Thursday morning, SpaceX rolled Booster 9 back to the launch pad area and as the day was turning to evening, lifted it into place on the Orbital Launch Mount.
Since Cameron County is listing a road closure for Sunday July 23 from 8AM to 8PM, with alternate days Monday and Tuesday the 24th and 25th, it seems like we could be seeing the beginning of the test campaign that will ultimately qualify B9 for flight.
This is the first time a booster has been joined together with the launch pad since the April 20th Integrated Flight Test of Starship. It’s unknown how long the booster will remain atop the launch mount for its test campaign. Both Ship 25 and Booster 9 are now together at the launch site for the first time to undergo testing since being picked for the next test in May.
As has been talked about everywhere, SpaceX has been working around the clock to modify and rebuild all of the infrastructure damaged by the flight test (IFT) back on April 20th. There have been many very deep holes bored into the ground, filled with rebar and tons (and tons) of concrete poured. There have been repairs and upgrades to the launch mount, orbital tank farm and the addition of the water deluge system.
The most noticeable difference to the launch pad has been the installation of the water deluge system, which features a steel plate with holes cut at different angles to cover a wider area with water. The system is similar to a shower head, albeit with much more power behind it. It was first tested on July 17th and is thought to only be a partial test.
They've done some interesting tests with firing a Raptor engine at a mock-up of one small part of the system, video here. I don't know if this is planned, but the test in that video is one Raptor firing horizontally at one portion of the plate; that leads to the thought of whether they'll do a static fire with a full booster blasting the full deluge system vertically, so they can inspect it for damage.
Also in the last few days, SpaceX moved booster 10 and Starship 28 to their new test facility at what used to be Massey's gun range (now just Masseys Test Facility). Booster 10 has already had a cryogenic proof test and Ship 28 will have its first cryogenic tests soon.
I am surprised that SpaceX hasn't launched just a booster with maybe a weight at the nose just to see how everything works with just the booster.
ReplyDeleteAmazing how quickly they did a complete modification and rebuild of the OLM.