Starship SN9 – The Muskette https://themuskette.com Wed, 16 Dec 2020 18:48:40 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.2 https://themuskette.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/cropped-elon-fav-32x32.png Starship SN9 – The Muskette https://themuskette.com 32 32 Are We About to See Two Starships on the Launchpad? https://themuskette.com/are-we-about-to-see-two-starships-on-the-launchpad/ https://themuskette.com/are-we-about-to-see-two-starships-on-the-launchpad/#respond Wed, 16 Dec 2020 18:48:40 +0000 https://muskette.com/?p=3066

After last week’s accident involving Starship SN9 in the High Bay combined with the rapid progress of the next batch of prototypes, it’s fair to wonder what SpaceX’s plan is to wrap up 2020.

Both Pad A and Pad B are operational at the launch site. SpaceX clarified as much in a release on its website just prior to the SN8 test flight and CEO Elon Musk has also said in response to a tweet from RGV Aerial Photography that such a situation will occur “real soon.”

Also, at the time of this article, the next planned road closures for Highway 4 are Monday, Dec. 28 and Tuesday, Dec. 29.

We know SN9 has a significantly damaged canard and a slightly damaged aft flap after last week’s mishap. The large crane “Tankzilla” has already moved the prototype out of the High Bay to remove the broken test stand it was sitting on before putting it back in. As of the writing of this article, the crane was still securely holding the ship in place.

The question now becomes where and when SpaceX will make the repairs. Will it be on the launch pad itself? During assembly of Starship prototypes, canards are typically attached to the nosecone before the cone itself is even mated with the barrel section. It’s easiest and safest to attach these aerosurfaces when the cone is closest to the ground.

SN9 obviously presents a different problem as the ship is already fully stacked and the damaged canard is roughly 150 feet off the ground. Squeezing into the High Bay past Tankzilla to make such a repair/replacement would seem inefficient at best and quite dangerous at worst.

The aft flap presents less of an issue given its position on the prototype and replacing it in the High Bay would be considerably less dangerous.

On the day of SN9’s fall, we saw another flap being delivered to the production site, but there’s growing speculation that could’ve been meant for SN10 or possibly another in-progress prototype.

Currently, SN10’s tank section is fully outfitted in the Mid Bay and only lacks aerosurfaces for completion. On the evening of Dec. 15, Mary from NSF spotted a canard being installed on SN10’s nosecone. By all intents and purposes, it’s nearly ready for a rollout of its own.

That brings us back to the original question: is SpaceX planning to have both SN9 and SN10 on the pad at the same time? Will SN9’s pushed-back timeline and the rapid advent of SN10 make it more feasible that they share a pad? The layout of the launch pad area gives each pad considerable distance from the other in the event of a launch, so there’s minimal risk that one would be damaged by the other during a test flight.

It could still be that only SN9 makes it out to the pad first after these delays/repairs are over. Or, at this point, maybe SN10 cuts in line. One thing is for sure, it makes very little sense to have another near-fully assembled prototype loitering at the production site for another month and it should be an exciting end to an otherwise dreary year no matter what happens!

]]> https://themuskette.com/are-we-about-to-see-two-starships-on-the-launchpad/feed/ 0 SpaceX Moves Quickly to Repair Damaged SN9 https://themuskette.com/spacex-moves-quickly-to-repair-damaged-sn9/ https://themuskette.com/spacex-moves-quickly-to-repair-damaged-sn9/#respond Tue, 15 Dec 2020 01:54:22 +0000 https://muskette.com/?p=3061 Just days after SpaceX’s SN8 (Starship Number 8) put on a thrilling display in the skies over Boca Chica, the company has run into a small situation with its next fully built-out prototype, SN9.

The fully-assembled prototype had been resting in the High Bay (the tallest of three massive storage/assembly buildings) at the production facility when cameras from YouTuber and local resident LabPadre caught the 160+ foot tall craft falling forward and colliding with the building’s walls.

Per photos from the NASASpaceFlight forum, SN9 has since been righted by the massive crane nicknamed “Tankzilla” by the SpaceX fan community and the damaged stand which had apparently buckled under its weight removed. It’s worth noting that this is the first time SpaceX has fully stacked a Starship prototype at the production site on a normal stand and not at the launch pad.

One of the canards already in place on SN9’s nosecone suffered significant damage and will likely need to be replaced, and one of the aft flaps showed slight disfiguration as well. The nosecone itself had a noticeable dent from the impact but, by and large, the rest of the ship’s hull seemed to have escaped no worse for wear.

After the stand was removed, SN9 was placed back inside the High Bay.

The outside of the High Bay shows no indentation where the ship hit, so the building’s stability seems to be intact. Scaffolding that lines the interior of the High Bay may not have been so lucky as SN9 apparently fell directly into it.

The incident comes just days after Cameron County authorities published a planned road closure for 12-9 p.m. CDT on Monday, Dec. 14 for the stated purpose of rolling SN9 to the launch pad, an astonishingly fast turnaround given SN8 flew its test flight just days earlier, and its wreckage is still being cleared from the landing pad. That closure was cancelled Monday morning and a new one has not been scheduled to replace at the time of publishing of this piece.

On the day of the incident, “Everyday Astronaut” YouTuber Tim Dodd reported on Twitter that the crews on the ground were “calm and collected” immediately after the incident.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has not commented on the issue via Twitter, and left Brownsville after the accident to return to Hawthorne, CA via the Twitter account @ElonJet.

While the SN9 situation is addressed, prototypes SN10 and 11 are still positioned in the Mid Bay, and booms/cranes have been seen working on them continuously. SN10 lacks only aft flaps and a nosecone to be fully assembled, and SN11 is also nearly complete with only stacking and aero surfaces needed.

Twitter user @brendan2908 has an updated docket of the progress of each Starship prototype in production whose components have been spotted and the latest update shows rapid progress.

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