SpaceX Super Heavy and Starship updates

[DocM]

Super Heavy hot staging ring installed. Hot staging will adds about 10% performance.

[DocM]

FAA⁰sfter SpaceX submitted its investigation report, the FAA has closed the case

All boxes now checked, and the run-up to a second Starship launch has begun.

 

[DocM]

 

[DocM]

SpaceX hires Kathy Lueders as General Manager of Starbase, former NASA Associated Administrator for human spaceflight

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/15/elon-musks-spacex-hires-former-nasa-official-kathy-lueders.html

Quote

 

KEY POINTS

• Kathy Lueders, the most recent top human spaceflight official at NASA, has joined Elon Musk’s SpaceX after retiring from the agency, CNBC has learned.

•  Lueders will work out of the company’s “Starbase” facility in Texas, people familiar with the matter told CNBC, and report directly to SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell as general manager.

• She represents a key hire for SpaceX as it aims to make its massive Starship rocket safe to fly people in the coming years.

 

 

[IsItPluggedIn]

Looks like Bill was successful in pushing her out. Cant have successful women that likes "New Space" in a position of power.

[DocM]

On 18/09/2023 at 19:38, IsItPluggedIn said:

Looks like Bill was successful in pushing her out. Cant have successful women that likes "New Space" in a position of power.

 

She committed a double sin, also selecting Starship HLS as the Artemis human landing system.

[DocM]

 

[DocM]

Starship HLS (moon lander) nose cone roll out

SpaceFlightNow interview with NASA

https://spaceflightnow.com/2023/10/27/on-time-artemis-landings-by-spacex-blue-origin-possible-but-face-great-challenges/

Quote

Watson-Morgan and her team are eager to see SpaceX return to flight, stating that they’d like to see around 15 to 17 launches of Starship en route to the crewed landing during the Artemis III mission.

>

"We had a cold-start Raptor Vacuum test that was recently completed. They’re also working on smaller thrusters. We’re working through medical kit testing, training system delivery, testing crew displays. We’ve worked through how we’re going to handle mission authority on day of launch,” Watson-Morgan said. “So, in parallel, while the world stage sees all these magnificent tests, we are working closely with SpaceX on all the mission unique items and milestones and that is going along very smoothly. And they actually haven’t missed any of those.”

"This week, they are conducting a docking test. It’s a critical feature, since Starship will first have to be able to dock with the Orion spacecraft on the Artemis 3 mission and then with the Lunar Gateway during Artemis 4."

 

Starship HLS lander on the moon (official concept image)

Edited October 29, 2023 by DocM

[DocM]

Starship Flight 2 may be Friday

Whatever the date, the goals for this flight are to get off the pad with minimal damage and to test the new hot staging mechanism. After that everything is sauce for the goose. A complete mission would involve the booster doing a water landing in the Gulf of Mexico, and Starships doing a water landing north of Hawaii in the Pacific Test Range.

The pace of testing would accelerate with success, including tests of the orbital  refueling system.

 

[DocM]

Starting to look like Game On:

Notices to Mariners for rocket launch covering the Gulf of Mexico and Hawaii

We should soon hear about a road closure on Route 4, confirmation that the NASA HLS team has left Houston for Starbase, and the issuance of the FAA launch license.

 

 

[SALSN]

OMG I am so excited! 😮
Can't wait for this thing to start testing in space and delivering massive payloads!

[Xenon]

My predications for launch.

75% chance it clears the tower

50% that the booster water lands in the gulf

40% starship (stupid name) makes it to Hawaii and lands in the pacific

25% chance the launch pad takes major damage. 

[SteveL]

Here we go.....

 

SpaceX gets license for 2nd launch of giant Starship rocket

[DocM]

NASA teams are already in place at Starbase

Date: Nov 17

Window: 0800 - 1000 Eastern

Viewing

@SpaxeX on X

NASA TV (YouTube)

VideoFromSpace (Space.com YouTube)

NASASpaceFlight.com (YouTube)

 

Quote

 

 

 

Edited November 16, 2023 by DocM

[DocM]

Launch & test flight events

https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-2

The second flight test of a fully integrated Starship could launch as early as Friday, November 17, pending final regulatory approval

A live webcast of the flight test will begin about 30 minutes before liftoff, which you can watch here and on X @SpaceX. As is the case with all developmental testing, the schedule is dynamic and likely to change, so be sure to stay tuned to our X account for updates.

Starship’s first flight test provided numerous lessons learned that directly contributed to several upgrades to both the vehicle and ground infrastructure to improve the probability of success on future flights. The second flight test will debut a hot-stage separation system and a new electronic Thrust Vector Control (TVC) system for Super Heavy Raptor engines, in addition to reinforcements to the pad foundation and a water-cooled steel flame deflector, among many other enhancements.

