Starbase Sunday #4

29 Jun

Written By Magnum

Welcome to the 4th edition of our upgraded Starbase Sunday series! Following last week’s sad article due to the Ship 36 explosion, we are now ready to bring you some exciting and unexpected news!

June 22nd - Sunday

At Pad B, teams conducted a fit check of a corner pipe section that would join the 4 pieces of water manifolds on the second Orbital Launch Mount together. After conducting the fit check, it was removed, although it was lifted back in place shortly before 8 am.

Massey’s cleanup continued, with cranes and teams staging debris in certain areas in order to assess the damages; nothing has been removed/replenished yet.

June 23rd - Monday

At the production site, construction of the Gigabay is in full swing, with excavators doing the remaining work before drilling can begin; speaking of drilling, the CFA drill rig was parked there, and the auger was laid to the right, ready for future installation.

At Massey’s, cleanup continued, with several big pieces of Ship 36 being lifted and put in dedicated zones.

June 24th - Tuesday

Today we start at Massey, where cleanup of Ship 36’s debris continued without issues… or almost. In the early afternoon, a crane lifting a big piece of debris tipped over violently, maybe due to terrain instability, crane instability, too much weight, or even failure of some components; no reports of injuries have been received, so let’s hope nobody was injured.

Meanwhile, it looks like a methane vaporizer has been removed, while the other 2 (also badly damaged) are still in place.

At the production site, in a random turn of events, the CFA drill rig was moved from its area next to the Gigabay site to beside the Starfactory; this isn’t stopping the excavators, though, which are working at their best to prepare the site!

And in an even more unexpected turn of events… the HSR was rolled from the Starfactory to Megabay 1! But why move it if we’ve already said there won’t be a launch anytime soon? Or will it?

June 25th - Wednesday

Starting at the production site, teams kept working on the ground, laying geotextile over the clear ground, for an unknown reason.

At the launch site, we’ve had some deliveries! 4 clamp arms have been delivered to Pad B ahead of installation inside the OLM! These arms will be installed inside, for a total of 20, and they will house the hold-down clamps for future Boosters; there are already 4 other clamp arms inside OLM-2, which were used as lift points during lift; however, no clamp has been installed yet.

June 26th - Thursday

Starting at Pad B, the LR11k crane was laid down for maintenance work early in the morning, readying it for the lifts of the day, including one of the clamp arms that was delivered yesterday! Installation started in the evening, with the clamp arm installed flawlessly over the course of a few hours.

Earlier in the day, however, cladding was installed on the second tower: cladding consists of metal panels that are installed over the tower sections to protect the internals from the future exhaust of gases during launches and catches.

At Massey’s, cleanup efforts continued following the incident involving a crane tipping over, which seems to be still there.

At Sanchez, NSF spotted a flame diverter cap, which is the piece that covers and joins the 2 parts of the flame trench… but the interesting bit is that the flame trench at Pad B already has it… so could this be for a future, repurposed flame trench at Pad A? Or maybe to be shipped at the tower at LC-39A? I guess we’ll know!

In the Starfactory instead, NSF spotted several nose cones, which should be for Ships up to Ship 43, meaning that production is finally ramping up for Block 3!

Overnight, at Pad B, there were 4 additional clamp arms delivered.

June 27th - Friday

During the night, at Pad B, another clamp arm was installed, albeit with a few hiccups: it was first lifted in before being removed after a couple of hours and brought to the ground. After some additional checks, it was finally installed in OLM-2.

Later that day, another clamp arm was installed in the OLM, marking the 3rd clamp arm installed in these 2 days.

At Massey’s, cleanup work continued flawlessly, but today was a special day: some venting was spotted! SpaceX was likely verifying whether a system was working, which means they’ve begun recommissioning the tank farm at Massey’s! Thanks to this, they’ll know which parts can be repaired and which will need to be removed.

June 28th - Saturday

At Pad B, another clamp arm was installed, completing the first batch of 4; this means there are now 8 out of 20 clamp arms installed, with 4 more already there waiting for installation. Later that day, 2 additional clamp arms were installed inside the Orbital Launch Mount, bringing the total to 10 out of 20!

But now, we need to cover something big, something that may be the craziest thing SpaceX has ever done… during the night between the 27th and the 28th, SQR3, a Ship stand, was rolled to Pad A… you may be thinking this is not a big deal, but here’s why it is: with no Ship on it and no Ship at the launch site, there was no reason for it to roll to the launch site, unless SpaceX was pursuing the idea of conducting Ship 37’s static fire on Pad A’s OLM… yes, they will static fire a Ship in the same place where they static fire Boosters, a place not designed for Ship static fires, so how will they achieve that? Zack Golden has made a thread on it, which you can read here, but the overall idea behind it is this:

Like the Ship SF stand, a normal Ship stand has 6 hold-down clamps, so it would be good enough to hold down the Ship during a static fire; to mount SQR3 on the OLM at Pad A, they would need to remove the legs of the stand and add several I-Beams on the OLM in order to place SQR3 on top; these I-Beam supports would need to take into account the dimensions in different places of the stand, and they’d need to compensate for the missing I-Beam at the BQD structure; ok, now we have the stand there, which can work as an interface to the Ship… but how would they fuel it and static fire it? First of all, they’ll have to add 6 stabilizer brackets on the stand for RVac stabilizers; then, they would need to modify the BQD by changing the hoses with longer ones to reach the Ship. According to Zack Golden, SpaceX has such hoses in storage, which might work for the job. And then, they’d need an SQD plate… luckily, they have one in storage at Sanchez, which seems to be in good condition.

Disclaimer: this is all just a theory and speculation, but it seems like SpaceX is leaning towards this. The modifications and mean of use for the SQR3 are taken by Zack Golden, but keep in mind this is still unconfirmed speculation. However, if SpaceX decides to do this, it will probably be one of the craziest things they’ll have ever done, and if successful, it might allow a Starship launch weeks ahead of schedule. Also… doing this would likely mean they will rebuild Massey’s hardware for Block 3 Ships, possibly skipping Ship 38, and would set them on a track for a Block 3 launch late this year or early next year. I suggest you revisit us next week at 13:00 UTC on Sunday, because things are about to get crazy!

Raptor testing

June 22nd

No Raptor tests were conducted today.

June 23rd

- Raptor south - 12:38:07 - 20s

- Raptor south - 12:38:38 - 20s

- Raptor south - 12:39:08 - 20s

- Raptor south - 12:39:38 - 20s

- Raptor vertical - 17:10:07 - 47s

- Raptor vertical - 20:47:27 - 131s / 2m11s

Total tests: 6

Total fire time: 258s / 4m18s