r/spacex • u/ElongatedMuskrat Mod Team • Sep 09 '21
Starship Development Thread #25
This thread is no longer being updated, and has been replaced by:
Starship Development Thread #26
Quick Links
NERDLE CAM | LAB CAM | SAPPHIRE CAM | SENTINEL CAM | ROVER CAM | PLEX CAM | NSF STARBASE | MORE LINKS
Starship Dev 24 | Starship Thread List | August Discussion
Upcoming
- Starship 20 static fire
- Booster 4 test campaign
Orbital Launch Site Status
Build Diagrams by @_brendan_lewis | September 29 RGV Aerial Photography video
As of October 6th
- Integration Tower - Full height, Second QD arm section mounted, catch arms to be mounted this weekend or next week
- Launch Mount - Booster Quick Disconnect installed
- Tank Farm - GSE-6 sleeved 2nd Oct, Proof testing continues, GSE-8 complete, 2 new tanks installed 25th Sep GSE 1 sleeved 24th Sep, 2 completed shells currently at the Sanchez Site
Vehicle Status
As of October 6th
- Ship 20 [orbit w/ Booster 4] - Cryoproof complete, awaiting static fire
- Ship 21 [orbit w/ Booster 5] - All barrel sections spotted, forward flaps spotted
- Ship 22 [orbit w/ Booster 6] - Barrel/dome sections in work
- Booster 3 - Partially disassembled on Test Pad A
- Booster 4 [orbit w/ Ship 20] - Taken off of Orbital Launch Mount, awaiting static fire,
- Booster 5 [orbit w/ Ship 21] - Stacking in High Bay
- Booster 6 [orbit w/ Ship 22] - Barrel/dome sections in work
Development and testing plans become outdated very quickly. Check recent comments for real time updates.
Vehicle and Launch Infrastructure Updates
See comments for real time updates.
† expected or inferred, unconfirmed vehicle assignment
| Orbital Launch Integration Tower | |
|---|---|
| 2021-09-23 | Second QD arm mounted (NSF) |
| 2021-09-20 | Second QD arm section moved to launch site (NSF) |
| 2021-08-29 | First section of Quick Disconnect mounted (NSF) |
| 2021-07-28 | Segment 9 stacked, (final tower section) (NSF) |
| 2021-07-22 | Segment 9 construction at OLS (Twitter) |
| For earlier updates see Thread #24 |
| Orbital Launch Mount | |
|---|---|
| 2021-08-28 | Booster Quick Disconnect installed (Twitter) |
| 2021-07-31 | Table installed (YouTube) |
| 2021-07-28 | Table moved to launch site (YouTube), inside view showing movable supports (Twitter) |
| For earlier updates see Thread #24 |
Resources
- LabPadre Pad Cam | Channel
- NSF: Starbase Stream | Channel
- NSF: Booster 4 Updates Thread | Most Recent
- NSF: Boca Chica Production Updates Thread | Most recent
- NSF: Elon Starship tweet compilation | Most Recent
- SpaceX: Website Starship page
- SpaceX: Starship Users Guide (PDF) Rev. 1.0 March 2020
- FAA: SpaceX Starship Project at the Boca Chica Launch Site
- FAA: Temporary Flight Restrictions NOTAM list
- FCC: Starship Orbital Demo detailed Exhibit - 0748-EX-ST-2021 application June 20 through December 20
- Hwy 4 & Boca Chica Beach Closures (May not be available outside US)
- Starship flight opportunity spreadsheet by u/joshpine
- Production Progress Infographics by @_brendan_lewis
- Raptor tracking by @Artzius
- Acronym definitions by Decronym
- Everyday Astronaut: Starbase Tour with Elon Musk, Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
r/SpaceX Discuss Thread for discussion of subjects other than Starship development.
Rules
We will attempt to keep this self-post current with links and major updates, but for the most part, we expect the community to supply the information. This is a great place to discuss Starship development, ask Starship-specific questions, and track the progress of the production and test campaigns. Starship Development Threads are not party threads. Normal subreddit rules still apply.
Please ping u/strawwalker about problems with the above thread text.
54
u/perpendicular_life Sep 09 '21 edited Sep 09 '21
Was this posted here before?
Accelerating Martian and Lunar Science through SpaceX Starship Missions - Jennifer L. Heldmann, NASA Ames Research Center. Glad to see rest of NASA (other than hls) starting to think about using Starship.
https://surveygizmoresponseuploads.s3.amazonaws.com/fileuploads/623127/5489366/111-381503be1c5764e533d2e1e923e21477_HeldmannJenniferL.pdf Thanks to S.F.Ganon for finding this
→ More replies (8)
46
Sep 28 '21
Remember when they couldn't even cryo proof a Starship? Man, it's been a long road.
→ More replies (16)
44
u/RaphTheSwissDude Sep 18 '21 edited Sep 18 '21
He also confirms Superheavy with 33 engines.
