Musk said "spin start test" with all 33 engines.

This could take different forms, but it is essentially a test of engine start up parameters of the fuel (methane) and/or oxidizer (lox) pumps. These pumps are powered by turbines which burn methane and lox, but this creates a chicken or the egg situation when starting an engine. If the pumps are off and the shaft is not spinning you have zero fuel or lox pressure, and you can't run the turbine without it. Did it spin first to get pressure to the turbine pump combustion chamber, or did they do some combustion first to get it to spin? Well, you spin it first by running a high pressure inert gas through the turbine, this spins the pump and create a little bit of fuel and lox pressure that is injected into the turbine pump combustor where it is ignited to power the pump's turbine. Once this happens, the turbine is off to the races and the pump outlet pressure and also combustion chamber inlet pressure rise rapidly bringing everything up to design operating point.

So spin start test implies they were testing this start up process and running their fuel or ox pumps, or both simultaneously. If the intent was to actually ignite the combustors that feed the turbines in the turbo pumps, it's a lot higher risk test, but something they've done before so probably had some confidence in whatever they were doing. This would be something they've done a lot on individual engines test stands and for static fire tests of the raptors they've already done a few times, but this was the first with the vehicle integrated with 33 engines I think.

Any number of things could be a cause. Too little information to speculate.

lb3 said:

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Was it an oversight not putting Shuttle style sparklers (Radial Outward Firing Igniters) under the vehicle?

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At this phase of testing? Maybe. SpaceX philosophically doesn't want to rely on anything but the vehicle for ignition/launch/control/landings, not using hypergolics etc. as they can't be fabricated on Mars easily/at all if they wind up running low (nevermind the challenges, yes, of making liquid methane/oxygen in quantity there).

The build up of a fairly large methane cloud that then ignited shows...they maybe didn't have this little exercise down pat yet.

That may have been fine with a kerosene rocket but methane can become explosive if allowed to diffuse through the air.

NM... Totally wrong.

The tweet is totally wrong, and the Bernard 68 Void is only 500 light years away.

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Barnard 68 is a molecular cloud, dark absorption nebula or Bok globule, towards the southern constellation Ophiuchus and well within our own galaxy at a distance of about 500 light-years, so close that not a single star can be seen between it and the Sun. American astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard added this nebula to his catalog of dark nebulae in 1919. His catalog was published in 1927, at which stage it included some 350 objects. Because of its opacity, its interior is extremely cold, its temperature being about 16 K (257 C/-431 F). Its mass is about twice that of the Sun and it measures about half a light-year across.

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This is the Bernard 68 Void, a 330 Million lightyear diameter ( or .27% of the observable universe) void of sheer nothingness. That only contains a total of 60 galaxies.
More: https://t.co/zP49MxJCam pic.twitter.com/vpHzuPeGum

— Black Hole (@konstructivizm) July 12, 2022

will25u said:

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This photo is really impressive. 330 million light year diameter, with only 60 galaxies inside. Also, every point of light in the photo is a galaxy with 100's of billions of stars.

This is the Bernard 68 Void, a 330 Million lightyear diameter ( or .27% of the observable universe) void of sheer nothingness. That only contains a total of 60 galaxies.
More: https://t.co/zP49MxJCam pic.twitter.com/vpHzuPeGum

— Black Hole (@konstructivizm) July 12, 2022

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What is that? If it's nothingness, we'd be seeing galaxies behind the void. Is it a dust cloud? I've never heard of any dust cloud anywhere near that big though.

It's a dust cloud in our galaxy. It's just really cold so it doesn't have the neat details other nebulae have.

TexAgs91 said:

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will25u said:

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This photo is really impressive. 330 million light year diameter, with only 60 galaxies inside. Also, every point of light in the photo is a galaxy with 100's of billions of stars.

This is the Bernard 68 Void, a 330 Million lightyear diameter ( or .27% of the observable universe) void of sheer nothingness. That only contains a total of 60 galaxies.
More: https://t.co/zP49MxJCam pic.twitter.com/vpHzuPeGum

— Black Hole (@konstructivizm) July 12, 2022

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What is that? If it's nothingness, we'd be seeing galaxies behind the void. Is it a dust cloud? I've never heard of any dust cloud anywhere near that big though.

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I changed the post above. I was totally off, and so is that tweet. But it is still a neat photo.

will25u said:

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TexAgs91 said:

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will25u said:

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This photo is really impressive. 330 million light year diameter, with only 60 galaxies inside. Also, every point of light in the photo is a galaxy with 100's of billions of stars.

