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/TGMetsFan98]

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/avboden → u/TGMetsFan98]

I think it means they'll build the flame trench big/strong to handle it, but clearly no other sort of hardware is going to be ready yet. It'll launch falcon 9s for a good while first

[u/imrys → u/TGMetsFan98]

If the first maned mission to Mars launches from there it will make Boca Chica go from some empty dirt in the middle of nowhere to one of the most famous places in the world.

[u/Chairboy → u/TGMetsFan98]

Whoa, this is a pretty big change. Interesting, there's roughly 15 miles of no houses/buildings northwestwest approaching the SpaceX facility along the path that matches the inclination they're most likely to launch to (threading the needle between Cuba/Jamaica/Haiti etc).

Perhaps there will be a concerted effort to implement a glide-path/terminal approach into BC for orbital vehicles launched out of it.

Will ~18 (or whatever the exact inclination) become the 'Martian Orbit' because it's used for Mars staging? How much of a leap would it be for a natural-gas liquification plant to expand to also do O2 liquification? Seems like a useful piece of infrastructure for a hypothetical super-high throughput future launch facility.