A cloud of harmless steam from 33 Raptors vaporizing tens of thousands of liters of water may well be visibly smaller than 30 Raptors excavating hundreds of tons of concrete, rock, and dirt and sending some of it miles away from the launch pad.
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Au contraire, the steam is going to be much lower density than the detritus flung around by the first launch. So I expect a much larger cloud.
The nice thing about a directed flame diverter is that the steam is sent to one side of the launch platform, and cameras can be set up to record from the other directions. With Starship, the only practical position for a camera is above the rocket. That is, on the launch tower, or via flying drone.
The new hot staging ring has more openings than I expected; it’s like a lattice. Amazing to think that it can support the weight of a fully fueled Starship! It’s currently in the test yard for static pressure testing. Hope it holds up.
I don't know if you noticed, but the entire interior is built up with stringers (triangular cross-section) welded to the interior. It's like a framework instead of a skin. I wonder if they'll end up with a more Russian-like structure in the end, with a tubular steel lattice. It's what most watchers expected, I think. SpaceX may have just built the current interstage as a stop-gap/experiment/prototype using the materials and tools they had in hand.
Thank you for pointing that out. If I enlarge the image tweeted by Jack Beyer I think I can see what you are talking about. So the new hot staging ring is essentially like the walls of the vehicle except the “skin” has been cut away.
The entire cylinder in the stack and ring is load bearing, but the load can be handed via 6 points (at least statically).
The hot ring has the 3 clamps and 3 intermediate locations as heavy columns. These points avoid the grid fin cutouts and match the test stand's six support points.
Side note: Part of hot staging aka 'never stop thrusting' may be to keep the mating surfaces in compression versus hinging.
The hot ring has the 3 clamps and 3 intermediate locations as heavy columns. These points avoid the grid fin cutouts and match the test stand's six support points.
Side note: Part of hot staging aka 'never stop thrusting' may be to keep the mating surfaces in compression versus hinging.
Pretty much. The stringers elsewhere on the booster are "hat stringers", while these are triangular in cross section. Here's a picture of a hat stringer (also called an omega stringer)
I only found one image of a triangular cross section stringer/stiffener online, but couldn't find a name for the type.
What? Ya mean it was just sand???Next you'll tell me they're cooling the pad with just water and air (air being 80ish percent N2)
The narration in that video is…unusual. “As we stand on the precipice of greatness...”. ”Our confidence is unwavering…”.
The narrator seems to be conflating himself with SpaceX.
The narrator also states that a “green light” has been given by the FAA for the next flight test. I don’t think that is correct.
The narrator seems to be conflating himself with SpaceX.
The narrator also states that a “green light” has been given by the FAA for the next flight test. I don’t think that is correct.
Yeah, this is one of those marginal YouTube channels, but they do provide some interesting information - at the cost of my hearing. That voice...
Flight like: 33 engine.“Flight like”. These super technical aerospace engineering terms are confusing for me.
So hopefully static fire next week and if that goes well and the new flamer diverted system holds up it feels like we are getting close to IFT-2. I wonder what the FAA is thinking…
FAA may be waiting on static fire results and/ or FTS upgrade analysis.
“Flight like”. These super technical aerospace engineering terms are confusing for me.
So hopefully static fire next week and if that goes well and the new flamer diverted system holds up it feels like we are getting close to IFT-2. I wonder what the FAA is thinking…
"Super technical aerospace engineering terms" indeed...
Those ports showed up on the bottom of Booster 9. After the recent spin prime test, there was a period where lots of vapor was flowing out of the joint between booster and launch mount. The NSF guys weren't sure what it was at the time. I just watched an RGV live stream where they zoomed in and showed that the vapor was coming from those ports, which function as some kind of vent.
RGV is theorizing that the ports are used to vent combustibles accumulating in the engine bay, to prevent engine bay fires like the ones we saw on the first flight (Elon mentioned wanting to eliminate the fires on a podcast). They think that the booster will pump an inert gas into the bay to clear out combustibles during flight. In support of this theory, SpaceX has apparently added some large tanks inside the chines, where they used to keep the hydraulic tanks.
The ports are not yet showing up on later boosters. Perhaps because they're not sure they want to go with this solution.
Sunday Sunday Sunday Overpressure notice at the Stainless Steel Dome!
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