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Claims has sources at SpaceX.
Ah drat... I was hoping my earlier suppositions were wrong and that the booster escaped damage. That having been said I was worried about engines, and this seems to indicate "booster damage", so I may indeed have been off base, but unfortunately a setback still.
We still don’t have any information from SpaceX — meaning a tweet from Elon — regarding possible booster damage. So I regard the tweets by DutchSatellites and Octagrabber to be unconfirmed.
During the Starlink mission webcast this morning from LC-39A there was a view of the pad and surrounding area that showed significant progress in stacking the Starship Stage Zero tower.
And as far as I know there is still no information from SpaceX about B7 damage, which remains in the Mega Bay.
Starship update article from NSF dated July 28 with lots of good info.
B8 and S25 construction continues and parts have been spotted for B9 and S26 as well. A V2 Raptor upgrade is being tested at McGregor with electric thrust vector control (instead of hydraulic).
This caught my eye:
This seems speculative to me.
NSF has a new video update on SpaceX activities at KSC and Roberts Road and there is a lot going on there!
B7 heading back to OLM for test of outer 20 engines.
That is great news! But I’m not assuming that B7 will be used for the first orbital test. They may use it just to test the outer ring of 20, as Elon’s tweet implies. Not sure.
Could be, I don't see inner engines as they roll out.
Maybe mount those at the OLM if testing goes well?
B7 was moved close to the OLM and then, before the chopsticks moved in preparation for lifting the booster onto the mount a large spray of what is assumed to be hydraulic fluid was observed. The booster was then moved away from the tower.
So…”cleanup on aisle 7, I mean booster 7!”
So…”cleanup on aisle 7, I mean booster 7!”
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Okay…so why give it exposure on TMC?
YouTube is full of crap videos with completely misleading titles. Best to ignore them.
B7 was lifted onto the OLM using the crane so presumably the chopsticks have not yet been repaired after the hydraulic fluid leak. The chopsticks were raised up. Two spin prime tests were done with the booster. It looks like possibly each was just a single engine (but different ones?) in the outer ring. Two spin prime tests were also performed on S24; hard to tell how many engines were involved. Good to see more testing and no explosions! More road closures were announced for this week so hopefully we will see many more tests and static fires soon.
Because the two photos are taken from different angles, I can’t tell if the static fires were of the same engine or different engines.
Give the amount of exhaust it creates, I am wondering if an exhaust tunnel should be there when all 32 engines fire during launch. Otherwise don't you run the risk of the exhaust (and any potential debris) hitting back at the engines or some lower portion of the booster? I believe the shuttle booster used to have an exhaust, but SpaceX never had one even for Falcon Heavy.
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