Starship Development Thread #46B

Elon thinks the next launch will be in 6 to 8 weeks

Unrolled tweet thread at threadreaderapp.com by Ryan Hansen Space @RyanHansenSpace. It's a look at the details of the steel plate parts and assembly under the Orbital Launch Mount.

This is great thank you, I started following spacex Reddit in the echologic (was that his name?) Days, but the sub got a bit, I dunno, it started to lack a certain something. Just got too big maybe.

I'm happy to see this here! Thanks for starting it, sorry for the off topic 😂

Looks like the Ship Quick-Disconnect is back!

RGV Sneak Peek shows some nice shots of the steel plates, as well as the pour under the OLM. Looks like a lot more concrete is needed though, wonder when that’ll happen.

The steel plates look ready for transport, so I bet this next pour will be soon — it seems to be the main hold up.

SpaceX @SpaceX on Twitter

Ship 25 completes a six-engine static fire test at Starbase in Texas

11 seconds. In the audio, only a little bit of HONK at the end.

Someone pointed out that the flames start out as a triangle, but then switch rotated 60 degrees when the vacuum engines start - V to ^.

A comment in The Other Place mentioned that it looks like a little spalled concrete at 4 seconds in.

In a later tweet, Musk called it a "Key milestone completed for flight 2".

Ship 25 completed a flight-like chill and spin of the Raptor engine pumps, stopping just before engine ignition. As a result of the test, cryogenic liquid oxygen formed a visible cloud beneath the ship. This checked out vital systems in advance of the upcoming static fire.

source

Ship 25 flaps were tested at 12:43 CDT

I'm leaving reddit permanently, so thanks for maintaining this!

So the big news of the day and night was what is believed to be the center plate of the water deluge system. It is thought that it will be placed directly under the Orbital Launch Mount.

@[email protected] already posted (at top level) "CSI Starbase video on new Deluge system", a deep dive part 1. The URL I see for the post is https://lemmy.world/post/879748 , because that's how I access this. The canonical one is https://lemm.ee/post/530280 .

CSI Starbase SPMT Tracker @SpmtTracker posted a tweet with a picture of what is very likely to be a vertical stand for the center plate. The image is on Imgur. The tweet is here. Ryan Hansen Space @RyanHansenSpace tweeted a rendering of how it might look under the OLM. This should be the image:

@[email protected] posted below (if sorted by new) a link to a 13-minute video by Starship Gazer, of people working in the tent on the center plate. https://lemm.ee/comment/534238 . Someone commented that, from 4 minutes on, it's comedy gold. People were grinning around them. I'm told that someone is standing on top of the cheater pipe at one point.

NASASpaceflight posted a video of the rollout of the center. It's about 1 hour 26 minutes long. The stand / jig was on the first truck; the center plate with some people on it was on the next truck. The clearest views are about 17 minutes on.

More pour info, this time from tweets from Zack Golden @CSI_Starbase. The truck counts basically match those from @[email protected]'s post earlier.

SpaceX has received their final load of concrete for today's Orbital Launch Mount foundation work. Here are the totals after the 15.3 hour marathon:

June 25th - 132 Truck loads

July 3rd - 171 Truck loads

Total Volume = 2,302 m^3 = 3030 yd^3

Total Weight = 5,411 Tons

For reference, a Fully loaded Starship ~ 5,000 Tons

Note: There were 4 additional trucks that showed up but were turned back around without offloading.

Shoutout to agents @VickiCocks15 and @SpmtTracker for keeping track of all these.

4:11 PM · Jul 3, 2023

and

Obviously this number is significantly greater than we predicted. For those who asked, that previous number was not considering the area in yellow, which were also completed today. This area is technically outside of the true foundation of the OLM

with a picture by RGV Aerial Photography.

John Kraus @johnkrausphotos:

In a Twitter Space with @ashleevance, @elonmusk shares that Starship will hot-stage during the next flight, lighting engines on the ship with some engines still running on the booster, as to Never Stop Thrusting!™️

"Hot staging" is firing the upper stage engines while it's still nominally attached to the lower stage (like resting on or loosely attached). The advantages that I gather exist: It's fast. It takes care of stage separation without needing springs or little rockets or a flip or anything. Before firing a liquid-fueled stage that may have gases in a tank ("ullage"), you have to settle the contents so that the engine intakes suck only liquid (maybe using "ullage rockets"), but if you're still accelerating at separation, that's automatically taken care of.

