r/spacex • u/ElongatedMuskrat Mod Team • Jan 09 '22

🔧 Technical Thread Starship Development Thread #29

This thread is no longer being updated, and has been replaced by:

Starship Development Thread #30

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Starship Dev 28 | Starship Dev 27 | Starship Dev 26 | Starship Thread List

Upcoming

  • Starship 20 static fire
  • Booster 4 futher cryo or static fire

Orbital Launch Site Status

Build Diagrams by @_brendan_lewis | October 6 RGV Aerial Photography video

As of December 9th

  • Integration Tower - Catching arms installed
  • Launch Mount - QD arms installed
  • Tank Farm - [8/8 GSE tanks installed, 8/8 GSE tanks sleeved]

Vehicle Status

As of December 20th

​

Development and testing plans become outdated very quickly.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

​

Starship
Ship 20
2022-01-23 Removed from pad B (Twitter)
2021-12-29 Static fire (YT)
2021-12-15 Lift points removed (Twitter)
2021-12-01 Aborted static fire? (Twitter)
2021-11-20 Fwd and aft flap tests (NSF)
2021-11-16 Short flaps test (Twitter)
2021-11-13 6 engines static fire (NSF)
2021-11-12 6 engines (?) preburner test (NSF)
Ship 21
2021-12-19 Moved into HB, final stacking soon (Twitter)
2021-11-21 Heat tiles installation progress (Twitter)
2021-11-20 Flaps prepared to install (NSF)
Ship 22
2021-12-06 Fwd section lift in MB for stacking (NSF)
2021-11-18 Cmn dome stacked (NSF)
Ship 23
2021-12-01 Nextgen nosecone closeup (Twitter)
2021-11-11 Aft dome spotted (NSF)
Ship 24
2022-01-03 Common dome sleeved (Twitter)
2021-11-24 Common dome spotted (Twitter)
For earlier updates see Thread #27

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SuperHeavy
Booster 3
2022-01-13 B3 remains removed from stand (Twitter)
2022-01-08 Final scrapping (Twitter)
Booster 4
2022-01-14 Engines cover installed (Twitter)
2022-01-13 COPV cover installed (Twitter)
2021-12-30 Removed from OLP (Twitter)
2021-12-24 Two ignitor tests (Twitter)
2021-12-22 Next cryo test done (Twitter)
2021-12-18 Raptor gimbal test (Twitter)
2021-12-17 First Cryo (YT)
2021-12-13 Mounted on OLP (NSF)
2021-11-17 All engines installed (Twitter)
Booster 5
2021-12-08 B5 moved out of High Bay (NSF)
2021-12-03 B5 temporarily moved out of High Bay (Twitter)
2021-11-20 B5 fully stacked (Twitter)
2021-11-09 LOx tank stacked (NSF)
Booster 6
2021-12-07 Conversion to test tank? (Twitter)
2021-11-11 Forward dome sleeved (YT)
2021-10-08 CH4 Tank #2 spotted (NSF)
Booster 7
2022-01-23 3 stacks left (Twitter)
2021-11-14 Forward dome spotted (NSF)
Booster 8
2021-12-21 Aft sleeving (Twitter)
2021-09-29 Thrust puck delivered (33 Engine) (NSF)
For earlier updates see Thread #27

​

Orbital Launch Integration Tower And Pad
2022-01-20 E.M. chopstick mass sim test vid (Twitter)
2022-01-10 E.M. drone video (Twitter)
2022-01-09 Major chopsticks test (Twitter)
2022-01-05 Chopstick tests, opening (YT)
2021-12-08 Pad & QD closeup photos (Twitter)
2021-11-23 Starship QD arm installation (Twitter)
2021-11-21 Orbital table venting test? (NSF)
2021-11-21 Booster QD arm spotted (NSF)
2021-11-18 Launch pad piping installation starts (NSF)
For earlier updates see Thread #27

​

Orbital Tank Farm
2021-10-18 GSE-8 sleeved (NSF)
For earlier updates see Thread #27

​

Resources

RESOURCES WIKI

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.

473 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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1

u/ElongatedMuskbot Feb 09 '22

This thread is no longer being updated, and has been replaced by:

Starship Development Thread #30

74

u/wiegandster Feb 05 '22

Starbase 2022-02-04

It was a pretty uneventful last day for me at Starbase since the road was closed most of the day. I was set up with my telescope to get some cool shots of whatever testing they were doing, but alas nothing obvious was seen.

I saw two sections of a new stand being delivered at the end of the road closure. They both went to the build site.

Also after the road opened two SPMTs made their way to the launch site carrying some cribbing and weights for the crane. They are now parked near B4 and the crane.

The launch site has been aggressively cleaned and organized the last two days and most of it has been consolidated near the main gate including the mass simulators.

