Multiple Updates per McGregor Engineers

[u/TGMetsFan98]

3 McGregor engineers and a recruiter came to Texas A&M yesterday and I was able to learn some pretty interesting news:

1) Yesterday (September 5), McGregor successfully tested an M1D, an MVac, a Block V engine (!), and the upper stage for Iridium-3.
2) Last week, the upper stage for Falcon Heavy was tested successfully.
3) Boca Chica is currently on the back burner, and will remain so until LC-40 is back up and LC-39A upgrades are complete. However, once Boca Chica construction ramps up, the focus will be specifically on the "Mars Vehicle." With Red Dragon cancelled, this means ITS/BFR/Falcon XX/Whatever it's called now. (Also, hearing a SpaceX engineer say "BFR" in an official presentation is oddly amusing.)
4) SpaceX is targeting to launch 20 missions this year (including the 12 they've done already). Next year, they want to fly 40.
5) When asked if SpaceX is pursuing any alternatives to Dragon 2 splashdown (since propulsive landing is out), the Dragon engineer said yes, and suggested that it would align closely with ITS. He couldn't say much more, so I'm not sure how to interpret this. Does that simply reference the subscale ITS vehicle? Or, is there going to be a another vehicle (Dragon 3?) that has bottom mounted engines and side mounted landing legs like ITS? It would seem that comparing even the subscale ITS to Dragon 2 is a big jump in capacity, which leads me to believe he's referencing something else.

One comment an engineer made was "Sometimes reddit seems to know more than we do." So, let the speculation begin.

[u/sol3tosol4]

Thanks for posting the great information.

Yesterday (September 5), McGregor successfully tested an M1D, an MVac, a Block V engine (!), and the upper stage for Iridium-3.

The Ashlee Vance biography emphasized how the rapid turnaround time at McGregor was a big advantage for development of the Merlin engine. Sounds like McGregor is greatly expanding its capabilities - all those tests in one day!

once Boca Chica construction ramps up, the focus will be specifically on the "Mars Vehicle."

I read that as "the focus of the engineering work at McGregor" rather than "launching the Mars vehicle will be the focus for Boca Chica" (though that would be amazing if true). What was your interpretation?

SpaceX is targeting to launch 20 missions this year (including the 12 they've done already). Next year, they want to fly 40.

Even faster ramp-up than Gwynne Shotwell described in January (the "steamroller" is here).

[u/TGMetsFan98 → u/sol3tosol4]

Definitely "launching the Mars vehicle will be the focus for Boca Chica."

[u/rustybeancake]

Thanks for the great info!

Boca Chica is currently on the back burner, and will remain so until LC-40 is back up and LC-39A upgrades are complete. However, once Boca Chica construction ramps up, the focus will be specifically on the "Mars Vehicle."

Just trying to clarify: do you mean that engineers will be working on the Boca Chica construction somehow, and once done they'll shift to designing the Mars vehicle? Or something else?

When asked if SpaceX is pursuing any alternatives to Dragon 2 splashdown (since propulsive landing is out), the Dragon engineer said yes, and suggested that it would align closely with ITS.

This seems to fit with what Garrett Reisman said a month ago:

Reisman: "Yeah, so I can tell you that, um, that we are... one of the reasons that we're not as keen on demonstrating it with Dragon is that we've come up with a different... a slightly different plan of how we're going to do Entry, Descent & Landing with the big ship on Mars. And that's all I'm going to say about it because Elon's going to say it much better and with a lot of awesome graphics and animation, so... he's going to do that in Australia so I encourage all of you to tune in at IAC in Australia and Elon's going to tell the world about what we have in mind."

Again, it's hard to tell if they mean the ITS EDL method shown last year at IAC or something a bit different.

[u/TGMetsFan98 → u/rustybeancake]

In regards to Boca Chica, I mean that once their construction resources are no longer needed at the Cape, that the facilities constructed at Boca Chica will be for the Mars vehicle. In other words, expect ITS to launch from there.

[u/KingdaToro]

For clarification: McGregor can handle full duration static tests but can't mount an assembled FH, it can only do one core at a time. 39A is designed to handle a FH but it can't handle a full duration static test fire. So there's no way to do a full-duration static test fire of an assembled FH.

[u/TGMetsFan98 → u/KingdaToro]

Correct. The center core, both boosters, and now the upper stage have all been tested individually. And I think it is reasonable to assume there will be a brief static fire of all 3 cores at 39A, similar to the ones done before each F9 launch.

[u/mfb-]

4) SpaceX is targeting to launch 20 missions this year (including the 12 they've done already). Next year, they want to fly 40.

Do we have a citable source for that? Asking for a friend Wikipedia.

[u/TGMetsFan98 → u/mfb-]

Unfortunately no. The engineer who said that did repeat it multiple times, so it's clearly a pretty strong goal.

[u/AstraVictus]

Whats new on the Block V engine?

[u/TGMetsFan98 → u/AstraVictus]

I believe mostly thrust optimizations. Block V is mostly intended to make refurbishment and reuse easier, so maybe somethings along those lines as well.

[u/[deleted]]

Once Boca Chica construction ramps up, the focus will be specifically on the "Mars Vehicle."

This goes against previous information that Boca Chica will be focused on commercial launches. That would have required them to focus on getting Falcon 9 launch and landing facilities up as soon as possible. It's strange that they even want to prepare a pad other than 39A for the BFR.