But if you intend to reuse the first stage, well, I wonder whether six engines igniting will be too hard on it.

Apparently U.S. Titan rockets, a lot of Soviet / Russian ones (Soyuz, Progress, N-1), and (some?) Chinese Long March rockets were designed with hot staging.

Joe Barnard @joebarnard replies: "'okay so when I hot stage it’s “an anomaly” and I’ve “torched another flight computer” but when SpaceX does it it’s fine???'

Edit: There's now an article up at SpaceNews, "SpaceX changing Starship stage separation ahead of next launch", which includes

"We made sort of a late-breaking change that’s really quite significant to the way that stage separation works," Musk said, describing the switch to hot staging. "There’s a meaningful payload-to-orbit advantage with hot-staging that is conservatively about a 10% increase."...

Musk said that, for Starship, most of the 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster would be turned off, but a few still firing, when the engines on the Starship upper stage are ignited. Doing so, he said, avoids the loss of thrust during traditional stage separation, where the lower stage shuts down first.

Doing so requires some modifications to the Super Heavy booster. Musk said SpaceX is working on an extension to the top of the booster “that is almost all vents” to allow the exhaust from the upper stage to escape while still attached to the booster. SpaceX will also add shielding to the top of the booster to protect it from the exhaust.

“This is the most risky thing, I think, for the next flight,” he said of the new stage separation technique.

Besides the change in stage separation, Musk said SpaceX made a “tremendous number” of other changes to the vehicle, “well over a thousand.” He didn’t go into details about the changes, ...

SpaceX also made improvements to the Raptor engines, with Musk describing the vehicle launching in April as using a “hodgepodge” of engines built over time. The Raptors on the new vehicles include changes to the hot gas manifold in the engine to reduce fuel leakage.

Those changes, he said, gave him more confidence in the success of the next launch. “I think the probability this next flight working, getting to orbit, is much higher than the last one. Maybe it’s like 60%.” In an online conversation in late April, he estimated a “better than 50% chance” of success on the next launch.

In another note, Musk finally learned some caution!

Musk, asked about any plans for a Starlink IPO, declined to comment. “It would not be legal for me to speculate about a Starlink IPO,” he claimed. “I think it’s against regulations to talk with any kinds of specifics about a future public offering.”

Edit: Peter Hague PhD @peterrhague: Thus far Musk estimates $2-3bn invested by SpaceX so far in Starship. The price of a single SLS launch

Yooooo

Road closure is now scheduled for tomorrow!

Starbase live-

9:15am cdt- 11 more loads of rebar have been lifted over to the OLM since midnight. LR11000 still holding the deluge pipe in position to be welded.

Edit-

10:48am- Deluge pipe is moved to the side of the underground pipe bunker and laid down on the ground.

11:50am- 8 more bundles of rebar have been lifted over to the OLM. Some presumably extra bent pieces have been lifted away as well.

1:11pm- Deluge pipe raised again and moved back to join the pipe that goes underground.

5:00pm- Since noon there has been 15 more loads of rebar craned over to the OLM. Most loads appear to be multiple pieces but there are several large bent pieces that have been moved one at a time.

9:00pm- 10 more loads of rebar have been moved over. (44 for the day so far and 56 in the last 40 hours)

I was summoned out of my Christmas lair for an update. I see the cladding was already mentioned.

Starbase live- Yellow crane to the left of OLM has been lifting rebar over to the pit most of the day.

(I missed part of the morning but I’ve counted at least 12 loads so far)

Rover 2-

20:43 cdt- The large deluge pipe that we saw test fitted last night has now been painted white and is lifted back over to where the pipes go underground by the tanks.

What about it!? @FelixSchlang tweet from 3:03 PM - Jun 29, 2023:

It happened!!!

SpaceX opened the wall to the inventory tent and revealed one of the water deluge plates to us up close and countless other things in there!

High res pictures for supporters on all platforms coming soon!

The image alone.

In a reply, they said it looks to be upside down.

In The Other Place, u/warp99 wrote,

Looks like the segments are around 400mm thick and constructed from 40mm (38mm=1.5"?) steel plate The overall shape is a hexagon about 10m across the flats with each corner notched out.

They also speculated on how to weld the edges together: maybe put them on a stand above the final location, weld them from above and below, attach cranes and remove the stand, lower into place.

Starship Gazer (as seen on Nitter) had more pictures.

Vehicle Status

As of June 9th 2023

Follow Ring Watchers on Twitter and Discord for more.

