch/landing pad for it.
Below is a drone photo by Alex Balderas:
Cropped and enlarged a bit:
Lower left corner is a dome that will be installed later. To it's right, near the bottom, is the concrete ring (Jig?) that the tail section was built on top of.
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Nytrunner
Pop lugs, not drugs
Has there been any talk of how they're addressing the water supply issue?
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Article on NASA Spaceflight about the Starship Hopper and preparations at Boca Chica .
"SpaceX gearing up for Starship tests at Boca Chica"
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/201...LQGpOZU2Emvyt0PmpP8U08I8IAnuTyjcoMq1t9jfQ3S04
"SpaceX gearing up for Starship tests at Boca Chica"
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/201...LQGpOZU2Emvyt0PmpP8U08I8IAnuTyjcoMq1t9jfQ3S04
Nytrunner
Pop lugs, not drugs
^^ The only tinfoil hat big enough for Musk
DaveHein
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This is a bit off topic, but is anybody working on building a rocket that models the SpaceX Starship hopper? Maybe a shortened version of the LOC Micro-Magg with different shaped fins. However, the nosecone may have to be custom made since I don't think there's any off-the-shelf nosecones that match the hopper's shape.
Nytrunner
Pop lugs, not drugs
Loc onyx springs to mind
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Well, to really do the nose for the Star Hopper right..... it would have be custom made for the facets. It's not a round cone, its a bunch of transitions with a rounded nose cap.
One hope would be for someone to do a 3D model and release the ".stl" files, so the nose section could be trimmed into its own piece and scaled for whatever size.
In any case, a nice model size for this would be BT-101, or 4".
So, latest update is.... they took it apart! Photo by BocaChicaGal:
This was expected. That tank dome they've been building has to go in (likely two domes). Also today they removed the three non-flyable Raptor engines.
Since it is relatively easy to separate and rejoin the halves, they may move it to the pad that way eventually. Not in one piece, but two separate pieces. And they already proved that the lower half can be lifted up and moved by crane when they moved it from the concrete assembly ring/jig to where it sits now. Not that they would necessarily use a crane to carry the tail section over that distance. But in any case, easier to move it in two pieces than move the whole thing.
One hope would be for someone to do a 3D model and release the ".stl" files, so the nose section could be trimmed into its own piece and scaled for whatever size.
In any case, a nice model size for this would be BT-101, or 4".
So, latest update is.... they took it apart! Photo by BocaChicaGal:
This was expected. That tank dome they've been building has to go in (likely two domes). Also today they removed the three non-flyable Raptor engines.
Since it is relatively easy to separate and rejoin the halves, they may move it to the pad that way eventually. Not in one piece, but two separate pieces. And they already proved that the lower half can be lifted up and moved by crane when they moved it from the concrete assembly ring/jig to where it sits now. Not that they would necessarily use a crane to carry the tail section over that distance. But in any case, easier to move it in two pieces than move the whole thing.
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Top part of the Star Hopper got blown over last night:
Nose tip towards right (out of view), note US flag which is near the bottom part.
"CEO Elon Musk confirmed that 50 mph winds broke the mooring blocks of the Starship Hopper test rocket late Tuesday and the fairing was blown over.
“Will take a few weeks to repair,” Musk said in a tweet.
The fairing is the top portion of the rocket, which on normal launches would hold the payload. The bottom portion of the rocket was undamaged, Musk said."
As badly crunched as it looks to be, they might have to build a new upper section. It did not take them very long to build the upper part (nose and mid-body) anyway. Even Elon Musk refers to it as a "Fairing", since it's there for aerodynamic reasons only, no functional active parts inside of it.
Lower half is undamaged. They've been busy installing tank domes and other stuff inside of it lately.
Multicopter video by Austin Barnard, from Jan 21st.
Nose tip towards right (out of view), note US flag which is near the bottom part.
"CEO Elon Musk confirmed that 50 mph winds broke the mooring blocks of the Starship Hopper test rocket late Tuesday and the fairing was blown over.
“Will take a few weeks to repair,” Musk said in a tweet.
The fairing is the top portion of the rocket, which on normal launches would hold the payload. The bottom portion of the rocket was undamaged, Musk said."
As badly crunched as it looks to be, they might have to build a new upper section. It did not take them very long to build the upper part (nose and mid-body) anyway. Even Elon Musk refers to it as a "Fairing", since it's there for aerodynamic reasons only, no functional active parts inside of it.
Lower half is undamaged. They've been busy installing tank domes and other stuff inside of it lately.
Multicopter video by Austin Barnard, from Jan 21st.
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