Recent tweet
Latest images look more centered also...
I think there are two seperate items: hopper (completed) and a starship prototype (in construction with a nose cone) is the other.
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I think there are two seperate items: hopper (completed) and a starship prototype (in construction with a nose cone) is the other.
I think you are correct. In the thread about the Starship development, @KarenRei clarified things for me.
e-FTW
New electron smell
Again, the manner in which these are being built. Wow.
To those folks at traditional space contractors: Once these fly, if you’re not already employed in New Space, it may be too late to switch...
To those folks at traditional space contractors: Once these fly, if you’re not already employed in New Space, it may be too late to switch...
e-FTW
New electron smell
BocaChicaGirl is basically stalking everything happening at that site: SpaceX BFS - Phase 1 Big Falcon Hopper (BFH) - Photos and Updates
Latest are 3 vids of tanking tests today.
Latest are 3 vids of tanking tests today.
Nikxice
Active Member
There's quite a bit of speculation about a possible Starhopper test firing happening this week. To quote Ford's Mustang teaser from last week, hold your horses. I remember reading over the weekend that SpaceX has a procedure in place for notifying county officials. Some details from "The Monitor" in South Texas.
" FAA documentation shows that SpaceX will be able to limit public access at two pre-defined checkpoints, a soft checkpoint at the Border Patrol station, where the public could not pass, and a hard checkpoint, “just west of the control center area, where no one would be permitted to pass during launch operations.”
Those documents show that SpaceX is required to notify Cameron County Commissioners Court approximately two weeks in advance of a proposed date for a launch or a static test fire, which SpaceX confirmed will happen in the near future.
The FAA documentation also states that approximately three to six days before a launch operation that would require a closure, SpaceX must notify the public through local media, along with informing the cities of Brownsville and South Padre Island, as well as several state and federal agencies."
Perhaps SpaceX has already given the county a proposed static test fire date. Although evidently not required, I don't see a reason for the commissioners to hold back the date information.
" FAA documentation shows that SpaceX will be able to limit public access at two pre-defined checkpoints, a soft checkpoint at the Border Patrol station, where the public could not pass, and a hard checkpoint, “just west of the control center area, where no one would be permitted to pass during launch operations.”
Those documents show that SpaceX is required to notify Cameron County Commissioners Court approximately two weeks in advance of a proposed date for a launch or a static test fire, which SpaceX confirmed will happen in the near future.
The FAA documentation also states that approximately three to six days before a launch operation that would require a closure, SpaceX must notify the public through local media, along with informing the cities of Brownsville and South Padre Island, as well as several state and federal agencies."
Perhaps SpaceX has already given the county a proposed static test fire date. Although evidently not required, I don't see a reason for the commissioners to hold back the date information.
Thanks, good to know. If that had been done I’m sure the local SpaceX fans would have swarmed reddit and twitter to let you know.
I understand the sentiment; I wouldn't go that far for a few different reasons:
--If you've ever been to a rocket facility, its really not significantly 'more' than what's going on in Boca Chica except that its traditionally in a big warehouse instead of in a big tent.
--We're watching the prototype build being done purposely on the cheap. From a quality consistency and industrial efficiency perspective, a true production facility is going to look more like what SpaceX has in Hawthorne or like what BO has on the cape.
--We're watching the final assembly of large elements. You still need a proper production line to pump out a bunch of motors, for instance, like the one in Hawthorne.
--This kind of launcher breakthrough won't actually move the needle too much across the space industry beyond rocket companies. The ‘look out for space 2.0’ turning point is going to be when one of the big three constellations actually starts selling products that eclipse that of the more traditional space 1.0 point designs.
—The gub’ment is still very aprehensive about going with commercial-like solutions with a significantly reduced price point from legacy. The legacy market here is going to be around for a while...
adiggs
Well-Known Member
I may be reading more into what's there, but one of the ideas I've carried away from your posts @bxr140 is that while breakthroughs in the cost of launch are important, if we want to know that space has "arrived" as a new technology or "thing", what we need to see is a breakthrough in the cost to manufacture a unit of capability (that's an intentionally broad and vague idea) of the stuff that gets launched. Ideally an order of magnitude improvement; not one of those weeny 10% improvements
The launch cost improvement surely helps but it's not the long pole in the tent. Or at the very least, it's no longer the long pole in the tent.