Ship	Location	Status	Comment
Pre-S24		Scrapped or Retired	SN15 and S20 are in the Rocket Garden, the rest are scrapped.
S24	In pieces in the ocean	Destroyed	April 20th: Destroyed when booster MECO and ship stage separation from booster failed three minutes and 59 seconds after successful launch, so FTS was activated. This was the second launch attempt.
S25	Launch Site	Testing	On Feb 23rd moved back to build site, then on the 25th taken to the Massey's test site. March 21st: Cryo test. May 5th: Another cryo test. May 18th: Moved to the Launch Site and in the afternoon lifted onto Suborbital Test Stand B.
S26	Rocket Garden	Resting	No fins or heat shield, plus other changes. March 25th: Lifted onto the new higher stand in Rocket Garden. March 28th: First RVac installed (number 205). March 29th: RVac number 212 taken over to S26 and later in the day the third RVac (number 202) was taken over to S26 for installation. March 31st: First Raptor Center installed (note that S26 is the first Ship with electric Thrust Vector Control). April 1st: Two more Raptor Centers moved over to S26.
S27	Rocket Garden	Completed but no Raptors yet	Like S26, no fins or heat shield. April 24th: Moved to the Rocket Garden.
S28	High Bay 1	Under construction	February 7th Assorted parts spotted. March 24th: Mid LOX barrel taken into High Bay 1. March 28th: Existing stack placed onto Mid LOX barrel. March 31st: Almost completed stack lifted off turntable. April 5th: Aft/Thrust section taken into High Bay 1. April 6th: the already stacked main body of the ship has been placed onto the thrust section, giving a fully stacked ship. April 25th: Lifted off the welding turntable, then the 'squid' detached - it was then connected up to a new type of lifting attachment which connects to the two lifting points below the forward flaps that are used by the chopsticks. May 25th: Installation of the first Aft Flap (interesting note: the Aft Flaps for S28 are from the scrapped S22).
S29	High Bay 1	Under construction	April 28th: Nosecone and Payload Bay taken inside High Bay 1 (interesting note: the Forward Flaps are from the scrapped S22). May 1st: nosecone stacked onto payload bay (note that S29 is being stacked on the new welding turntable to the left of center inside High Bay 1, this means that LabPadre's Sentinel Cam can't see it and so NSF's cam looking at the build site is the only one with a view when it's on the turntable). May 4th: Sleeved Forward Dome moved into High Bay 1 and placed on the welding turntable. May 5th: Nosecone+Payload Bay stack placed onto Sleeved Forward Dome and welded. May 10th: Nosecone stack hooked up to new lifting rig instead of the 'Squid' (the new rig attaches to the Chopstick's lifting points and the leeward Squid hooks). May 11th: Sleeved Common Dome moved into High Bay 1. May 16th: Nosecone stack placed onto Sleeved Common Dome and welded. May 18th: Mid LOX section moved inside High Bay 1. May 19th: Current stack placed onto Mid LOX section for welding. June 2nd: Aft/Thrust section moved into High Bay 1. June 6th: The already stacked main body of the ship has been placed onto the thrust section, giving a fully stacked ship.
S30+	Build Site	Parts under construction	Assorted parts spotted through S34.

