SpaceX Falcon 9 historic landing thread (1st landing attempt & most recent missions)

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Heck, they were loading engines while they were welding the upper & lower tanks together. The pace itself is one of his most remarkable developments.

Speaking of welding, what is that ring around the middle in the last photo? Is that the welding robot? Or do they do that stuff by hand?
 
cvanc said:
Heck, they were loading engines while they were welding the upper & lower tanks together. The pace itself is one of his most remarkable developments.

Speaking of welding, what is that ring around the middle in the last photo? Is that the welding robot? Or do they do that stuff by hand?
Click to expand...
Looks like scaffold walk boards
Edit: won't mention the OSHA violations there, lol
 
They're rolling out BN4 as I write this, and the good folk at nasaspaceflight posted this for a bit. It made me realize I am completely misunderstanding the launch process.

So the little thing is the orbital/2-stage launch pad?? I really thought they intended to launch from on top of the tall thing, the "tower". Because it never occurred to me to launch such a gigantic rocket so close to the ground!

If this is true, how in the world is their pad so tiny and insubstantial compared to, say, the launch pads of virtually any other rocket since Redstone? Are they really gonna fire 29 engines from a hundred feet up tops, onto flat dry concrete? How's that gonna work out? Genuinely puzzled here...

And I guess the tower is just the 'catcher' for booster landings?launch site.jpg
 
cvanc said:
They're rolling out BN4 as I write this, and the good folk at nasaspaceflight posted this for a bit. It made me realize I am completely misunderstanding the launch process.

So the little thing is the orbital/2-stage launch pad?? I really thought they intended to launch from on top of the tall thing, the "tower". Because it never occurred to me to launch such a gigantic rocket so close to the ground!

If this is true, how in the world is their pad so tiny and insubstantial compared to, say, the launch pads of virtually any other rocket since Redstone? Are they really gonna fire 29 engines from a hundred feet up tops, onto flat dry concrete? How's that gonna work out? Genuinely puzzled here...

And I guess the tower is just the 'catcher' for booster landings?View attachment 475531
Click to expand...
They’ll roll both out to the tower where the yet to be installed crane will stack S20 on BN4.


Troy3003 said:
Looks like scaffold walk boards
Edit: won't mention the OSHA violations there, lol
Click to expand...

I’ve watched them walking around on video and they’re tied off to the horizontal lifeline. It’s okay because if they fall, there’s plenty of boom reaches available.
 
cvanc said:
If this is true, how in the world is their pad so tiny and insubstantial compared to, say, the launch pads of virtually any other rocket since Redstone? Are they really gonna fire 29 engines from a hundred feet up tops, onto flat dry concrete? How's that gonna work out? Genuinely puzzled here...
Click to expand...
Maybe they are going to use something like the Apollo 1 pad had. Here is a pic from my KSC visit a few years back. The flame diverters were placed under the concrete pad.
Apoll11Pad.JPG

They definitely won't be firing directly onto the concrete. They had a problem with that a while back where a chunk of concrete spalled off and damaged one of the motors (can't remember which flight).
 
I think the Starship launches actually have been basically straight off the ground, haven’t they? No launch tower, no flame trench, no water deluge system. It’s designed to land back on the ground under thrust, so it was able to launch that way too.

This beast is so much bigger and has so much more thrust, I have trouble imagining blasting straight into the pad, but I don’t think there’s going to be what we think of as the normal setup for handling the exhaust.
 
I hear ya Thirsty but 3 engines is a lot different, right?

I swear, I saw an early animation showing that thing launching from the top of the tower. I really thought that was the plan.

(Hmm, this gets me to a side question: What is the smallest rocket to ever use a water deluge system?)
 
rklapp said:
I’ve watched them walking around on video and they’re tied off to the horizontal lifeline. It’s okay because if they fall, there’s plenty of boom reaches available.
Click to expand...

Although there's a guardrail on the outside, everyone except the cameraman is tied off to the lifeline so they don't fall between the platform and the rocket. That would be one way to go...

1628122578063.png


 
Is anyone other than me concerned that when you install 29 complex machines, and assemble them into an even larger, more complex machine, and do it all in one night, there doesn't seem to leave room for being careful, cautious, and meticulous? Clearly they did it. So clearly it's *possible.*

But is it possible to do so with enough care to avoid making some stupid careless mistake somewhere such that no one noticed?

I used to work in quality assurance and doing something that complex, at that speed, would worry me.
 
Peartree said:
Is anyone other than me concerned that when you install 29 complex machines, and assemble them into an even larger, more complex machine, and do it all in one night, there doesn't seem to leave room for being careful, cautious, and meticulous? Clearly they did it. So clearly it's *possible.*

But is it possible to do so with enough care to avoid making some stupid careless mistake somewhere such that no one noticed?

I used to work in quality assurance and doing something that complex, at that speed, would worry me.
Click to expand...
Just looking at one Raptor engine is scary. A rocket engine is basically a simple device, but you sure couldn't tell that from one of these.
 
Peartree said:
Is anyone other than me concerned that when you install 29 complex machines, and assemble them into an even larger, more complex machine, and do it all in one night, there doesn't seem to leave room for being careful, cautious, and meticulous? Clearly they did it. So clearly it's *possible.*

But is it possible to do so with enough care to avoid making some stupid careless mistake somewhere such that no one noticed?

