Building the Full Metal Starship testbed: Starhopper

[ecarfan]

The Sharship stage will be landing on unimproved surfaces, so a lack of flame trench is more real world.

The pad we see under construction at Boca Chica is a landing and launching from Earth pad. The FSH/Starship launches from Earth will obviously require a large flame trench. The Starhopper test may not require a flame trench. I really don’t know.

Yes, in the future, Starship landings on the Moon and Mars will be on “unimproved surfaces”. Starship launches from those same surfaces will require much less energy than launches on Earth, so the lack of a launch pad and flame trench won’t matter.

What I’m puzzling over, based on the latest Boca Chica drone video, is the design of the launch pad that is shown and what the earth moving nearby is all about.

 

[mongo]

The pad we see under construction at Boca Chica is a landing and launching from Earth pad. The FSH/Starship launches from Earth will obviously require a large flame trench. The Starhopper test may not require a flame trench. I really don’t know.

Yah, I was talking about hopper. Whereas the Falcon hopper was the first stage, the Starship hopper is the second stage. The full stack, with the earth tied booster (potentially sans landing legs), would have a launch mount/ flame trench. Like the F9 booster, Starship landings will likely be on a flat pad.

But it’s so close to the road and the amount of earth that has been built up appears to be far smaller than the area shown in the above image.

The launch pad will only be 400-500 feet from highway 4 per:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_South_Texas_Launch_Site,
Judging by Google Mars street view and the pavement ends sign, the second area may be the site of the well and the closer hole is where the water tower goes?

 

[ecarfan]

Curious how that map shows tanks for RP-1 and Helium, since as I understand it Raptors use Methane and do not use Heilum for tank pressurization.

 

[e-FTW]

Those images make me wonder how SpaceX plans to handle rising seas at this location.

 

[HVM]

Coz that's old Falcon 9 launch site plan, they clearly are not building that. We don't know yet where SpX is going to build the Super Heavy launch site. Maybe they build a floating platform and use LNG carrier -type ships for LOX and liquid methane, -but still; logistics are still harder than land based site +sea spray.

 

[mongo]

Curious how that map shows tanks for RP-1 and Helium, since as I understand it Raptors use Methane and do not use Heilum for tank pressurization.

Was the carbon fiber version self supporting without pressurization?

 

[ecarfan]

Those images make me wonder how SpaceX plans to handle rising seas at this location.

I’ve had the same thought ever since we first learned about the Boca Chica location. It looks like the road leading to the SpaceX property is less than maybe 10 ft above sea level. There is a significant probability that the property will be underwater by the end of this century. Not enough time to establish a self-sustaining colony on Mars. Will need another location for Starship launches.

 

[mongo]

I’ve had the same thought ever since we first learned about the Boca Chica location. It looks like the road leading to the SpaceX property is less than maybe 10 ft above sea level. There is a significant probability that the property will be underwater by the end of this century. Not enough time to establish a self-sustaining colony on Mars. Will need another location for Starship launches.

They are still planning Earth-Earth hops, so that implies many launch locations...

Chris B - NSF on Twitter

 

[GWord]

Those images make me wonder how SpaceX plans to handle rising seas at this location.

That's just less money they have to spend on the water deluge system.

 

[HVM]

The sea level rise is less than one cm per year, so there is some time to test Starhopper....This would be more of concern for the actual orbital launch site.

 

[ecarfan]

The sea level rise is less than one cm per year

Higher storm surges and more powerful hurricanes are the more immediate problems.

 

[ICUDoc]

?

Wow. That's BIG!

 

[e-FTW]

Higher storm surges and more powerful hurricanes are the more immediate problems.

Yup.

 

[HVM]

 

[Cosmacelf]

Did anyone else think that move kinda look seat of the pantsish?

 

[ecarfan]

Did anyone else think that move kinda look seat of the pantsish?

Not to me. Looks like SpaceX figured out a very effective way to move the Starhopper to the pad.

It will be interesting to see how they add the upper section to the Starhopper.

So do you think the lower section contains both propellant and oxidizer tanks? And the upper section is just for mass balancing?

 

[e-FTW]

Did anyone else think that move kinda look seat of the pantsish?

You mean like every other aspect of its construction?

 

[Cosmacelf]

You mean like every other aspect of its construction?

Good point. Why change?

 

[bxr140]

Good point. Why change?

It’s also a good a dry run as any for the real thing.

Well...maybe not true dry run but there’s bound to be some lessons learned moving a big ass thing that you can’t get with some kind of mock up. KISS and add complexity only where necessary.

 

[Grendal]

Raptor is on site in Boca Chica.