This is the Bernard 68 Void, a 330 Million lightyear diameter ( or .27% of the observable universe) void of sheer nothingness. That only contains a total of 60 galaxies.
More: https://t.co/zP49MxJCam pic.twitter.com/vpHzuPeGum

— Black Hole (@konstructivizm) July 12, 2022

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What is that? If it's nothingness, we'd be seeing galaxies behind the void. Is it a dust cloud? I've never heard of any dust cloud anywhere near that big though.

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I changed the post above. I was totally off, and so is that tweet. But it is still a neat photo.

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No worries. I remember when my 7th grade science teacher showed us what she called a picture of the Milky Way Galaxy

(eta: although I suppose she was right if she was referring to the stars in the foreground)

will25u said:

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TexAgs91 said:

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will25u said:

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This photo is really impressive. 330 million light year diameter, with only 60 galaxies inside. Also, every point of light in the photo is a galaxy with 100's of billions of stars.

This is the Bernard 68 Void, a 330 Million lightyear diameter ( or .27% of the observable universe) void of sheer nothingness. That only contains a total of 60 galaxies.
More: https://t.co/zP49MxJCam pic.twitter.com/vpHzuPeGum

— Black Hole (@konstructivizm) July 12, 2022

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What is that? If it's nothingness, we'd be seeing galaxies behind the void. Is it a dust cloud? I've never heard of any dust cloud anywhere near that big though.

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I changed the post above. I was totally off, and so is that tweet. But it is still a neat photo.

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Definitely a neat photo. When I go down the rabbit hole of space YouTube I tend to gravitate towards the Bootes Void, which is a relatively empty part of space that is 330 million light years in diameter.

Depending on your thoughts about why the universe expansion is still accelerating and how long that keeps up, eventually all galaxies will be isolated. Without the development of faster-than-light travel or signaling, there will be billions of stars and planets that believe they're completely alone in the universe because their ability to see other galaxies will not be able to keep up with the rate the universe expands. If the Milky Way had been in the middle of the Bootes Void, we wouldn't have known there were other galaxies until the 1960s.

Boggles the mind pretty quickly.

Obviously this happens enough that it's part of the wiki

Quote:

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The Boötes void has been often associated with images of Barnard 68, a dark nebula that does not allow light to pass through; however, the images of Barnard 68 are much darker than those observed of the Boötes void, as the nebula is much closer and there are fewer stars in front of it, as well as its being a physical mass that blocks light passing through.

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Apparently the booster is headed back to the high bay, where some additional Raptor's await it. Ah well, hopefully only a week or so of setback. August is still a nominal goal for launch attempt.

I'd be super surprised if it was just a week setback. But this is SpaceX and they continually surprise.

Oh, it was just a guess on my part.

He really wants to get rid of those shrouds around the engines. Ironically, those might have saved several/many of the engines.

Most importantly, we need to delete or thermally protect remaining secondary structure, so we can remove shrouds

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 14, 2022

Technically if he removed the shrouds, the engines would be capable of handling it.

But I agree, they probably helped here

Glad to see this idiot go

Putin fires head of Russian space agency in huge shake-up

Rogozin was the guy who seemed to be rooting for the ISS to fall on one of his ISS partner's countries.

About twice as much useful mass to orbit as rest of Earth combined

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 18, 2022

I'm sure he means "than the rest of launch providers on earth combined"

What's earth itself put out on its own? Volcanoes, H and He?

TexAgs91 said:

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Glad to see this idiot go

Putin fires head of Russian space agency in huge shake-up

Rogozin was the guy who seemed to be rooting for the ISS to fall on one of his ISS partner's countries.

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As with all things Russia (and maybe US at this point??), it's great to see one idiot go, but hopefully the next person isn't an even bigger idiot.

Yeah, kinda worries me they may be bringing in someone just as anti-US, but more articulate.

Here's a pretty cool video I just now saw on for Apollo 16's 50th anniversary (actually it came out last year)

Haven't seen anything about this company stoke posted here yet. They have raised over 70 million dollars so should get a mention here.

Stoked says they are making a fully reusable 1st and 2nd stage designed for less than 24 hour turn around and high cadence.

Their current focus seems to be proving out the second stage only. From what I can tell, it's got an array of thrusters, all powered by one huge pump.

They don't have a first stage design yet, seems their angle is re-imaging the second stage to make it cheaper and reusable, and to prove that before they develop a first stage.

