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Old 12-12-2020, 08:36 AM
glend (Glen)
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Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Lake Macquarie
Posts: 7,121
SpaceX Assembly Stand Collapse Damages SN9

This morning, our time, the SN9 test vehicle in the High Bay building, was damaged when the assembly stand collapsed and the Starship tilted over and hit the High Bay wall. This happened literally hour before it was scheduled to be moved to the launch pad for initial pressure testing.
In a way we can be grateful that it happened while it was still in the assembly building and not on the roller transport on the way to the pad, in which case it would have fallen over completely and likely destroyed.
So what now, they have to get in there and inspect the situation. There is clearly damage on the fin structure area on the side that hit the building. The nose area also houses the header tank pressure vessel, and any damage to that tank area would probably mean the ship is seriously compromised, and there maybe no point in testing on the pad. If they write it off then SN10, which is being assembled, would be the next candidate for testing. Likely impact on test schedule, unknown, but if SN9 has to be scrapped, it could be a month.
Video of the stand collapse and SN9 tilt over impacting the High Bay, is up on Labpadre's Utube channel.
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