This rapid iterative development approach has been the basis for all of SpaceX’s major innovative advancements, including Falcon, Dragon, and Starlink. Recursive improvement is essential as we work to build a fully reusable transportation system capable of carrying both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, help humanity return to the Moon, and ultimately travel to Mars and beyond.

==========

COUNTDOWN

All times approximate

HR/MIN/SEC   EVENT
02:00:00   SpaceX Flight Director conducts poll and verifies GO for propellant load
01:37:00   Booster LOX (liquid oxygen) load underway
01:37:00   Booster fuel load (liquid methane) underway
01:17:00   Ship fuel load (liquid methane) underway
01:13:00   Ship LOX load underway
00:19:40   Raptor begins engine chill on booster and ship
00:00:10   Flame deflector activation
00:00:03   Raptor ignition sequence begins
00:00:00   Excitement guaranteed

==========

FLIGHT TEST TIMELINE

All times are approximate

HR/MIN/SEC   EVENT (IF ALL GOES ACCORDING TO PLAN)
00:00:02   Liftoff
00:00:52   Max Q (moment of peak mechanical stress on the rocket)
00:02:39   Booster MECO (most engines cut off)
00:02:41   Hot-staging (Starship Raptor ignition and stage separation)
00:02:53   Booster boostback burn startup
00:03:47   Booster boostback burn shutdown
00:06:18   Booster is transonic
00:06:30   Booster landing burn startup
00:06:48   Booster landing burn shutdown
00:08:33   Starship engine cutoff
01:17:21   Starship entry
01:28:43   Starship is transonic
01:30:00   An exciting landing!

 

[DocM]

Starship 2 delay to Saturday, November 18th

Same Bat-times & channels, coverage should start about 0730 Eastern

They need to replace a grid fin actuator on the Super Heavy booster.

 

[DocM]

SpaceX website stream, click "Watch"

Window is now only 20 minutes starting at 0800 Eastern

If they can't go this morning they will probably go Sunday or Monday. Weather then becomes an issue.

https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-2

 

Edited November 18, 2023 by DocM

[TrevorLahey]

Am I an idiot or is there no good way to cast a Twitter stream?

 

edit- web stream had the option. Twitter app did not. 

Edited November 18, 2023 by bguy_1986

[TrevorLahey]

Good launch. Much farther than the last time. 
curious how the pad held up. It looked like it would be fine. No chunks of concrete went flying from what I seen. 

[Steven P. Administrators]

Here are some pics.

[+Warwagon MVC]

awww I missed it live.

[DocM]

On 18/11/2023 at 08:24, bguy_1986 said:

Good launch. Much farther than the last time. 
curious how the pad held up. It looked like it would be fine. No chunks of concrete went flying from what I seen. 

 

No public details, but they sound pretty damn happy.

Now they do their research, make modifications to the already built follow-on vehicles and do it again.

Rinse, wash, repeat...

From NASA's perspective, they've been hitting their milestones for HLS. It even put out a procurement for upholstering materials in the crew cabins.

[+rdlenk Subscriber²]

Overall, it went really well! First indications are the pad is very healthy with minimal damage. Booster ascent was damn near perfect; all 33 engines ran great through stage sep and the beginning of boostback. Not super clear yet what failed during boostback but that is a very high stress time. More data review to come for that. Ship did well too, it was about 30s from SECO but was a bit low on thrust and so clipped the very narrow AFTS boundaries and was rewarded with some high explosives to the face. At least we got rVac running in space and demonstrated the upgraded FTS system.  

With minimal damage to the pad, flight 3 will not be far away!

With Starship we are doing something new with iterative rocket design in which we iterate all the way to flight. This means way more failures which most people are not used to seeing in the aerospace industry. Not many remember the early days of spaceflight in the late 50s\early 60s in which launches failed all the time while they were learning. Traditionally, it has always been huge amounts of design, simulation, and testing on paper and at the component level leading to a as close to a guaranteed success on the first try as possible. This is the model SLS uses and Falcon 9 originally used. I don't personally think one is better than the other, just a different approach. The iterative process was likely deemed too expensive in the past which is super valid and it may well turn out the iterative approach is not a good fit for large scale rocketry but we will never know for sure without trying.

[anthdci]

That looked to go pretty damn well. 
 

I’m looking forward to finding out about the state of the pad because if that’s fine then there should be no hold up for the next launch licence, any hold up will purely be to be improvements to the following boosters and ships.

[Xenon]

I have to say it did go better than I thought it would. The explosion of the booster was quite impressive. I figure the next attempt in 2 to 4 months.