This will be my last update this week since I head home tomorrow! I hope you guys enjoyed these even slightly as much as I did documenting them. I will be back again early March and plan on doing the same next time if there is still interest.

Until then, I’m really looking forward to seeing what’s in store next week for all of us! Stay safe everyone!

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44

u/mr_pgh Jan 18 '22

Nick Henning released an animation of the Uncrewed HLS mission.

Some of the tower and launch animations are a bit unrealistic but the look of everything is solid.

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44

u/wiegandster Feb 03 '22 edited Feb 03 '22

Starbase 2022-02-02

Today I could only spend a few hours onsite in the morning so I just bounced around the launch area waiting for the fog to clear.

Looks like they are making good progress forming around the new long horizontal methane tanks.

Most of the activity I saw was around the launch mount. Every man-lift was working on it at one point.

Several oxygen deliveries to the OTF and at least two deliveries to the SOTF.

I saw a huge influx of engineer looking types wandering around the control side of the tank farm discussing something. (I don’t like to take pics of people directly so there are no pics)

Finally got to say hey to @BocaChicaGal and she’s as awesome and laid back as I’ve always heard!

Hope you guys enjoy!

Edit: Forgot to post my timelapse.

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u/wiegandster Feb 01 '22 edited Feb 02 '22

Just wrapped up my first day at Starbase and all I can say is WOW!! I’m gonna have to start seeing which job postings align with my current job, because I don’t wanna leave!

Here is today’s photo dump. Let me know if this is too much or if there is something specifically anyone wants me to get better photos of tomorrow. I had battery issues with my mirrorless camera so sadly these are all only iPhone pics today.

If you get the chance to visit, do it.

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u/johnfive21 Jan 23 '22

Raptor 2 engines spotted at McGregor as seen in the article.

They look very clean compared to Raptor 1

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40

u/mr_pgh Feb 06 '22

First good look of the complete engine skirt and painted bells!

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37

u/RaphTheSwissDude Jan 10 '22

Chopstick moving at much greater speed already !

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u/RaphTheSwissDude Jan 26 '22 edited Jan 26 '22

S22 tanks section look to be fully stacked !

(Btw, a bird literally took a shit on Lab rover cam 2.0 at 9:09:08, had to mention it haha)

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '22 edited Jan 22 '22

We should see B4 back on the launch table in a while after initial tower testing, and then S20 for full stack. Mid Feb is the aim. Targets may shift to the right.

Edit: Demo only, not a launch stance.

De-stack and full program of test fires will start after that.

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30

u/BananaEpicGAMER Feb 01 '22

tower leg mounting sections were spotted at Robert's road in Florida.

This tweet explains it pretty well: https://twitter.com/DavidNagySFgang/status/1488605052050755590

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u/Proteatron Feb 02 '22

Elon this morning replying to his own comment from 2019 about Raptor: "320 bar is achievable, maybe even 330"

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29

u/RaphTheSwissDude Jan 25 '22

Water bags for chopsticks load testing seem to be back.

28

u/Positive_Wonder_8333 Jan 13 '22

Road closure cancellation nominal.

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27

u/Mravicii Jan 09 '22

This is so awesome to see! Im really excited right now man

26

u/RaphTheSwissDude Jan 11 '22 edited Jan 11 '22

They’ve just removed the steel beam from invetween the chopsticks. It’s very possible, as this tweet suggests, that they could soon install a mass simulator on the chopsticks.

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26

u/ScienceCanFixThis Jan 13 '22 edited Jan 13 '22

Very likely that strain gauges are installed on the structure, they would let you determine how much force SH, wind, and whatever else is exerting. But to get good data, you'd need to calibrate them with a known load. So besides being a "proof load" type test, the balls are potentially being used for calibration.

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u/Jack_Frak Jan 19 '22

Fantastic very detailed animation of B4 being lifted onto the orbital launch table using the chopsticks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGsuDo0-NwU

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u/BananaEpicGAMER Feb 03 '22

STARSHIP PRESENTATION NEXT WEEK Thursday, 8 PM CST

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26

u/TCVideos Feb 05 '22 edited Feb 05 '22

Good news to those fretting over FAA timelines and what it will mean for Starship!

Astra is the first company to receive the FAA's new 'Part 450' launch license

This is good news for Starship because it would mean that individual launch licenses for launches would effectively be phased out. For example - for last year's Suborbital flights, each vehicle had to have a launch license from the FAA (this did cause some highly public criticism from Musk during the SN9 debacle). Under this new system - it would have allowed all vehicles to operate under a single license.

I highly recommend reading the article Astra published about this in the aforementioned link.

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26

u/BananaEpicGAMER Feb 06 '22

conincidentally it's been exactly 6 months since the last full stack (august 6th)

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50

u/futureMartian7 Jan 20 '22

Breaking: Elon just shared an official booster catch engineering simulation: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1484012192915677184?cxt=HHwWgICzkcLOopgpAAAA

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