Repairs following the maiden Starship flight and preparations ahead of the second launch are ongoing at Starbase, all while SpaceX is at an all-time high by way of Starship vehicle production with a brand new ship and booster soon to be accomplished.
The present star of the show is Ship 25, which — following some testing on the Masseys test site — is now on the suborbital launch site ahead of a six-engine Static Fire test.
Flight Termination System Tested and Ship 25 Rolled to Launch Site
One in every of the foremost issues identified on Starship’s first flight was related to the efficiency of the flight termination system (FTS). The system is meant to interrupt apart the vehicle tanks during flight should something go improper. Nonetheless, during that first flight, this method only punched holes within the tanks but never broke the vehicles apart as planned.
SpaceX intends to re-certify this method before the subsequent flight of Starship. It seems the corporate has performed a test of it on a booster test tank on the Massey test facility.
The aftermath of the test shows the result that was hoped for from the activation of the FTS, which is an entire destruction of the tank. It’s unclear yet if the corporate will follow up this test with more vehicle destruction tests or whether this piece of information was enough to proceed the recertification through computer modeling.
Ship 25, an analogous vehicle to Ship 24, which participated in Starship’s first integrated test flight, resided at Massey up until earlier last week when the SpaceX teams rolled the vehicle out to the launch site.
Before the historic test flight, it was assumed that this ship could be skipped within the flight order, with Federal Aviation Administration documentation indicating SpaceX intended to fly Ship 26 and Ship 27 next as a substitute.
Nonetheless, Elon Musk indicated soon after the flight that the corporate desired to check the hypersonic reentry of Starship and confirmed that it hadn’t chosen a ship for the second flight just yet. Ship 26 and Ship 27, vehicles without heat shields and aerodynamic flaps, would break up within the atmosphere during reentry and wouldn’t be able to testing this regime.
Ship 25’s roll to the launch site was accompanied by a SpaceX tweet stating that the vehicle had been rolled out to the pad to perform a six-engine static fire test at suborbital pad B.
Nonetheless, it’s unclear if that is in preparation for the ship to be ready for Starship’s second integrated test flight or whether that is to collect more vehicle data before moving on to a different ship.
SpaceX Pushes Starship Production to Next Gear, Starts Recent High Bay.
Contained in the High Bay, Ship 29 is making good progress through stacking, with only one section left for it to be fully accomplished.
SpaceX production teams have optimized the stacking of ships inside this facility since Ship 28 was being built, and now it’s using a brand new lifting rig that lifts the ships by the lifting points used for the launch tower “chopstick” arms.
These lift points are situated right below the forward flaps of the ship and permit teams to not need the usage of the crane hooks on the tip of the nosecone.
This rig was seen used for testing on the prior ship, Ship 28, but teams quickly dismantled it after lower than a day of testing. Nonetheless, it seems that, consequently of that testing, this rig was re-configured to even be attached to the 2 crane hook points which are situated on the leeward side of the ship’s nosecone.
This is probably going as a result of stabilization issues discovered on that testing with Ship 28 — yet one more sign that optimization of car production at Starbase is at all times at a continuing flow.
Contained in the Mega Bay, Booster 9 awaits for the launch site to be ready for its static fire test campaign. Having been fully stacked two months ago, Booster 10 is probably going seeing final work to arrange it for the beginning of its cryogenic proof test campaign.
Boosters, Bays, Blimps, Birds, and Boats.https://t.co/e3xbqPnwZ5 pic.twitter.com/PgncxCSHOy
— Chris Bergin – NSF (@NASASpaceflight) May 20, 2023
Questions remain on whether SpaceX will utilize its latest Massey test facility for this latest booster or whether the corporate will wait for the launch site to be ready for it to be tested.
Hidden in the massive space contained in the Mega Bay can also be Booster 11, whose two essential tanks are already accomplished individually and would only have to be stacked together to finish the vehicle.
As production ramps up, SpaceX is a brand new location where to construct, prepare, and store latest ships and boosters via the usage of a brand new High Bay. This latest High Bay is situated north of the Mega Bay, and it is usually similar in size to it.
Foundations for it have been built during the last couple of months, and SpaceX teams have been fabricating sections for it near the propellant production site. A brand new crane has also been assembled on site for the build-up of this latest facility.
Watercooled Steel Plate Foundation Progress and Testing at McGregor
Ever for the reason that launch of Starship last month, teams have been quickly preparing the bottom under the orbital launch mount (OLM) to tackle one other issue found during that first launch. The rocket unexpectedly broke the concrete and soil under the OLM, creating a large crater because it cleared the pad.
SpaceX’s plan to unravel this can entail installing a large water-cooled steel plate and deluge system under the OLM, which can dump heavy amounts of water to deflect the energy of the 33 Raptor engines of Super Heavy. Accordingly, teams have been constructing a large foundation at the location to arrange it for the installation of this method.
To construct this foundation, crews have drilled long holes in the bottom where rebar cages have been installed, with concrete later being pumped into them to harden the soil under the mount.
It will give the bottom enough consistency and function an anchor for the several tons of steel that make up the brand new flame deflector system.
We have covered this test rig in two different videos out at McGregor… all the way in which back to Jan 14th.
Interesting to see which of our predictions got here true… (and possibly time for an update video!)
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➡️ https://t.co/XJJfojOraq pic.twitter.com/Ahwo1ZHGDq— Kerbal Space Academy (@KSpaceAcademy) May 19, 2023
One other piece of progress shown off by SpaceX this week was a tweet by the corporate showing a test of this method at McGregor where a Raptor engine was shot toward a water-cooled steel plate. Within the video, it might be seen how the plate incorporates a hole from where a number of jets of water sprayed out, serving as a coolant for the plate.
That is one other demonstration of visible progress being made to unravel the problems found on the primary flight of Starship. NSF’s John Galloway (“Das”) explored these events in a recently-published video, backed up by the comments provided by Elon Musk after the test.
In an effort to push such heavy amounts of water for these steel plates, a set of pressure tanks have been installed and stacked this week behind the pressurized water tanks south of the launch site.
More large water pipes have also arrived this week on the launch site as SpaceX teams begin to dig up and clear the world across the OLM for the installation of this method. At this pace, we might be just a number of weeks away from the beginning of the installation of those plates.
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