Elon gives Tim another tour of Bocachica :)
Love to know who the planner is
Tim's Elon part 2 is up, they head up the tower amazing to get that level of access
( as a side note: It's amazing watching Tims rocket videos, super slick and well edited, then come an Elon interview and it's like he is afraid to cut anything, once they reach the top of the tower it just typical Elon woffle. )
Will this be the one for the first orbital test?
FAA decision due again shortly but sounds like the decision may be delayed again.
just launch anyway.
Tiny fines. carry on.
The NSF twitter account seems to think there is very little left to do as most have been completed so they actually seem optimistic there will be a report by end of May. Lets hope its a FONSI. Can't believe how long its been since there was a hop.
As a side point I remember Tim Dod (Everyday astronaunt ) bought a place down there, kitted it out and got that one succesfull hop and nothing since. I see he bought a TV camera van thing recently, zero idea how he makes a living from it.
Hopefully, just had a look at the twitter account and it does seem more positive.
There has been so little activity since the last hop, but I would imagine things would ramp up a bit when they do finally get to go ahead with the orbital test.
I see that they are still having issues with the hex tiles, a good few of them came off when they did the cryo test on SN24, they may still have quite a few issues to sort out before the orbital test regardless of the FAA decision anyway.
Yup, I remember people saying those tiles were going to cause issues, but honestly I dismissed it - but they always seem to be falling - I know its a test program and things fail, I just assumed it would be an easy thing.
Also the CH_4 GSE tanks are still the horizontal ones, the upright one they made wasted alot of time and failed specs. The whole GSE side seems to take a lot! But I think the best sign todate is the continued delivery of CH4 to the tanks, so I think its safe to say they assume they will be able to use it for statics soonish. Happy memories of texas tank watching late on summer nights.
So much going on in such a short space of time with the whole GSE side as well, hopefully it all comes together for the orbital test this year.
Well the FAA decision is due again tomorrow, and rumours it may be a fonsi, but should know more soon....
Autotranslate :
"SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on the eve handed over another batch of Starlink satellite communication systems to the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. "Multitasking Elon Musk manages not only to work on preparing for a mission to Mars, but also to transfer Starlink to our intelligence, which is so necessary for their special missions. The Ukrainian army will protect freedom on Earth so that it can be installed even on Mars," our Defense Ministry said. In general, the founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, helped provide Ukraine with Starlink stations and access to satellite Internet. In addition, he transferred tesla Powerwall stations to Ukraine. Since the beginning of the war, Ukraine has received 15 thousand terminals with a free tariff plan and in early May, Apptopia analysts in their report noted that Starlink in Ukraine is actively used daily by about 150 thousand people. A few days ago, Starlink Ukraine received an operator's license."
We dont hear much about Tonga where Starlink patched up their comms after a bit of a ( natural ) disaster. Whats the betting that they too have a few thousand free dishy and free service ? Perhaps its no wonder the rental for everyone else went up a tad.
With this and SpaceX being the only viable launch service in the US of A hopefully Mr Biden will adopt a more rational attitude towards SpaceX
AFAIK They can do it from The Cape just as soon as its completed ( with minimal new paperwork )
Mitigated FONSI :)
I wonder if the opposite also applies though - Could Kennedy could have started a 8-year Apollo programme to go to the moon ("and do the other things") without the cold war and the competition that sprang from it? In many ways it was a reckless programme, but it delivered what may very well be the peak of human achievement so far.
Yes and no. It was amazing "can do" attitude with the technology of the day. NASA have spent about $40Bn so far on pork bellying returning to the moon.
But it was a dead end. Like the later shuttle program the teams were dismantled almost overnight. Saturn V was too big to realistically have any other job other than Skylab. Yes it could send probes out faster but no one was every going to spend that much. Saturn !b was in the same class as the recently retired Proton. Souyz is still outlasting generations of replacements.
The Russian RD-171 outclassed the F1 engines, slightly higher thrust and significantly higher specific impulse meaning a Saturn V using them could take about 5% more fuel (superchilld to fit in the same tanks) AND get about 10% better fuel economy , which according to the Rocket Equation would mean a lot more than 15% extra delta-V. Similarly Space-X have better engines to roughly double the payload of the Falcon 9 family because more thrust means you can take more fuel, improvements in specific impulse especially by adding turbopump to second stage means you are getting better use of the fuel.
Great to see the FONSI, itching for some Starbase activity again, seems like so long ago we had all the SN hops and flops.
On the plus side, NSF setup a camera at the Raptor 2 test place and there's some good stuff there!
Maybe could be in for some action sooner than we think?
But then again Elon does be a bit optimistic with these predictions....
Where'd he say that though? I feel they've still a lot to do before anything exciting happens, including the 75 actions!!
I seen a few different tweets quoting him saying that, although he quotes "Ready to fly next month" not specifically that they will attempt the orbital launch then.
From what ive seen many of the conditions are relatively small for them, and should be easy to do, although I think one limits them to just 5 weekend road closures over the year, their seems to be confusion if that means only 5 launch attempts allowed a year.
Edit: Actually think here is Musks tweet:
Thanks, he's some man for hiding little tidbits in random replies like that! Looking forward to a 33 Raptor Static fire.
"At SpaceX we specialize at converting the impossible to late" ( E. Musk 2022)
Gwynne Shotwell ( COO SpaceX ) puts it more diplomatically :
"Aim high. We have always achieved what we wanted to, never in the the timeline. We fail on timeline, but that feels like the right fail to make as oppose to not achieving what you are trying to achieve technically."
Elon talking to Tim about the Merlin engine :)
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Free speech
Ego is getting huge...how many times he stutter or not answer what was asked as he just doesn't know what hes on about...
Handy checklist of remaining milestones now that they have the FONSI for Starship.. Looking forward to the 33 Raptor Static fire..
CoNsEqUeNcEs
Their is none. Money makes all problems disappear.
Set simple tesla car targets, Pay yourself 10billion every 5 months for hitting them.
Booster 7 could get a chopsticks lift today.
Serious wizardry at work.
Yup, seems like the lift went well.
Timelapse of it:
Any bets on when Jeffs crew will start their redesign ?