Booster	Location	Status	Comment
Pre-B7 & B8		Scrapped or Retired	B4 is in the Rocket Garden, the rest are scrapped.
B7	In pieces in the ocean	Destroyed	April 20th: Destroyed when MECO and stage separation of ship from booster failed three minutes and 59 seconds after successful launch, so FTS was activated. This was the second launch attempt.
B9	High Bay 2	Raptor Install	Cryo testing (methane and oxygen) on Dec. 21 and Dec. 29. Rollback on Jan. 10. On March 7th Raptors started to be taken into High Bay 2 for B9.
B10	Rocket Garden	Resting	20-ring LOX tank inside High Bay 2 and Methane tank (with grid fins installed) in the ring yard. March 18th: Methane tank moved from the ring yard and into High Bay 2 for final stacking onto the LOX tank. March 22nd: Methane tank stacked onto LOX tank, resulting in a fully stacked booster. May 27th: Moved to the Rocket Garden. Note: even though it appears to be complete it currently has no Raptors.
B11	High Bay 2	Under construction	March 24th: 'A3' barrel had the current 8-ring LOX tank stacked onto it. March 30th: 'A4' 4-ring LOX tank barrel taken inside High Bay 2 and stacked. April 2nd: 'A5' 4-ring barrel taken inside High Bay 2. April 4th: First methane tank 3-ring barrel parked outside High Bay 2 - this is probably F2. April 7th: downcomer installed in LOX tank (which is almost fully stacked except for the thrust section). April 28th: Aft section finally taken inside High Bay 2 to have the rest of the LOX tank welded to it (which will complete the LOX tank stack). May 11th: Methane tank Forward section and the next barrel down taken into High Bay 2 and stacked. May 18th: Methane tank stacked onto another 3 ring next barrel, making it 9 rings tall out of 13. May 20th: Methane tank section stacked onto the final barrel, meaning that the Methane tank is now fully stacked. May 23rd: Started to install the grid fins. June 3rd: Methane Tank stacked onto LOX Tank, meaning that B11 is now fully stacked. Once welded still more work to be done such as the remaining plumbing and wiring.
B12	High Bay 2 (LOX Tank)	Under construction	June 3rd: LOX tank commences construction: Common Dome (CX:4) and a 4-ring barrel (A2:4) taken inside High Bay 2 where CX:4 was stacked onto A2:4 on the right side welding turntable. June 7th: A 4-ring barrel (A3:4) was taken inside High Bay 2. June 8th: Barrel section A3:4 was lifted onto the welding turntable and the existing stack placed on it for welding. June 9th: The next 4-ring barrel (A4:4) was taken inside High Bay 2, later in the day the incomplete LOX tank stack was hooked up to it and placed on the welding turntable for stacking and welding.
B13+	Build Site	Parts under construction	Assorted parts spotted through B17.

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters	More Letters
FAA	Federal Aviation Administration
FTS	Flight Termination System
LOX	Liquid Oxygen
MECO	Main Engine Cut-Off
~	MainEngineCutOff podcast
N1	Raketa Nositel-1, Soviet super-heavy-lift ("Russian Saturn V")
NSF	NasaSpaceFlight forum
~	National Science Foundation
OLM	Orbital Launch Mount
QD	Quick-Disconnect
SPMT	Self-Propelled Mobile Transporter

Jargon	Definition
Raptor	Methane-fueled rocket engine under development by SpaceX
cryogenic	Very low temperature fluid; materials that would be gaseous at room temperature/pressure
~	(In re: rocket fuel) Often synonymous with hydrolox
hydrolox	Portmanteau: liquid hydrogen fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer
iron waffle	Compact "waffle-iron" aerodynamic control surface, acts as a wing without needing to be as large; also, "grid fin"
ullage motor	Small rocket motor that fires to push propellant to the bottom of the tank, when in zero-g

---

13 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 4 acronyms.

[Thread #0 for this sub, first seen 15th Jun 2023, 07:42] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

Much lifting and lowering and all sorts of craney stuff, but it's believed that all the manifolds are in place by now. A nice Imgur picture of a manifold being craned.

Exciting stuff happening right now (See Starbase Live).

• Launch site movement with the SPMT that transported the steel plate for the water deluge system and the SPMT with the Jig!
• Jig is being moved into position and now a crane is being raised! Things are getting exciting this morning.
• At the same time S28 is getting a payload door.

Check out this RGV picture from the plate in the tent from above: https://twitter.com/rgvaerialphotos/status/1674925187437928450?s=46&t=Mj914Aam14loAYQOISZ9zQ

I know Twitter links are kind of impossible to follow right now, but don’t think I can embed an image in a comment. Anyway, that plate is huge, will be interesting to see them lift and transport it.

Looks like everyone is leaving the launch site in preparation for the static fire.

[Edit] Deputies at the road closure point.

S25 propellant load is underway.

TheSpaceEngineer @mcrs987 has a thread on Twitter about hot-staging. A lot of people have been assuming that the lacy structure in his second picture will be the interstage that lets the exhaust out. He argues that it's unlikely, because (1) it doesn't look structurally sound, (2) it has been marked for scrap and no others have been seen, (3) the stringer pattern doesn't match the booster.

He advocates for another ring, which looks much more solid but has some reinforced holes. There have been two of them so far. He also says it resembles the hot-stage interstage of the Titan 2.

Road closure tomorrow 8:00 am to 8:00 pm.

A new road closure is scheduled for tomorrow (June 21). Also 8:00 am to 8:00 pm.

Also a reddit refugee here!

