Video of Raptor mV3 6m+ test ascent run.

Wonderful, I like this 6min long uninterrupted, uncut, soundtrack. I want a high resolution version of it and play it in the HiFi studio of my friend with closed eyes!

BOOSTER 19 / SHIP 39 ROLLOUT!
A new road closure has been posted on the Starbase website, from the production site all the way to Masseys.

​​​​​​​This almost certainly means Booster 19 or Ship 39 is heading out tonight for the start of the testing campaign.

VideoStarbase Pad B was a little frosty yesterday, as teams went through around 13 hours of testing of the tank farm and related GSE systems, sending venting clouds into the sky, as the pad prepares for launches next year.

Delivery of the first barge to transport boosters & starships from Texas to the Cape.


https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....a5ad13ad6e.png
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Video……..

Going to be interesting to see how they choose to lay them down - booster in particular.

Yes, indeed. Also I wonder if the design and build is fit for this purpose and how much otherwise useless weight it adds. On the other hand - they have to transport it somehow this distance. .... Thinking twice - why not just hop over the Gulf of A. and be catched :}

I was wondering the same i.e. why not have a ferry flight ?

:ok:

I can think of several reasons.

1. How many successful launch/catches of the booster will the government require before they allow a catch at the KSC?

2. Will every booster move require a Starship for every shuttle flight? There will be far fewer boosters (supposedly able to launch/recover/launch several times a day) whist many payloads will be tankers, moon landers etc unable to be caught). If not, then unless a booster only profile is developed the boosters will need to to moved on a barge.

3. There has been discussion of shuttle flights for the Staship, which is pretty robust. But a lot of the structural integrity of the booster will be provided by the fuel load, which also relates to the G load during launch and max-Q; can it launch will a partial lot without breaching those limits? If a full load is required what will be the flight profile? The path of the Caribbean is now proven, but one inclined to the north to allow a burn-back to land at the KSC will presumably overfly or go near Cuba, the Bahamas etc.

Looks like we might eventually need a thread for Starship Vandeberg....

That’s ramping up to 20 Starships a week and then onto 200 per week…..

Musk:

10,000!!!!!
27 per day?
Is he having a laugh!

Even 1,000 per year sounds insane. Boeing and Airbus "mass produce" 737s and A320 series aircraft - and don't come close to 1,000 per year.
I think one/day would be damn impressive.

We need more space ports! A whole lot more ... (and we have to ask the Old One for more LEOs).

I am glad for Trumps call for at least a Space Traffic Management/Control already.

If you looking at building a civilisation on Mars that is going to need the transport of landers to carry/be housing, factories, machinery, food, materials etc a regular shipping fleet will be needed. Many of those ships will be one way tankers and freighters.

You are looking at space moving from a scientific to an industrial basis.

Meanwhile, even as we wait for Starship V3 first flight, V4 is being designed.

Musk:

Can't help wondering how they're going to create the propellant required to keep a fleet that size in the air. 1500t for Starship and 3400t for the Booster so for easy math call it a round 5K metric tonnes per launch with US->UK conversion, venting and other losses. At a 3.6:1 ratio that's 1087t of CH4 and 3913t O2.

Commercial plants look like they can generate 500t a day of O2. Methane I guess is a bit easier as you a) need less and b) just pump it out the ground, but gonna need plants to purify and liquify the stuff. Struggling to find anything on that online with a cursory search so focusing on O2...

I've seen mention of 25 launches a day to settle Mars, so they'll need to generate 97Kt of O2 per day to feed that which is 195 of those plants at full capacity with no down time. Just a launch a day will need 8. Even assuming no problem paying for all this kit and that you have the land to put it on, you'll need MWs to run it so add in your own power plant.... which need fuelling...

All this not a consideration I've seen factored into the cost per Kg to Mars. Maybe that's why they need the IPO!

All the ^ just some cursory Googling and math when I really should be doing something more productive - awaiting ORAC to point me at some definitive article somewhere ;)

I just imagined 1000 Starships sitting on Mars close to Mars City 1 development area, in +2 years 2000 ships. Someone should render it. I unfortunately cant operate an AI picture generator...;-)

VideoIt appears the B18.3 test tank buckled below the common dome level during crush testing at the Masseys test site this evening. It's currently unclear whether this was intentional or not. Watch till the end for a zoomed in view.

The B18.3 test article seems to have suffered a structural failure during qualification testing of the Integrated Hot Staging Ring for the V3 Booster.

It appears that it buckled beneath the common dome weld which is not ideal, considering that was not the component being tested for structural integrity.

Hopefully they were able to gather the data they were hoping for and won't need to replace this test article in order to complete this extremely important test.

Can't recall if they usually test to destruction - don't think so...