Another Testing Day

For Booster 7 at SpaceX Boca Chica. 

After Monday's apparently successful Cryogenic testing, another round of the cold testing was carried out today.  The emphasis of the test, though didn't appear to be B7 so much as what Musk calls "Stage Zero" - launch pad infrastructure; in particular, a test of the recently modified Quick Disconnect.  I happened to open Lab Padre's Rover 2 camera without knowing any test was coming and got good views of the day.  

In the left picture, the QD isn't attached to the vehicle - you can see daylight between the large box deep in shadows and the mating panel on the booster.  The right pic has an obvious assembly lifted up above the big box and that could be watched moving over perhaps a minute as the gap between the QD and booster was closed and the cryogenic fluid lines connected.  

Once the liquid nitrogen had flowed to both tanks on B7 and virtually the entire booster was covered in a layer of ice (frozen Texas humidity) we could see the same area including the metal-covered fuel lines covered in ice as well.  

It all appeared to be a successful test, but I was somewhat surprised they didn't do a test of quickly disconnecting the Quick Disconnect, as would be required during a launch.  

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SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said on May 5th that the company is targeting “as early as June or July” for the first Starship launch from Boca Chica.  With the dependence on the FAA approval being released, and that date still being listed as the last of May, she might just as well have said, “as soon as possible.” 

The FAA has made progress, with their website showing a step completed last week, the Section 106 consultation.  Eric Ralph of Teslarati, who is also following this process, thinks this month is looking better for the approval than any so far. 

Only one more cooperative process – ensuring “Section 4(f)” compliance – still needs to be completed. Without delving into the details, there is no convincing evidence to suggest that that particular step will be a showstopper, though SpaceX might have to compromise on certain aspects of Starbase operations to complete it. Once Section 4(f) is behind them, the only thing standing between the FAA and SpaceX and a Final PEA is the completion and approval of all relevant paperwork. In other words, for the first time ever, the FAA’s targeted completion date – currently May 31st, 2022 – may actually be achievable.

There's just a very daunting list of things they need to do before a booster and Starship are ready for a launch and given the ups and downs of the process since dropping the first generation Raptor engines in favor of the Raptor 2, they still have a lot of risks to get past.