The monomer, acrylonitrile, apparently has a pungent smell of garlic or onions. I wonder if the thing is going to stink the place up wherever it lands. You can believe that some of the polymer is going to have broken down to monomers if exposed. That might make for a useful diagnostic to learn if there has been any heat intrusion past the tiles.
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Ben W
Chess Grandmaster (Supervised)
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I had a similar thought. An ablative literally erodes, with the material taking heat away with it as it ablates off the surface.
Your quote describes Pyron as not ablating, but "Pyron fibers do not burn, melt, or drip. Instead they char and self-extinguish."
This reminds me a bit of the "intumescent goo" that Tesla got a patent for with battery packs a while back (thread I started about it here).
Intumescent materials char and swell with the volume expansion serving to spread the heat over a larger volume, thus reducing the localized temp. Pyron isn't described anywhere I can see as swelling, however.
Neither ireally seems an ablative, however... I wonder if Elon used that term colloquially, or it really does ablate...
I love garlic and onions. They don’t stink, they create a pungent and tasty aroma!
“I love the smell of Starship in the morning”.
And now for something completely different. They've built a test article whose purpose is apparently to test booster catching. It went through a "can crusher" test over at the Massey's site, and now it's on the launch mount. It's speculated that they will lift the test article with a crane and then lower it onto the chopsticks to see how their shock absorbers perform. If true, I'm not sure why it's been placed on the launch mount. Note that all the scaffolding has been removed.
The catching operation would end with placement on the OLM, so a compatibility check seems reasonable.
Shock absorbers could be tested by keeping it clamped to the OLM and running the arms upward to load it.
They might also fill it with liquid nitrogen for increased mass.
Definitely. It makes perfect sense now that you describe it. Static tests before introducing any dynamics.
My guess is that they won't fill it with anything. The height of the test article is probably determined by the minimum lift height of the chopsticks. It hasn't been pressure tested, and I don't see any way of tanking it, whether pressurized or not.
At 12:45 in that video, which was apparently filmed a day before IFT-4, Elon states that a top concern is that “hot gas” (of course he means plasma) flowing through the “hinge gap” can potentially “cook the tiles” in that area. And of course as it turned out that was a serious problem.
And at 16:25 Elon says “we have plans for a better heat shield under the tiles”. So the rework of the next ship, underway right now, was something they knew might have to be done based on the results of IFT-4.
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Interesting Elon comment from that video, when discussing Raptor evolution: “Bolts and flanges and seals are hell, especially when they are hot.” A future Raptor version, which has already been designed, will get rid of those. It looks “simple on the outside but it is very complicated on the inside”.
In the background of that scene was Raptor number 394.
In the background of that scene was Raptor number 394.
More info from that video: Starship is still using “Tesla drive units” for the fins (both stages) and no hydraulics anywhere on the vehicle. A few minor small pneumatic systems.
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