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Wednesday, May 11, 2022

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.  


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.



12 comments:

  1. Nuclear Space Propulsion. Isn't that another part of the Saturn follow-up program that got put aside?

    We've only known how to do it for, what, 50 years?

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    1. 70 years ago, "Destination Moon" had an atomic powered engine. They used the heat of the core to vaporize water to super-heated steam, and that for thrust. If Heilein came up with it, it would probably work....

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    2. Oh, definitely. They existed in sci-fi long before the late 1960's where the scientists and engineers did the actual work to make them. Nothing new here, same same. New materials, new control systems, but a nuclear space engine is a nuclear space engine.

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    3. And the progeny of those who killed it then are ready and willing to do so now again!

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  2. Um, Sig, that assembly that appears above the BQD (Booster Quick Disconnect) is actually the flame cover - you have to protect the BQD fom the major flamage of 33 Raptor 2's while the booster is gaining speed!
    And, they *have* run a disconnect test during the fully-cryo-filled booster - checking for leaks and all that...

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  3. Quick disconnect here:
    https://twitter.com/CSI_Starbase/status/1524563328529481728

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    1. Thanks for that!

      I searched for that in the video for quite a while and never hit. That and when they did a test of the quick disconnect before they started loading fuel. I could have sworn I knew when to look but didn't find it.

      I guess I've got to sign up for Twitter now. Or once Musk is formally in charge.

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    3. Don't feel bad. I was actively watching the Rover 2 feed when they did it, so I knew it had happened, but I fell over the Twitter post much later.

      (other post deleted because I noticed I'd used the word "happened" four times in a short sentence...old age, sheesh)

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    4. Hint:
      In addition to the Lab Padre site, also peruse the NSF (NASA Spaceflight) site, they do a daily synopsis (Which is where I first saw it). BOTH sites are worth watching, especially when major testing is going on!

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    5. igor, I usually keep LabPadre and the NSF Starbase Live feeds both live on a 2nd monitor all day.

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