Renders by Ryan Hansen of the water deluge system, with the final result being:

New possible road closures scheduled:

• Primary Date: June 15, 12:00 pm to 12:00 am
• Alternative Date: June 20, 8:00 am to 8:00 pm
• Alternative Date: June 21, 8:00 am to 8:00 pm

They’re pouring the next (final?) layer under the OLM as we speak. NSF Live Feed.

Three pumps working in tandem, same as last time. Might take another 10 hours or so.

Detanking.

Road open. Done for the day.

New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:

Starbase live-

8:57am- Black pipe lifted over towards the dog house area (most likely a cryo pipe but couldn’t tell for sure)

9:07am- LR11000 moves a deluge pipe. Lifted over to the work area by where the deluge stand is parked

9:30am- Second deluge pipe lifted. Moved to the same area

9:54am- 3rd deluge pipe moved

10:12am-4th deluge pipe moved (So apparently all of the pipes they moved to the side a couple weeks ago, they’re moving back over to be worked on)

10:20am- Looks like all of the boards have been removed and now they are starting to remove the metal poles of the scaffolding below the OLM.

10:26am- 5th deluge pipe moved. Crane didn’t swing back over this time so the Y pipe looks like it will stay in it’s current position

12:15pm- Scaffolding continues to be removed

2:15pm- Crane is starting to use the bucket to lift loads off of the top of the OLM as well as underneath.

5:15pm- Crane has lowered and left the OLM area. The 2 man lifts that have been working on the scaffolding have also lowered. Work continues around the base of the OLM.

6:30pm- Crane and man lift back up working on the BQD side of the OLM

9:15pm- Fireworks

9:25pm- SPI fireworks

(This gets synced)

Christian Schiffer - schiffer-soft @schiffer_soft tweeted a diagram of Super Heavy and Starship. It's for something for @Senkrechtstart3; "Senkrechtstarter is the biggest german YouTube-Channel about spaceflight, rockets and newspace." They asked for corrections. Errors have been noted: "Why did you keep the CH4 header tank on the common dome?", and the shapes of the header tanks. But it looks like a good start.

Venting around the front flaps on NerdleCam at about 16:39 CDT. I don't think I've ever seen that before.

Detanking at 15:43 CDT.

If anyone is interested in the rebar, the guess is that it’s #11 or #14 gauge based on pictures that we’ve seen.

Which leaves me wondering if there’s a tie gun out there large enough or if these guys have to do it all by hand. (My quick search only shows guns capable of #8 and smaller)

Cryo loading of S25 well underway at 16:18 CDT

"SpaceX launched the most powerful rocket ever built. Its impact is still felt in this Texas community", a CNN article dated Friday, 7 July 2023.

Musk has repeatedly said he’d like to try to launch Starship again as soon as this summer, but the FAA said in a statement to CNN that SpaceX has yet to take public safety actions or submit a mishap report with corrective actions for FAA review and approval.

Should we now be creating thread #47?

New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:

Starbase live-

11:56pm- 2nd manifold is lifted off it’s stand (Who needs sleep anyways)

12:12am- Manifold is going up after some weight was added to balance the load

12:14:40am- Starts to swing over

12:18am- Lowering. This should go to the left of the plate installed earlier

12:23am- Trying to get it aligned

12:25am- Starting to bring it in closer to the OLM

12:31am- Lowered a bit more. (Looks like they’re at the 10ft mark where they paused for quite a while earlier. So I’m off to bed)

12:45am- Lowered into place.

1:21am- Raised again

1:50am- B10 turns into Massey’s

2:01am- Manifold is lowered again

2:20am- Manifold go up, Basket go down

2:25am- Manifold goes down

2:36am- Basket goes up

2:59am- Basket goes down

3:35am- Small crane swings what may have been the 3rd manifold into place under the OLM

3:51am- Grover moves a piece of small diameter pipe over to the left side of the OLM where the excavators are working

5:30am- LR11000 is disconnected from the manifold section

8:10am- Day shift off to a slow start

9:25am- White pipe is lifted by a small crane over by the berm. RGV’s pictures show that they might be running a new water line from the current vertical tank over to the OLM.

