Gonna be exciting.......

glhs837

glhs837

Power with Control
@vraiblonde ,

Someone posted this, and pointed out that everybody on SPI is inside that red circle......

153722
 
Sneakers

Sneakers

Just sneakin' around....
One of the video sources for the live flight was shot by someone on SPI, their name and credits were in the vid.
 
glhs837

glhs837

Power with Control
vraiblonde said:
The comments from the bots on that tweet are breathtakingly ignorant. You'd think by now those people wouldn't have the power to still shock me.
Click to expand...
I saw someone on reddit claim that the whole starship effort was a money laundering scheme....
 
vraiblonde

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
Let's see if this works.....

This is the same vantage point I had watching it. Not my video, also there's some swears so turn your sound down if you get the vapors over that sort of thing...

 
glhs837

glhs837

Power with Control
Kyle said:
Waited just a little too long to hit the thrust.
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Nah, timing was right on the money, even slowed enough, then they ran out of pressure in the methane header tank. See, the engines are gravity fed from the main tanks. But once you flip it horizontal, that fuel cannot reach the feed lines anymore. So they have header tanks, one for LOX, one for methane. They are pressurized from Carbon Overwrapped Pressure Vessels (COPVs). On earlier SNs, the COPVs were visible as the black cylindrical tanks. Now they live inside the skirt with the engines. The header tanks are the small ball shapes, the methane one one between the large tanks built into the "common dome" the separates the LOX on the bottom from the methane on top, and the LOX header ball in the nose.

153754


So after the flip, they switch fuel feeds from mains to headers. Which worked perfectly, as two engines fired right up and nailed the flip. If you watch Vrais vid, you can see the rocket slow almost to a stop a few hundred feet up. Then they ran out of pressure in the methane header, and lost one engine, which started burning green. Thats when it sped back up and impacted. That green is what they call an "engine rich mixture" as the engine, lacking methane to burn with the LOX, burns the copper in the bell instead.
 
glhs837

glhs837

Power with Control
I thought this was an animation until I saw the sample heat sheild tiles and then the fire.... This was from a camera basically right at the landing pad..... watch those 500,000lb thrust engines dance to make the flip and them stabilize the craft.......... When you understand exactly what an amazing feat of software and hardware that is..... combined with the aero control of having giant flaps skydive a 120ton 16 story building......... Even Bezos was impressed :)

Just watched it again, noted how the nose flaps stayed deployed to maximize drag on the nose during the flip while the tail flaps folded up, nice touch. This isnt slow motion, it's a real speed feed.


 
Sneakers

Sneakers

Just sneakin' around....
glhs837 said:
I thought this was an animation until I saw the sample heat sheild tiles and then the fire.... This was from a camera basically right at the landing pad..... watch those 500,000lb thrust engines dance to make the flip and them stabilize the craft.......... When you understand exactly what an amazing feat of software and hardware that is..... combined with the aero control of having giant flaps skydive a 120ton 16 story building......... Even Bezos was impressed :)

Just watched it again, noted how the nose flaps stayed deployed to maximize drag on the nose during the flip while the tail flaps folded up, nice touch. This isnt slow motion, it's a real speed feed.
Click to expand...
Great perspective. :yay:
 
glhs837

glhs837

Power with Control
The remnants of yesterdays test article, SN8. Should be scraped clean by Monday when SN9 rolls out to the launch pad. I expect the next flight is less than three weeks away........ Adding more pressure to the header tanks should be easy enough.
153763
 
itsbob

itsbob

I bowl overhand
glhs837 said:
The remnants of yesterdays test article, SN8. Should be scraped clean by Monday when SN9 rolls out to the launch pad. I expect the next flight is less than three weeks away........ Adding more pressure to the header tanks should be easy enough. View attachment 153763
Click to expand...
I like it when people are in the frame and put the size into perspective..
 
glhs837

glhs837

Power with Control
itsbob said:
Just a guess, but I'm thinking they aren't re-using any of that one.
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Nope, but when someone tweeted asking Musk to keep that nosecone, he agreed it will be kept. I wonder how the Tesla batteries and motors that powered the flaps came out
 
glhs837

glhs837

Power with Control
So, here's an overhead by a guy who rents a small aircraft and flies around the site on a regular basis. Regular little micro industry springing up to watch over every aspect of this effort :) Same for the Tesla Gigafactories, there are drone operators who do daily flyovers of those sites. Initially security got onto people, they tweeted Musk, who told them as long as the drone operators didn't cause any danger, let them be.

In any case, here's SN8s final resting place. Link to super high res image you can pan around. Landing legs, downcomer, thrust puck, dome structures, it's all there, doesnt look like anything of consequence went too far.
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