Frankly - that kind of makes sense to me anyway. SpaceX makes a point in their webcasts, and I believe rightly, to keep the focus on the primary mission - get a satellite (or whatever) into it's target orbit. Not spectacular on point landings of first stages on barges at sea. We don't launch because playing lunar lander on the Space Coast is fun (though it is) - we launch because we want better TV / communications / etc.. in some area of the world than it already has.
That’s exactly right. The big hurdles when it comes to reducing the cost of space assets is that 1) they HAVE to work and 2) they're rarely built in volume. Those factors mean that even a bare minimum product is going to cost a LOT of money. And...if you're already spending a lot of money on a base model, you might as well spend more for the P-D, as it were. Intuitively, volume enables amortization of capital to reduce your average cost, but--at least today--there's still a very strong industry bent to #1 from above, so there's still a pretty high asymptote on cost. You really need to get into HUGE volumes (like starlink) to drive average cost way down, but of course you need many billions of dollars to get something like that off the ground...so you're kind of just trading one hurdle for another.
Don't get me wrong--it will happen. It just won't happen quickly. The tipping point really is when someone finally turns on a fully armed and operational internet constellation. As you would imagine there's already folks wanting to use the platform(s) from the Big 3 (Starlink, Oneweb, Telesat) for all manner of applications, because the base cost of those platform is SOOO much lower than a legacy solution. The catch 22 is that the follow-ons all rely on the big 3 actually producing a commonized, low-cost, payload-less platform, because the internet constellation volume is explicitly the cost enabler. All of those platforms would cost [more or less] the same as a legacy Space 1.0 solution if they were only built in legacy volumes. Oh, and everyone working those constellations has little time for some commonized variant of their platform, so all the ambulance chasers kind of have to wait.
Right again. While reducing the cost of a launch by tens of millions of dollars is undeniably huge--thanks solely to SpaceX--the total capital spent putting an asset (or rocket full of stuff) on orbit is at a minimum ~3x the cost of a SpaceX launch. For GEOcomms its probably more like a minimum of 5-6x, and for government stuff it can easily be 10x or more. Then the business model around those assets (or however you want to quantify "value" to the government...) is at a minimum another 2-3x multiplier. So...from a relative sense, the money saved on a SpaceX launch is a fairly small piece of the pie.
Again, its definitely non-zero. If you're a for-profit company, tens of millions of dollars means something. But...in the big picture it's not necessarily everything.
It looks like SpaceX has requested a test on March 20th at 10:00 AM. So they'll probably fire up the Raptor and the Starhopper.
e-FTW
New electron smell
Guys, all I was saying was that the cool jobs in New Space are probably just about filled. The tipping point between being part of the new wave, or bandwagon jumper is right around the corner. ;-)
Please tell me tomorrow’s test will be streamed!
Please tell me tomorrow’s test will be streamed!
SPadre on Twitter
"Just spoke with sheriff....today’s test hop at SpaceX Boca Chica has been scrubbed due to weather and is postponed until 10am - 4pm tomorrow."
"Just spoke with sheriff....today’s test hop at SpaceX Boca Chica has been scrubbed due to weather and is postponed until 10am - 4pm tomorrow."
Yah, that was clear. My point was, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.
In related news: What Airbus learned from building satellites with OneWeb - SpaceNews.com
Agreed. I suspect the first “hop” will be just a few feet and that view is from too far away to see that. But we certainly should see the rocket exhaust.
Sounds like my golf game.
My golf is much like football, both can result in negative yardage.
They've definitely tanked a few times yesterday and today. The test didn't happen either day though. They still have tomorrow. I still wouldn't expect much when it happens though.
e-FTW
New electron smell
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