9:32am- LR11000 lifts the counterweight that was used to keep the last manifold level during the lift

11:04am- Basket goes up

11:21am- Retaining wall goes up where they’ve been excavating

11:24am- Basket goes down

11:36am- 2 workers carry a plastic pipe over to the pit being dug by the long reach excavator (if it’s metal, enter those guys in a body building competition)

11:55am- 2 dump truck loads of gravel dumped on the other side of the excavator

12:00pm- Nic is leaving NSF

12:53pm- Basket goes up

1:06pm- Basket goes down

1:24pm- Grover lifts a couple pieces of metal off of the top of the OLM

1:40pm- LR11000 moves another counterweight away from the OLM

2:11pm- LR11000 lifts another counterweight

2:17pm- Small crane lifts a piece of metal out of the excavation pit

2:53pm- In todays adventure of what’s stuck at Starbase. We have a small bulldozer hanging off the side of a low boy trailer.

2:53:54- Random kid says hi

2:58pm- The excavator wins again. Bulldozer is on the trailer.

3:34pm- Grover moves what looks like a long straight piece of rebar over to the cryo pit area

3:49pm- Grover lifts a triangular piece of metal to the top of the OLM.

4:13pm- Grover lifts another triangular piece of metal to the top of the OLM.

4:30pm- Grover lifts more rebar over for the cryo pit lid

4:50pm- Basket goes up (to the door on the side of the OLM)

5:02pm- Rocket cows hack the stream

5:03pm- Basket goes down

5:37pm- Basket goes up

5:44pm- Basket goes down

6:32pm- LR11000 picks up a deluge pipe

6:51pm- Grover swings out of the way

6:57pm- LR11000 Starts swinging deluge pipe over. Straight pipe with a curve on the end closest to the OLM.

6:59pm- Starts lowering pipe to the back left side OLM

7:47pm- Small crane lifts a short piece of pipe next to the bigger piece the LR11000 lifted over

7:51pm- Short piece swung back away

9:00pm- Looks like some work on the lid for the cryo pipe vault. Some people going in and out of the ring around the OLM. They’re hiding what we really want to see behind the tarps though.

9:15pm- LR11000 moves to pick up Y pipe

9:41pm- Lifting straps connected to the crane

9:56pm- Y pipe lifted

9:58pm- Swung around the OLM

10:06pm- Lowered to just above the OLM

10:08pm- Guide rope got stuck on smaller crane. Had to go back up.

10:09pm- Going back down

10:12pm- Sat on the ground right outside the pit.

10:14pm- Lifted Up slightly and rotated

10:15pm- Lowered into the pit

10:25pm- For those wanting to keep track, In Ryan’s renders, we’ve seen the bottom pipe that goes to the middle manifold and the Y section that goes over it lifted in so far. There should be 2 short pieces next to connect the Y to the other 2 manifolds.

(This gets synced)

Reddit thread is back up, thanks threelon

New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:

Okay, I was 3 hours into watching the replay and counting trucks when I noticed Rover 2 chat has picked up the count again. So let’s go with their numbers instead of me going cross eyed trying to watch this for 12 hours.

Rover 2-

12:45pm- 144 trucks

13:15- 150 trucks

13:32- First pump truck leaves site. 151 trucks

13:43- Second pump truck leaves site. 152 trucks

14:25- 160 trucks

15:00- It’s the pour that never ends It goes on and on my friends Some trucks started pouring, not knowing how deep it was And they’ll continue pouring because 33 raptors tried to dig to china

15:01- 168 trucks

15:23- 3rd pump truck leaves. The concrete trucks though, they keep coming. 170

15:35- 4th back up pump truck leaves. Truck 171 pulls in

15:45- 174 trucks in. 5 trucks have left with their tag wheels down though indicating they are still full. So they might be done.

16:00- I’m calling it. The last truck was stopped and diverted down to the electrical trench.

174 trucks in. 6 trucks left loaded. So 168 trucks overall. Add in the 132 from the last big pour and we’re at even 300 truck loads.

Starbase Live-

12:23pm- First pump truck lowers

1:13pm- Second pump truck lowers

3:12pm- Third pump truck lowers

(This gets synced)

S25 lost about 11 tiles during the first static fire.

Marcus House @MarcusHouse tweet: "We have Elons Starship talk updated now to tomorrow." (Friday, 23 June 2023)

I'm not following it in detail, but all the manifold plates are now at the Orbital Launch Mount. The manifold plates are, I gather, the distribution system to take one big input water pipe each and split the water into lots and lots of smaller pipes to form the showerhead.

Nice picture of the central plate before it was lowered. These look to me like two manifold plates being transported: Chris Bergin - NSF tweet; or just the picture.

Anyone know about the reputation of TheSpaceEngineer @mcrs987? They have a Twitter thread about progress so far. The first tweet has a render of the overall system. They say this is the current status: center plate installed, two manifold plates at the launch complex, three non-manifold plates (no big water pipe coming in) at the launch complete, one manifold plate back at the Sanchez site.

