SpaceX Super Heavy and Starship updates

[Nogib]

Looks like it worked!

[flyingskippy]

DEAD ######## CENTER!!!!!!!!!

[DocM]

YES!!!!

 

Water tanks CAN fly!! 

[SteveL]

I feel like I have witnessed the start of a new era.

[DocM]

There's a LOT of construction coming up; the legs and fins on both Starships, the Coco FL Starship being transported to KSC, the Cocoa FL Super Heavy booster build starting (19+ ring segments are already fabbed), LC-39A modifications, etc. 

 

Busy-Busy....

[Beittil]

That was so freaking amazing 😍😍😍

[DocM]

7 minutes ago, Beittil said:

That was so freaking amazing 😍😍😍

Boca Chica residents & NSF'er Nomadd said he thought Everyday Astronaut was going to need CPR 😂

[Beittil]

Deffo some clean underwear from the sound of it 😂

[DocM]

 

 

[Skiver Veteran]

That's pretty awesome, it looks like it made the hop between the two pads fairly effortlessly.

 

So next is the Space X presentation which was expected to happen Mid Sept? Hopefully a Star ship prototype will be ready soon after to do hopper tests also?

[DocM]

7 hours ago, Skiver said:

That's pretty awesome, it looks like it made the hop between the two pads fairly effortlessly.

 

So next is the Space X presentation which was expected to happen Mid Sept? Hopefully a Star ship prototype will be ready soon after to do hopper tests also?

 

Musk will likely want to show off  an assembled Mk1 vehicle during the presentation. 

 

Starship Mk1 at Boca Chica should be getting her fins etc. soon since some airfoils were trucked in a few days ago, and pics of workers preparing the modules for them are now public.

[TrevorLahey]

How far along is starship in TX?  I don't remember seeing any pictures of it lately.

[TrevorLahey]

 

[DocM]

Everyday Astronaut's 4k video, with repeats for different audio and framing.  #2 has the audio of him going bonkers 😂

 

 

 

[DocM]

Enough at McGregor to fit 3 engines in Starship Mk1, and start work on a set for Mk2.

 

 

Edited August 29, 2019 by DocM

[DocM]

YAY!!!

 

 

[DocM]

Starship Mk2 is tucked inside the Cocoa Sprung structure...

 

 

[Blue-Vision]

I read something on Twitter where Elon responded to a question ....

 

 

Oh my ... so the current one IS the subscale version ... 🚀

[DocM]

An 18 meter scaleup of Starship vs the Washington Monument

 

 

However, ISTM they'll scale mainly the diameter, less so the height, making the system primarily fatter.

[Blue-Vision]

Yeah ... diminishing returns on engine output vs fuel consumption, no matter how good Raptor becomes, will limit how heavy it can be (therefore how tall it will be). It will gain some height, though -- just not a linear scale upwards. I still think 18 meters is too wide. There's no possible way it can pack 70-100 engines ... it would destroy itself from any number of acoustic energies and other effects simply igniting all of those engines not to mention being inefficient (diminishing returns again) and way too complicated to engineer (let alone build).

 

It'd call for an upscaled Raptor design ... and I'm not certain that SpaceX is ready for that yet. They wanna get Raptor fully ironed out and flying, then evolve it over a service life of 5~10 years (or more) like they've done with the Merlin series. If they were to go that route (upscaled Raptor) they'd HAVE to get started on it NOW.

 

Now -- could Raptor see iterative gains like Merlin, where it sees double the efficiency and nearly 3x the thrust output (or more)? Sure, as long as the SpaceX boffins put in that R&D and don't cut corners. It won't just be the engine itself but the platform that'll contribute to that endeavour. The current gen of Falcon-9 is so much more than the 1.0 version that really it's only the outer shell that's anything like the first iteration (and that isn't even completely the same nowadays, what with that composite upperstage at the top 1/5th of the booster).

 

The next 20 years are going to be very interesting, development-wise and evolutionary-wise, for Starship and Super Heavy. Not sure how feasible 18m is actually gonna be though ... 

[DocM]

It's possible they go with an 18m in-space cruiser. Add a gravity centrifuge, 9m based shuttlecraft and nuclear propulsion and it's all set for a trip to Titan.

[Beittil]

Heh, I think we shouldn't be getting ahead of ourselves here just yet 😛 Lets just see how SH/SS plays out first in the years to come shall we 🎉

[DocM]

BIG convoy of trucks

 

 

 

[DocM]

So far...

 

 

 

[DocM]

Cocoa Starship Mk-2 site post hurricane Dorian. No visible damage