Wiki Super Heavy/Starship - General Development Discussion

[e-FTW]

News form SN1: Elon Musk on Twitter

And SN2: Elon Musk on Twitter

And from Ars, the orbital version with 6 raptors will be somewhere in SN3 to 5.

The SN1 vehicle will not attempt the orbital flight, however, as that will come from future iterations. Musk said his best guess for the orbital flight test vehicle will be SN3, SN4, or even SN5. "This is very rapid iteration," he said.

Source: SpaceX pushing iterative design process, accepting failure to go fast

 

[ecarfan]

News form SN1: Elon Musk on Twitter

And SN2: Elon Musk on Twitter

Elon’s reference to “Fronius” in that tweet appears to be a “thank you” to this company Perfect Welding - Fronius

It’s super exciting to see how fast SN1 is coming together, and that there could be a static fire in the near future.

 

[e-FTW]

Source: Art Galvan on Twitter

 

[EVCollies]

Elon’s reference to “Fronius” in that tweet appears to be a “thank you” to this company Perfect Welding - Fronius

Dang, looks like a private company, no opportunity to purchase stock before SpaceX buys them.

 

[HVM]

No static fire, only LN2

 

[HVM]

Eric Berger on Twitter

 

[ecarfan]

Were any Raptors attached to SN1? I assume so since it was being readied for a static fire test, but I’m wondering if maybe this was simply a tank pressurization test and the engine were not mounted yet.

 

[mongo]

Were any Raptors attached to SN1? I assume so since it was being readied for a static fire test, but I’m wondering if maybe this was simply a tank pressurization test and the engine were not mounted yet.

No engines were mounted.
Twitter

 

[ecarfan]

No engines were mounted

Thanks, glad to hear it. As usual, SpaceX takes the sensible approach and was not going to risk losing expensive engines before verifying that the fuel tanks could handle the required pressure.

 

[e-FTW]

Boom(s), the big one is the second one when the top part hits the ground and kills some lights, launches bulkhead a ways away:

[EDIT: already posted above]

This will make SN2 better!

The aftermath where you can see the wayward bulkhead:

 

[e-FTW]

This thread has lots of good pics of the scene: SPadre on Twitter
And one picture that brings together all of TMC:

 

[ecarfan]

This will make SN2 better!

Absolutely. Test/Fail. Test/Fail. Test...Succeed!

 

[1208]

Fronius also make very good solar inverters. Made in Austria as well.

Products

 

[ggr]

Fronius also make very good solar inverters. Made in Austria as well.

Products

Topic drift. But my Fronius inverter, installed by Solar City in 2008, is about to be repaired for the 6th time. The Tesla contact is recommending it be replaced instead of repaired... hopefully with something else.

 

[e-FTW]

Topic drift. But my Fronius inverter, installed by Solar City in 2008, is about to be repaired for the 6th time. The Tesla contact is recommending it be replaced instead of repaired... hopefully with something else.

Talk about diversity at that company: welding and solar inverters. Those do line up with things Elon needs a at his companies. Drifted back. Your are welcome.

 

[ecarfan]

Back on topic...

Who can explain what the “thrust puck” is? I am guessing it is the part of the vehicle structure that attaches to a tank dome section, in this case at the bottom of the vehicle since that appears to be the area that failed on SN1.

 

[bxr140]

Who can explain what the “thrust puck” is? I am guessing it is the part of the vehicle structure that attaches to a tank dome section, in this case at the bottom of the vehicle since that appears to be the area that failed on SN1.

I don’t know for sure but I think you’re on the right track. The Thrust Pack is likely a reference to motors (actuators, plumbing, etc.) and associated structure as an integrated/tested module that has fairly simple electrical and plumbing interconnects to the vehicle, since its ultimately going to be easier to do final assembly that way as opposed to individually lifting a gazillion raptors up from the bottom. I can't imagine that module would get welded directly to the tank though, so there could be some interim structure (similar to an interstage) that is ~permanently mounted to the bottom of the tank and then the thrust pack attaches to that structure in some semi-permanent manner. If that supposition is correct, that's the interface being tested here.

 

[Bobfitz1]

What was the engineering reason why the new fuel tanks were not pressure tested before they were installed in Starships
hull? Then a failure would have destroyed the tank rather than the entire craft.

 

[mongo]

What was the engineering reason why the new fuel tanks were not pressure tested before they were installed in Starships
hull? Then a failure would have destroyed the tank rather than the entire craft.

The tank is the hull. (Other than the spherical header tanks).

 

[ecarfan]

I don’t know for sure but I think you’re on the right track. The Thrust Pack

Elon’s tweet used the word “puck”, not “pack”. I assume he intended to use that word and that it has some specific technical meaning.