SpaceX

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.

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.

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)

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)

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.

edit: And here’s the latest RGV Flyover video, which is the flyover from last week. Interesting content, but already heavily out of date.

Awesome shot from below someone under the OLM: https://twitter.com/mktsutherland/status/1676747510931668992

"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.

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.

Should we now be creating thread #47?

New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:

Starbase Live-

5:32pm- Plate starts to be lifted off of the moving jig

5:34pm- SPMT starts rolling out from under OLM

5:36:30m- Plate starts to be lowered

5:40pm- Plate starts to be tilted to horizontal

5:48pm- It’s a little close on one corner. Pulling on those guide ropes a little harder

5:54pm- People are walking on the plate

5:56- Looks like they might be measuring the gaps between the plate and legs. Still tension on the lifting straps

5:59pm- SPMT with moving rig is rolling back to the build site. (So strike that as a possibility for tomorrow’s closure)

6:00pm- Slack on the lifting cables. Officially down

7:56pm- Plate lifted back up a couple of feet

8:02pm- Plate lowered

8:05pm- Plate raised again. Stands placed around edges.

8:39pm- Plate raising even higher

9:08pm- Forklift bringing in even higher stands

(This gets synced)

The Deluge plates are ready to move to the OLM. Here’s a really nice shot: https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1676965314989539328?s=20

#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.

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

(This gets synced)

Thread 47

The big plate is on the transport stand and moving under the OLM as we speak.

That was quick! I thought the concrete would have to set a bit longer before taking such a load but apparently not.

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)

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

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".

Looks like the Ship Quick-Disconnect is back!

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

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.

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

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]

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.

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.

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.

New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:

Starbase Live-

8:31am- Mini excavator arrives and starts digging towards the back left side. Start of the pit for the deluge piping to run over to the underground bunker from the OLM?

9:56am- Manifold sections come into view

9:59am- Head on view looks like some crazy new battle tank coming down the road

10:31am- Manifolds arrive at the launch site. Now we just need one of the cranes to disconnect from the plate to lift them. (Just based on position, I’d assume it’ll be the LR11000)

10:49am- Steel plate raised back up

12:46pm- Plate lowered again

12:47pm- 3rd smaller crane comes in and removes a piece of metal

1:06pm- LR11000 looks to be unhooked

1:07pm- Small crane removed another piece of metal.

1:13pm- Another piece of metal removed

1:25pm- Grover is unhooked

1:29pm- Grover swings away and lowers.

1:31pm- A poor telehandler driver learns the dangers of driving in the rain next to a slope

1:38pm- Another piece of metal removed

1:42pm- Mini excavator with a Jack hammer attachment starts working in between the leg with the cryo pipes and the leg with the new staircase

1:50pm- 4th piece of metal removed

1:58pm- 5th piece of metal removed

2:30pm- Front end loader hooked to the stranded telehandler

2:34pm- Flat piece of metal lifted from the cryo pit

2:40pm- Front end loader gave it his all. The telehandler didn’t budge.

2:52pm- Telehandler brings in a load of metal to where the Jack hammer has been working

3:02pm- Lifting rig is starting to be attached to the first manifold section

3:23pm- First manifold lifted off of SPMT’s

3:29pm- Manifold sat down on ground

3:30pm- Smaller crane is hooked up to the stand the manifold was on and it is lifted off to the other side

3:35pm- Smaller crane disconnected from stand

3:43pm- Manifold is being lifted again

3:52pm- Lowered onto the stand it was moved on

3:55pm- Lifting straps being disconnected from the first manifold

3:57pm- A Cat excavator is getting ready to show the stuck telehandler who’s boss

4:08pm- Telehandler is free. They made a mess of that berm though. (Don’t pull uphill at shallow angles)

4:14pm- Telehandler drives away.

4:16pm- Lifting straps being connected to second manifold

4:20pm- Top left box. Manifold is lifted slightly and moved off to the side of the SPMT’s. (Can be seen better on Rover 2)

4:53pm- Second manifold lifted, swung over, and set down on stand

5:05pm- LR11000 unhooked from the second manifold

7:21pm- LR11000 gets hooked up to something. Can’t tell if it’s a manifold for sure.

8:29pm- Cryo pit got too chilly and someone had to start a fire to get warm. (There’s flames but no one is freaking out, so I’m assuming they’re intentional)

8:59pm- Police staging at Sanchez for the next roll out

9:05pm- Roll on to the highway, roll on along, Roll on manifold, to your new home, Roll on sheriff, roll on crew, Roll on SPMT’s like we ask you to do, And roll on 96 wheeler, roll on

9:30pm- Manifold arrives

9:52pm- LR11000 has picked up the section it’s been strapped to and backed towards the OLM

10:02pm- Crane rotates piece

10:08pm- Lowered towards the ground still spinning

10:20pm- Sat down on the ground

10:26pm- Forklift brings the stand over for the manifold piece

10:28pm- Manifold lifted back up

10:33pm- Sat back down on stand

10:41pm- Crane appears to be disconnected and there are multiple people on top of the plate

Rover 1-

9:50am- SPMT’s carrying 2 manifold sections rolls towards launch site

21:06- Second rollout of the day passes by

Rover 2-

10:21am- Manifolds come into view

10:25am- Turns into the gate

16:20- Second manifold lifted

16:37- Small crane lifts stand for second manifold off to the side

16:50- SPMT’s leave launch site

16:54- Manifold swung over to the stand

21:28- Third manifold arrives

(This gets synced)

Ship 25 flaps were tested at 12:43 CDT

S25 propellant load is underway.

Detanking at 15:43 CDT.