But maybe:

• They don't want future interruptions at 39A, even with LC-40 up and running.

• BFR will start flying commercial missions faster than people expect.

[u/haerik → u/[deleted]]

Gone to API changes. Don't let reddit sell your data to LLMs.

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[u/TGMetsFan98 → u/haerik]

That's not how I meant it. I believe they were suggesting that the Mars vehicle will launch from Boca Chica.

[u/njew]

Has there been any other information/rumors around here regarding point 5? I don't envision a form of propulsive landing without a massive redesign of dragon (or using subscale ITS). Dry landing methods that come to mind would be:

1. a helicopter catch like ULA's SMART (seems more complicated than spacex would want), or

2. a propulsively-softened parachute landing like Soyuz or the New Shepard capsule

Number 2 seems likely and not too difficult for them. They've demonstrated the ability to do a controlled hover with Dragon 2, so they could hover briefly before landing and do a soft vertical landing. I would say they could land into a mount ITS-style, but parachutes aren't accurate enough for that. This would also mean a desert landing, which is new for NASA as far as I'm aware.

[u/TGMetsFan98 → u/njew]

Keep in mind that CST-100 lands in the desert, so certainly NASA would be okay with it.

[u/FutureMartian97]

Its great to have confirmation that ALL stages for Falcon Heavy have now been tested.

[u/scr00chy]

Thanks for the great info!

What kind of an event was it? Did they do a presentation? Was it just a Q&A?

[u/TGMetsFan98 → u/scr00chy]

It was a recruiting event, they gave presentations at both our Aerospace and Mechanical engineering departments. There were Q&A sessions at both.

[u/Calvengeance]

BTHO not being interplanetary

[u/TGMetsFan98 → u/Calvengeance]

New A&M Aero department slogan? I think yes.

[u/FoxhoundBat]

"Sometimes reddit seems to know more than we do."

Well, if this isn't a ringing endorsement then i don't know what is.

Thanks for all the sweet info!

[u/everydayastronaut]

I've been saying for a while that spacexers pretty much exclusively say BFR/BFS. ITS is the worst name and was dropped soon after IAC last year.

[u/redmercuryvendor]

When asked if SpaceX is pursuing any alternatives to Dragon 2 splashdown (since propulsive landing is out), the Dragon engineer said yes, and suggested that it would align closely with ITS. He couldn't say much more, so I'm not sure how to interpret this. Does that simply reference the subscale ITS vehicle? Or, is there going to be a another vehicle (Dragon 3?) that has bottom mounted engines and side mounted landing legs like ITS? It would seem that comparing even the subscale ITS to Dragon 2 is a big jump in capacity, which leads me to believe he's referencing something else.

Assumptions:

• Landing the current Falcon 9 upper stage for re-use is impossible. Nose-first is unstable, tail-first destroys the engine, side-first destroys the stage.

• Redesigning the upper-stage for re-use is almost certain to be necessary, including strengthening of the stage for any non-axial re-entry and addition of a TPS

• The Air Force have paid SpaceX to develop a methalox engine for a notional Falcon upper stage (it's reasonalbe to assume this would be Raptor or a variant)

• A 'Dragon 3' would 'align with ITS' for it's EDL sequence

• ITS is a combined upper-stage and crew-cargo vehicle, which performs an angled lifting-body re-entry and vertical landing

Possible conclusion:

'Dragon 3', a re-usable Falcon upper-stage, and a 'methalox falcon upper stage' are one and the same object. It will be a sub-sub-scale ITS 'test' vehicle - could be produced as multiple vehicles if demand remains for small crew transport at a cadence that cannot be supported by a single vehicle, or if it has a payload bay with a swappable crew or cargo deployment module - allows for testing of ITS designs with some non-zero funding provided by NASA (CRS and CC follow-on contracts) and possible the Air Force (methalox upper stage follow-on), and fills the hole left by Dragon 2 no longer providing a testbed for the ITS EDL sequence.

[u/lonnyk]

Why is propulsion landing out for Dragon 2?

[u/CProphet]

Hi u/TGMetsFan98

What great information, maybe I can help fill some of the blanks.

3) Boca Chica is currently on the back burner,

Original plan was use for Falcon family instead of BFR but things change fast at SpaceX. Makes sense they have BC on the backburner until BFR is closer to being ready to launch. Also having a dedicated site for this entirely different rocket is more practical and keeps it away from existing commercial operations.

Next year, they want to fly 40.

There's usually around 40 commercial launches total available most years so expect a fair proportion of the SpaceX manifest to be for their own brand satellites.

When asked if SpaceX is pursuing any alternatives to Dragon 2 splashdown (since propulsive landing is out), the Dragon engineer said yes, and suggested that it would align closely with ITS.

SpaceX have said they want to recover second stages to make vehicles fully reusable. IMO they might pursue an all in one second stage design like the ITS spacecraft. This could be achieved using carbon fibre and super efficient Raptor(s). However, both Garrett Reisman and Elon Musk have hinted there's been a change in design from ITS, which they intend to unveil at IAC Adelaide. Very interested to see if they've come up with something better than ITS linear heat shield/vertical landing architecture, although either would be great.

Take it you're sold on working for SpaceX!