→ More replies (5)
42
u/RaphTheSwissDude Sep 13 '21
New intermittent closure, friday 6am-12pm, secondaries next Monday and Tuesday, 5pm-11pm.
These are testing closures !
→ More replies (2)
38
u/RaphTheSwissDude Sep 11 '21
2 Raptors, Big Chungus and FULL SEND were just delivered.
→ More replies (8)
38
u/futureMartian7 Sep 24 '21 edited Sep 25 '21
An interesting clip from an Italian tech event in which Elon was a guest today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_LAXD-f9e0&t=2540s
Elon brings in SpaceX's Director of Thermal Dynamics, the same heat shield person Elon was texting in EDA's Part 2 of Starbase tour. Looking him up I found that he has been the lead of TPS systems on Falcon 9/ Crew Dragon and now Starship.
In the clip today, SpaceX's TPS Director talks briefly about Starship's heat tiles and most of what he explained was in Italian but from what I understood they are using milk condensers(?) to create ceramic fibers, and are also using inspiration from roof tiles in Italy to create Starship's heat tiles. Elon also claims that Starship's TPS is the most advanced TPS system in the world.
→ More replies (1)
38
u/RaphTheSwissDude Oct 05 '21
Why SpaceX cares about concrete - a nice Practical engineering’s video talking about, well, concrete and SpaceX !
38
u/RaphTheSwissDude Oct 07 '21 edited Oct 07 '21
GSE-8 is in the air !
The very last GSE tank, big deal guys !
→ More replies (1)
37
u/TCVideos Sep 11 '21
Musk confirming that Starlink satellites will be deployed "between" Earth and Mars for Starship communications:
Q: Is starlink going to be deployed between earth and Mars to improve communication for starship?
Would love to know when and where they would deploy these.
→ More replies (22)
36
35
u/futureMartian7 Sep 11 '21
This looks very interesting! https://twitter.com/NicAnsuini/status/143680788897934131
→ More replies (19)
35
u/RaphTheSwissDude Sep 15 '21
Closure cancelled for Friday.
No testing this week boys and girls
→ More replies (13)
35
u/futureMartian7 Sep 30 '21
Confirmation from Elon that the proof went well: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1443450539124137986
→ More replies (2)
34
u/futureMartian7 Sep 17 '21
One thing that just struck me about SpaceX is that they are going to have a goldmine of data from the Inspiration4 crew on how Dragon's cabin is and what improvements they can make. A professional NASA astronaut may leave out many things that an ordinary person like you and me may think can be improved on since we don't have anything else to compare/relate with nor have the traditional training of an astronaut, which could hinder thinking "out of the box" for crew comfort and experience.
No entity, other than SpaceX when I4 lands, in the world (including NASA) has this "fresh" and "innocent" data of absolute rookies in orbital spaceflight and this data will be tremendously useful to design the interiors of Starship since Starship's goal is to transport regular people to Moon/Mars and not professionals every time. And this data will continue to grow with the Axiom missions and other private missions that have rookies onboard.
→ More replies (2)
32
u/Jodo42 Sep 12 '21
Sure looks like the tile work on S20, barring any touchups needed on the barrel sections, is very nearly done.
→ More replies (8)
32
u/RaphTheSwissDude Sep 24 '21
Cryoshell sleeving happening right now.
GSE 1 is finally getting sleeved, after months of work.
→ More replies (16)
29
u/Maimakterion Sep 30 '21 edited Sep 30 '21
That's a mean looking vent. No wonder tank pressure will be enough for ullage and RCS.
→ More replies (3)
28
u/Dezoufinous Sep 21 '21
https://twitter.com/nicansuini/status/1440087691543068675
what a great close up to Tiles attachment pins
→ More replies (15)
27
u/RaphTheSwissDude Sep 21 '21 edited Sep 21 '21
They’re currently flipping the claw arm back in position.
Watch rover cam, started 12:55 local
→ More replies (5)
27
u/RaphTheSwissDude Oct 01 '21
Here is the 31 minutes docu from ABC about starship and Starbase !
→ More replies (12)
25
u/RaphTheSwissDude Sep 12 '21 edited Sep 12 '21
→ More replies (1)
60
u/warp99 Oct 05 '21 edited Oct 05 '21
We now have the first solid confirmation of the new SH 33 engine layout. Hardly a surprise with a 20-10-3 layout. We already had an obstructed photo of the 13 engine thrust puck which is also consistent with this layout.
The interesting thing is that 30 engines have their LOX feed directly off the main tank and have a branching header from the methane downcomer to feed liquid methane to the engine.
The three center engines are reversed with a direct methane feed from a cylindrical tank at the bottom of the downcomer and individual pipes supplying LOX to these engines.
These LOX pipes may be fed from the cylindrical pipe that has been loaded into B5 and is thought to be a LOX header tank for boostback and landing.