Thread 47

Additional views from yesterday’s Ship 25 static fire https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1673808523497721856?s=19

#To repeat, new pinned thread:

Thread 47

As @clothes on lemmy.world pointed out: for some reason, via lemmy.world, this 46B thread is still pinned and there's no sign of 47.

Do you know where one can find a link to those pictogragh images to build/test status for starship/booster? I found those as a clean hud of shipset build stats easily digested. Not sure who created them though I always enjoyed seeing them when they popped up on reddit

I had never watched a CSI Starbase video before today, and jeez, these things are addictive.

This is the finest FAQ in the fediverse. I come back to it, just to appreciate just how much data you fit in it, so easily accessible and concise for the experienced and inexperienced alike. It makes up for so many poorly written, ugly, inhuman FAQs across the years.

Hello there!

Interesting: the full recording of the interview is available to everyone on Twitter: Ashlee Vance @ashleevance. 49 minutes.

Also, a comment in The Previous Place was 'Elon states "more detailed Starship update later this week"' So this was lagniappe.

Marcus House @MarcusHouse tweet: "Sadly Elon was having trouble with internet connection and dropped out of 3 Spaces attempts. Now postponed till tomorrow", tomorrow being Saturday, 24 July 2023.

New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:

Starbase Live-

7:11am- Grover starts to wake up

7:13am- Dance floor drives under OLM

7:22am- Dance floor wings unfolded

7:23am- Grover delivers a cryo pipe over to the doghouse area

7:24am- Dance floor raised into position

7:38am- LR11000 looks like it’s hooked to a manifold

8:23am- Grover delivers another cryo pipe. This time partly up the leg where the cryo pipes run. Looks like they are replacing them through the access holes

9:15am- Lots of concrete being broke up and hauled away by a front end loader

9:39am- The extended reach excavator that had been working in the area where the deluge pipes will go, left.

9:55am- Grover lifts the yellow basket normally used to take down scaffolding to the top of the OLM.

10:33am- Yellow basket brought down

12:00pm- All is quiet on the southern front. Pretty slow day after the last couple.

1:01pm- Grover lifts the yellow basket back up to the OLM

1:31pm- Basket comes down

1:43pm- Basket goes back up

1:46pm- Basket comes back down

1:56pm- Basket goes up

2:02pm- Basket go down

2:07pm- Basket go up

2:15pm- Basket go down

2:30pm- First piece of level 4 for the new mega bay is lifted

2:47pm- Basket go up

2:55pm- Basket go down

3:09pm- Grover lifts a load of something metal up to the top of the OLM

3:25pm- Grover lifts a 2nd load to the top of the OLM

3:42pm- Grover lifts a 3rd load to the top of the OLM

4:07pm- Long reach excavator returns

5:50pm- The LR11000 took tension on the lifting straps that have been connected to the manifold piece all day.

6:24pm- Manifold is lifted

6:25pm- Crane starts swinging towards the OLM

6:29pm- Goes flying over the OLM

6:31pm- Starts lowering

6:34pm- Starts swinging towards bottom of OLM

6:48pm- When looking head on from SBL, it looks like it’s going to the left side of the BQD. So this is the middle manifold. Which based on Ryan’s renders makes sense because the pipe for the far right manifold will run over the pipe for this one

7:06pm- Holding about 10ft above the pad

7:10pm- Starting to tilt the backside down into place

7:30pm- Level it back out and holding around 10ft

7:50pm- Lowered down some more but behind stuff now. Still tension on the straps

7:51pm- B10 starts rolling from the rocket garden

8:16pm- Manifold is raised back up

8:18pm- B10 staged at the end of Remidos

8:21pm- Manifold lowered back down and swung in closer to the pad

8:25pm- Grinding by the doghouse area

8:50pm- Lifting straps on the manifold went slack for a second before they went taunt again. So the plate may be close to/all the way down but the LR11000 still has the weight. If only those tarps weren’t there.

9:00pm- Speaking of the tarps, that area of the plate is where one section of the plugs were. Ryan theorized that they’ll be adding extensions on to these areas.. So that might be what’s happening on the other side. We can definitely see some welding going on

9:20pm- 2 small excavators are working on digging a trench for a small pipe

10:27pm- B10 is rolling.

