SpaceX Preps SN11 for flight later this week

glend (Glen) · #1 23-03-2021, 05:49 PM

Today SpaceX conducted a successful static fire of the SN11 engines, on the pad at Boca Chica. TFRs and road closures are in place for Thursday/ Friday local time.
Static fire video is up on the Nasaspaceflight Utube channel (not an offical NASA channel).

astronobob (Bob) · #2 25-03-2021, 03:12 AM

Hmm, might have jumped the gun Glen, all road closures and TFR's have been cancelled

Guess there are more-important things happening at Boca, lots of building etc going on as known,,, also there is currently a 150-200kph jet stream at 9 and 10k altitude, may have something to do with it ?

Guess we wait and see, , good thing is SpaceX can order TFR's and road-closures within a day or two of a flight test..

glend (Glen) · #3 25-03-2021, 08:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by astronobob

Hmm, might have jumped the gun Glen, all road closures and TFR's have been cancelled

Guess there are more-important things happening at Boca, lots of building etc going on as known,,, also there is currently a 150-200kph jet stream at 9 and 10k altitude, may have something to do with it ?

Guess we wait and see, , good thing is SpaceX can order TFR's and road-closures within a day or two of a flight test..

The present information, live streamed by LabPadre, is that there are TFRs for the 26th and 27th (site time), likely for another static fire. As SpaceX has a policy of not closing the beach access, and requiring evacuation of the village and beach on the weekend, the first flight date is pushed back to Monday the 29th ( site time).
Yes winds aloft do have an impact.

astronobob (Bob) · #4 25-03-2021, 10:31 PM

Ahh yeah, thats cool then they have it happening again, doesnt take long now,,,
Sorry, I was not trying to shoot the messenger here 'Glen' - just the current status when I checked, , and yes, Boca Beach has a priority over the week-ends, ,
Lets hope for further improvement of SN11's 10k Hop ?
Also not sure about BN1 being used for test flight in the sence, I heard it may be only used to work out how to handle and manoevre the towering thing, so Im not sure if its even fitted with fuel plumbing, header tanks, and engine mounting dome etc ?
Do you know of this ?
Cheers,,, interesting stuff fore sure ...

glend (Glen) · #5 25-03-2021, 10:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by astronobob

Ahh yeah, thats cool then they have it happening again, doesnt take long now,,,
Sorry, I was not trying to shoot the messenger here 'Glen' - just the current status when I checked, , and yes, Boca Beach has a priority over the week-ends, ,
Lets hope for further improvement of SN11's 10k Hop ?
Also not sure about BN1 being used for test flight in the sence, I heard it may be only used to work out how to handle and manoevre the towering thing, so Im not sure if its even fitted with fuel plumbing, header tanks, and engine mounting dome etc ?
Do you know of this ?
Cheers,,, interesting stuff fore sure ...

Bob, Elon was quoted on the "What About it" channel, as indicating that BN1 would not fly, it is a pilot research vessel. It could certainly be used for pressure testing of the booster fabrication. Apparently, BN2 will be the first booster to fly. However, there is alot of work to do on launch facilities for the booster. Perhaps it thry are just going to hop it and test landing, without a Starship on top, maybe it could launch from one of the Starship pads.
What about it, in the last episode had good over head photos of the tower foundations bring built next to the orbital launch platform, which might be essential for the first orbital flight, which Elon claims is planned for July, but that is Elon time, it could be much later.

glend (Glen) · #6 25-03-2021, 11:57 PM

Update.
One of the Raptor engines was removed from SN11 at 5am local time and taken back to the build site. This seems to be the reason for the flight delay. Supposition is that data review from the last static fire raised enough concern to pull that engine. It is not known if it is being replaced by another engine, but seems likely.

glend (Glen) · #7 26-03-2021, 08:01 AM

Raptor 46 has been reinstalled in SN11.

astronobob (Bob) · #8 28-03-2021, 12:03 AM

Thanx for that info Glen, and update on the Raptor.
I'm out camping with limited internet ATM,,
All up. may see a flight next week all going well..

glend (Glen) · #9 28-03-2021, 11:49 AM

SpaceX did attempt to do both a static fire and a launch on Friday. Static fire was successful and they recycled for the launch but the weather caused a scrub. Elon posted that they will try again on Monday (in keeping with their policy of not launching on the weekends).
Big progress on the new assembly tower next to the orbital launch mount, it will need to move quickly for the Elon time orbital launch in July. Maybe it will be the mooted booster catch tower as well.

forrestwhite (Forrest White) · #10 30-03-2021, 03:21 PM

Interestingly, after the fire tests, some of the thermal protection tiles on the Starship prototype cracked and partially fell off.

glend (Glen) · #11 31-03-2021, 12:55 AM

SpaceX SN11 - another Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly.

SpaceX launched SN11 at 8am their time (midnight AEDT), in heavy fog at the site. Why they felt the need to do it in fog I can't say. Anyway, it launched and flew to its test altitude perfectly. There was on board video streamed back. As has been the pattern in the past, problems emerged during the landing flip and engine restart. From the video it appeared that only one engine restarted, then signal was lost (or they cut the stream).. I don't know whether they hit the self destruct or it simply impacted the ground - as we could not see anything. Some ground cameras caught flying debris near their location, well away from the landing pad. Perhaps this was expected, hence the launch in fog, no video of yet another Starship blowing up.

So another failure at this critical point, seems to be a pattern. It will be interesting to see what Elon says, but a fundamental redesign might be required. This is getting expensive. We know they skipped building SNs 12, 13, and 14, and went to the redesigned SN15, which is in final assembly now. How long can Elon keep throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at a concept which is apparently flawed. I get sick of watching them destroyed.

AdamJL · #12 31-03-2021, 10:54 AM

don't jump the gun here. This is a long term project. Every explosion is a lesson to learn, even if it takes another 10 times.

astronobob (Bob) · #13 31-03-2021, 03:33 PM

Hmmm, 1 step forward, 2 steps backward.
Considering most recent RUDs been due to hard landing impacts, this flight bit different, during the dreaded Flip I take it, and/or the restarts of the Raptors. Seems a constant area of concern ?

Who knows except the engineers etc. It's definitely a new design including the plumbing & more importantly the fundamental components & understanding all the physics !
Guess they will hopefully sort it all out, it is a lot more complicated than appears 'as we know' ...
Expensive exercise per pop ! Elon's budget, plenty there thats for certain !
Liken it to having $100 and distroying paper aeroplanes,!

forrestwhite (Forrest White) · #14 01-04-2021, 03:54 PM

RGV has his fly over up, by the scattering of Debris is wasn't **too* high up. The nosecone is almost on the pad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPHh3NPgLEw