Ticking off the milestones on the way to Starship Flight Test 7, that is. In this case, running a successful-looking static fire of Starship 33 on Sunday Dec 15 at Boca Chica Starbase.
Ship 33 during its static engine fire test, Dec. 15, 2024. (Image credit: SpaceX)
A video of the test from Space.com is here.
Its next launch, Integrated Flight Test-7 (IFT-7), is expected around Jan. 11, based on communications between NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which has yet to issue a launch license for the upcoming test. Once mated, the Super Heavy/Starship stack towers a staggering 400 feet (122 meters) tall, with the Starship upper stage alone standing taller than the Statue of Liberty.
There has been no announcement of the intended mission, at least not one I've been able to see. IFT-6 back on November 18th was "mostly successful" but didn't complete one of it's major goals, to catch the SuperHeavy booster with the giant chopsticks as they accomplished on IFT-5. I assume that will be part of this test's goals as well. Since Ship 33 is second generation Starship and none have flown, this might be a step backwards to verify both the new things and everything that has already been tested all works as intended.
Well, just gotta work the wrinkles and fiddly bits out, y'know. Space is HARD.
ReplyDeleteCars in their infancy worked nothing like what we have today.
Hang in there, everybody!
Looks are deceiving, the new forward flaps are considerably smaller, the originals must have had over rated flight authority.
ReplyDeleteThey look farther forward as well, which should increase their leverage around the center of pressure. Maybe they don't need to be as big in that spot?
DeleteMaybe the body with a little bit flap authority, it behaves like a kind of lifting body, or similar flight behavior, mostly to keep rotation stable, and the engines are heavy enough its got rear weight bias, so in effect its got a happy center of balance and long as nothing gets too gar out of the flight envelope, the flaps are more on the redundant side of things, those 3 gimbling center engines got serious HP, sure causes the ship to rotate post haste right at the last moment for retro/landing thrust sequence.
DeleteMaybe they just went oversized flaps figuring they where good cheap R&D insurance, modify them after suitable flight data came in.
ps, ship looks svelte and simply it looks right with the new flaps on it now
DeleteFolded up while in the re-entry plasma, the new flaps look like they will have an angle that matches flow patterns, with the edges just outside the hotter plasma, until they actuate. Watching the plasma, appears as if it has definitive force, like fast moving smooth flow of water in a river flowing over rocks, anything sticking into it must create considerable extra drag, far more than high mach number air. Exponentially more?
ReplyDeleteThe tiles seem to appear considerably more consistent, or they are using a new recipe? Lot darker too. Darker obsidian color.
ReplyDeleteoh right duh. black body radiation.
DeleteNever forget lot of things Smokey Unik talks about in his books. One item stuck with me was they found stripping then painting the stock steel valve covers on the small block chevy engines reduced oil temps 20F. Kind of a standard reference point in my mind when doing stuff around high temps. After that i used flat black heat reflecting ceramic coating on my motorcycle race engines, Smokey was right, but I got 35 degree drop in oil temps, then I coated the piston domes, valve faces and combustion chamber, with both shedding and insulating ceramic coatings, first time on the dyno testing before and after, had to drop 4 main jet sizes on the carbs, which was like insanely lean, never drop that much in an uncoated internal engine parts, it would burn a hole in a piston in a NewYork minute, gained a consistent 4 hp the mirroring the entire power curve. pistins lasted a whole race season, verses a couple pairs, no oil scorch marks under the piston dome too. And those coating went on at a couple thousandths thick, manufacturing instruction said to scotch brite after coating, so it got even thinner.
Not quite sure the relationship here with starship, but it tells me its sure interesting stuff, endlessly fascinating how heat works on materials.