I used to work in quality assurance and doing something that complex, at that speed, would worry me.
Click to expand...
Some of the Raptors were spray painted instead of stenciled. NSF speculated the tech was painting the number on the engine while it was being trucked out of the factory.
 
Peartree said:
Is anyone other than me concerned that when you install 29 complex machines, and assemble them into an even larger, more complex machine, and do it all in one night, there doesn't seem to leave room for being careful, cautious, and meticulous? Clearly they did it. So clearly it's *possible.*

But is it possible to do so with enough care to avoid making some stupid careless mistake somewhere such that no one noticed?

I used to work in quality assurance and doing something that complex, at that speed, would worry me.
Click to expand...
In theory* it shouldn’t be a problem to install that many engines in a day. Each engine is complex but it has relatively few attachment points. Fuel, oxidizer, structural attachment, control and monitoring, and maybe steering. I believe that most of the Raptors are fixed and only a few gimbal. If they were designed for rapid installation, it might not take too much time for each engine. The bottom of the rocket is big enough that you could also probably have several teams working at once. QA is definitely an issue though.

* In theory, there’s no difference between theory and practice.
 
Peartree said:
Is anyone other than me concerned that when you install 29 complex machines, and assemble them into an even larger, more complex machine, and do it all in one night, there doesn't seem to leave room for being careful, cautious, and meticulous? Clearly they did it. So clearly it's *possible.*

But is it possible to do so with enough care to avoid making some stupid careless mistake somewhere such that no one noticed?

I used to work in quality assurance and doing something that complex, at that speed, would worry me.
Click to expand...

Do we know that the engine mate is totally complete? Bolting 29 engines to the thrust structure and plumbing them are two very different things. The former seems doable in one night with multiple crews working on engines at different locations, but if they bolted them on AND plumbed them in one night, that would shock me. Plumbing engines takes more time and care.
 
I think those engines are designed to be installed quickly. On Starship, they were sometimes swapped out at the pad, so I think it’s designed to be relatively easy compared to other rocket engines. But it does seem crazy they could install 29 engines in 12-14 hours, and everything go perfectly.
 
Clearly, if we were all in charge Elon would be given a stern talking to :p

I saw the hand sprayed serial numbers and that certainly smacks of skipping an ISO-approved step or two lol

Also the interior of several nozzles was distinctly white. Which begs the question: Is that what they look like before their very first firing? In other words are some of these as yet untested? I dunno....
 
Antares JS said:
Do we know that the engine mate is totally complete? Bolting 29 engines to the thrust structure and plumbing them are two very different things. The former seems doable in one night with multiple crews working on engines at different locations, but if they bolted them on AND plumbed them in one night, that would shock me. Plumbing engines takes more time and care.
Click to expand...

That would make sense. If true, I would feel a little better. Not that Elon gives a crap about my feelings...
 
Elon said he wants the turnaround time of the booster to be 1 hour from landing to take off. Any potentially problematic engine can be swapped out like a NASCAR pit crew.

I imagine you have to be resilient to motion sickness to elevate that high in the boom reach. Personally, I think that's the major technological improvement over the 60s that allows SpaceX to put together these massive rockets in the open without a gigantic assembly building.

1628183139443.png

In other news,

https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-oft2-leaves-launch-pad-again
 
SpaceX is now trying to stack SN20 onto BN4.
1628194102500.png
Source:


Live stream here:

In true SpaceX fashion, right now a major crane lift - putting a cryo shell over a GSE tank - happens directly next to SN20.

Apparently, this is just some kind of fit test. Most of the GSE does not yet appear ready to support a launch (tanks and piping are obvious examples). So the Raptors are probably not fully ready.

Reinhard
 
With the pace they are going right now, I feel like Elon watched the Branson and Bezos wiener-measuring contest and said, “Screw you guys, I’m going to Mars by the end of the week!”
 
Hopefully in October we'll get to see another Falcon Heavy launch. This will be the first time a double drone ship landing is attempted, instead of the boosters coming back to the launch site.

It looks like a military mission so we'll probably get very little heads up about the launch time, we'll only know it's coming soon when they roll it out to the launch pad. Hopefully it's not a night launch at 2am or something like that where I'll have to watch it the next day.

https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/1151
 
5 hours until Crew-3 mission launch.

From the YouTube page:
SpaceX and NASA are targeting as soon as Wednesday, November 10 for Falcon 9’s launch of Dragon’s third long-duration crew mission (Crew-3) to the International Space Station from historic Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The instantaneous launch window opens at 9:03 p.m. EST, or 2:03 UTC on November 11, with a backup opportunity available on Thursday, November 11 at 8:40 p.m. EST, or 1:40 UTC on November 12.

Following stage separation, Falcon 9’s first stage will land on the “A Shortfall of Gravitas” droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. During the Crew-3 mission, NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, and Kayla Barron, and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Matthias Maurer will fly aboard the Dragon spacecraft, marking the fifth human spaceflight mission SpaceX has launched since May 2020.

The webcast for the Crew-3 mission will go live about 4 hours before liftoff.

 

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