10:33pm- Turns on to hwy 4

10:40pm- They see me rollin, down highway 4, I know they’re all jealous, because I’m off to get all white and frosty. I’m going to get all white and frosty, I’m going to get all white and frosty, wait until you see me all white and frosty, going to look really cold all white and frosty. (Weird Al I am not but Hey it’s been a long day, I’ve got to entertain myself somehow)

11:10pm- 128 wheels tonight. So they added 1 section to each line of SPMT’s after delivering the manifolds.

11:19pm- Time for a break. (Someone read it my version of White and Nerdy and now it refuses to go any further until I delete it)

11:22pm- While we were watching the big shiny thing drive down the road, the LR11000 was unhooked from the manifold section. (It happened at 23:19 on Rover 2)

11:32pm- Straps being hooked to the next manifold piece

11:39pm- B10 is rolling again

11:40pm- Someone didn’t make sure their swing path was clear. Grover swings into one of the cages holding the high pressure gas bottles nearly knocking 2 cages over.

11:47pm- Forklift arrives to move the cages

11:48pm- And just what was Grover doing while this was happening, that’s right,

Basket go down

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CNN: "CDC issues warning about the first locally acquired cases of malaria in the US in 20 years"

The Texas case: "Health Advisory: Locally Acquired Malaria Case". Cameron County. The county that has Boca Chica. They have no other details, like whether the outdoor work the person did was around the SpaceX site.

ArsTechnica article summarizing Musk's Twitter Spaces talk: "SpaceX making more than 1,000 changes to next Starship rocket by Stephen Clark" Single quotes are from the article; double quotes are Musk.

• Hot staging. "Obviously, that results in kind of blasting the booster, so you've got to protect the top of the boost stage from getting incinerated by the upper stage engines." He expects 10% more tonnage to orbit. 'SpaceX is adding an extension to the top of the Super Heavy booster with vents to allow super-hot gas from the upper stage engines to safely flow out of the rocket’s structure “and not just blow itself up,” Musk said. “This is the most risky thing, I think, for the next flight.”'
• "So I think the probability of this next flight working, getting to orbit, is much higher than the last one. Maybe it's like 60 percent. It depends on how well we do at stage separation."
• 'SpaceX teams are modifying manifolds on the Raptor engines that direct hot methane-rich gas toward each engine’s combustion chamber for mixing with oxygen-rich gas. The previous design was susceptible to leaks, where the hot gas could seep through bolt holes used to attach the manifold to the engine. Engineers will introduce an improved manifold design and add more torque to bolts to address the concern about leakage of super-heated gas.'
• Engine hydraulic steering system changing to electric thrust vectoring, as previously announced.
• Stronger shielding around each engine.
• Pad changes with lots more concrete, rebar, and the steel plates. "gigantic upside-down shower head".
• Faster off the pad.
• Did not discuss the flight termination system. On flight test 1, it was more like a flight if you don't mind ending when you feel like getting around to it but please don't let me be a bother about it system.
• When? "There are a lot of variables here that are outside of our control". Like the FAA being satisfied with the flight termination system, supra.

Musk tweeted "Three center Raptors of Booster will fire at ~50% thrust during hot staging - 8:27 AM - Jun 27, 2023"

New tank who dis? Methane tank inbound, according to Zack Golden @CSI_Starbase: "This will be the 8th storage tank for the methane section of the Orbital Tank Farm." He was retweeting a video from Anthony Gomez @AnthonyFGomez.

CS Starbase tweeted that the concrete pour on the Orbital Launch Mount is not done.

SpaceX tweeted more glamor shots of the recent ship 25 static fire here. In particular, several people have commented about how spectacular the first one is.

Also Musk tweeted an impressive top view. Just the picture. Also the tweet it was in.

New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:

So that’s where the wrecker went

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New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:

So that’s where the wrecker went

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New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:

So that’s where the wrecker went

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New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:

So that’s where the wrecker went

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New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:

So that’s where the wrecker went

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New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:

So that’s where the wrecker went

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New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:

So that’s where the wrecker went

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New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:

So that’s where the wrecker went

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New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:

So that’s where the wrecker went

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New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:

So that’s where the wrecker went

(This gets synced)

New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:

So that’s where the wrecker went

(This gets synced)

New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:

So that’s where the wrecker went

(This gets synced)

New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:

So that’s where the wrecker went

(This gets synced)

New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:

So that’s where the wrecker went

(This gets synced)

New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:

So that’s where the wrecker went

(This gets synced)

New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:

So that’s where the wrecker went

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