No where is an anticipated cost or payload capacity published except for the phrase "20 times cheaper." Still seems very early, and without know performance metrics. This one is a long shot.

https://www.geekwire.com/2021/breakthrough-energy-ventures-leads-65m-funding-round-for-stoke-spaces-reusable-rocket-stages/


https://www.stokespace.com/

Methane? Reusable 1st and 2nd stage? Best of luck to them. Sounds like a Falcon 9 using Starship technology.

The question is, if Starship is fully operational, does it make sense to have a smaller launcher? Since you've pushed most of the cost out of the equation already, the smaller launcher would have to be really cheap to operate. Unless they can get to orbit faster than Starship can, which seems very unlikely with all the headway SpaceX has.

I think there's still plenty of room for small launchers. Starship really kills the business case for SLS and New Glenn though.

A lot of people would say that Falcon 9 has hurt the demand for Starship from a launch standpoint. Because of Falcon 9 limitations, more and more satellites are being built with their own thrusters to position themselves independently after they're deployed. Just not that many huge satellites being built that would require a heavy lift vehicle at this point.

But the counterpoint is that it'll be cheaper to launch a starship than falcon once they're up and running. So how much cheaper would it really be to launch a smaller version of starship? Supposedly their launch cadence is going to be very rapid as well... In the hours timeframe.

Obviously this is a new frontier since that scale of reuse, turnaround, etc is still not operational. But if this is the next generation of orbit, it'll make any non-reusable lift prohibitely expensive.

bthotugigem05 said:

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I think there's still plenty of room for small launchers. Starship really kills the business case for SLS and New Glenn though.

A lot of people would say that Falcon 9 has hurt the demand for Starship from a launch standpoint. Because of Falcon 9 limitations, more and more satellites are being built with their own thrusters to position themselves independently after they're deployed. Just not that many huge satellites being built that would require a heavy lift vehicle at this point.

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Small launchers I am dubious about long term, just because they typically don't have full recoverability/reusability for upper stages.

The mid-size (F9 equivalent) rockets being built/designed by Rocketlab Neutron/Relativity Terran R that include (close to) full reusability, essentially, should be very cost competitive per kg unless/until starship really does hit the fantastical design goals it has for rapid/easy re-use.

SpaceX is amazing, yes, but the infrastructure for all that to happen won't even be built out (sea-based launchers, mass production, fuel/tanker storage, many launch towers) until 2030 at the earliest, and as with F9 being used predominantly for Starlink to drive early high-pace launches, I am guessing Starship will have a lot of starlink/moonship/nasa/mars types of missions on it's manifest early on, not a crap ton (see what I did there?) of commercial launches.

Ship 24 completed two additional spin prime tests today, making for three in total since Monday.

📸@LabPadre
🔴https://t.co/8jbZBQ08k7#SpaceX @elonmusk https://t.co/YIGPO5jpqp pic.twitter.com/ChEnACHRiI

— TankWatchers (@WatchersTank) July 20, 2022

Decay said:

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But the counterpoint is that it'll be cheaper to launch a starship than falcon once they're up and running. So how much cheaper would it really be to launch a smaller version of starship? Supposedly their launch cadence is going to be very rapid as well... In the hours timeframe.

Obviously this is a new frontier since that scale of reuse, turnaround, etc is still not operational. But if this is the next generation of orbit, it'll make any non-reusable lift prohibitely expensive.

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I just wonder how much demand is out there for the commercial satellite market.

At a conference recently a SpaceX guy was saying how Starship would require people to think differently and get away from the mindset that they're mass-constrained when it comes to building satellites or rovers/landers. If SpaceX can prove out in-orbit refueling the orders of magnitude are insane for what they can deliver.

I'm hoping Elon's first big flex is going and getting Hubble.

Quote:

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I'm hoping Elon's first big flex is going and getting Hubble.

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Never thought of this. That would be awesome. Hubble needs some love, with everyone dunking on it with James Webb images lately.

I could see them returning it to earth more than repairing it. Especially with potential replacements sitting ready to go.

I'm reasonably sure that a retrieved hubble would be the record holder for "longest time in orbit" of any returned object by several times over.

NASA is aiming for late August/early September launch of Artemis 1

https://www.space.com/artemis-1-moon-rocket-launch-date-august-2022

That booster took some damage after hitting a bridge along I-10 on its way from California.

The bridge was in Van Horn, Texas. Apparently at the exit for the road up to Blue Origin's launch site.

This has probably been covered at some point in this thread, but a nice video anyway (not sure if they'll even use the sabatier process on mars):



Interesting/steady drumbeat of ongoing testing @ BC: