posted 04-09-2018 02:38 AM               

SpaceX main body tool for the BFR interplanetary spaceship.

posted 11-20-2018 07:40 AM               

Renaming BFR to Starship.

Technically, two parts: Starship is the spaceship/upper stage and Super Heavy is the rocket booster needed to escape Earth's deep gravity well (not needed for other planets or moons).

posted 12-24-2018 09:37 AM               

Stainless Steel Starship

• On weight of steel versus carbon composite:

  Usable strength/weight of full hard stainless at cryo is slightly better than carbon fiber, room temp is worse, high temp is vastly better.

• On whether Starship will be painted:

  Skin will get too hot for paint. Stainless mirror finish. Maximum reflectivity.

posted 01-05-2019 10:04 AM               

Good shot of SpaceX Starship flight test vehicle being assembled in Boca Chica, Texas.

Starship test vehicle under assembly will look similar to this illustration when finished. Operational Starships would obviously have windows, etc.

Engines currently on Starship hopper are a blend of Raptor development and operational parts. First hopper engine to be fired is almost finished assembly in California. Probably fires next month.

Aiming for [first flight in] 4 weeks, which probably means 8 weeks, due to unforeseen issues.

posted 01-10-2019 09:42 PM               

Starship test flight rocket just finished assembly at the SpaceX Texas launch site. This is an actual picture, not a rendering.

This is for suborbital VTOL tests. Orbital version is taller, has thicker skins (won't wrinkle) and a smoothly curving nose section.

posted 01-16-2019 04:21 PM               

SpaceX said in a statement Wednesday that the decision was made to "streamline operations."

"This decision does not impact our current manufacture, design, and launch operations in Hawthorne and Vandenberg Air Force Base," a company spokesperson said in the statement. "Additionally, SpaceX will continue recovery operations of our reusable Falcon rockets and Dragon spacecraft at the Port of Los Angeles."

Though Port of L.A. officials are "disappointed that SpaceX will not be expanding their operations at the Port of Los Angeles, we are pleased that they will continue their recovery operations here," spokesman Phillip Sanfield said in a statement.

posted 01-16-2019 07:11 PM               

The source info is incorrect. Starship and Raptor development is being done out of our HQ in Hawthorne, CA. We are building the Starship prototypes locally at our launch site in Texas, as their size makes them very difficult to transport.

posted 01-22-2019 10:13 AM               

The thing that's counterintuitive about the stainless steel is, it's obviously cheap, it's obviously fast — but it's not obviously the lightest. But it is actually the lightest. If you look at the properties of a high-quality stainless steel, the thing that isn't obvious is that at cryogenic temperatures, the strength is boosted by 50 percent.

Most steels, as you get to cryogenic temperatures, they become very brittle. You've seen the trick with liquid nitrogen on typical carbon steel: You spray liquid nitrogen, you can hit it with a hammer, it shatters like glass. That's true of most steels, but not of stainless steel that has a high chrome-nickel content. That actually increases in strength, and ductility is still very high. So you have, like, 12 to 18 percent ductility at, say, minus 330 degrees Fahrenheit. Very ductile, very tough. No fracture issues.

On the windward side, what I want to do is have the first-ever regenerative heat shield. A double-walled stainless shell — like a stainless-steel sandwich, essentially, with two layers. You just need, essentially, two layers that are joined with stringers. You flow either fuel or water in between the sandwich layer, and then you have micro-perforations on the outside — very tiny perforations — and you essentially bleed water, or you could bleed fuel, through the micro-perforations on the outside. You wouldn't see them unless you got up close. But you use transpiration cooling to cool the windward side of the rocket. So the whole thing will still look fully chrome, like this cocktail shaker in front of us. But one side will be double-walled and that serves a double purpose, which is to stiffen the structure of the vehicle so it does not suffer from the fate of the Atlas. You have a heat shield that serves double duty as structure.

Yeah.

To the best of my knowledge this has never been proposed before.

posted 01-23-2019 01:18 PM               

50 mph winds broke the mooring blocks late last night and fairing was blown over. Will take a few weeks to repair.

posted 02-01-2019 12:44 PM               

Preparing to fire the Starship Raptor engine at SpaceX Texas.

Initially making one 200 metric ton thrust engine common across ship and booster to reach the moon as fast as possible. Next versions will split to vacuum-optimized (380+ sec Isp) and sea-level thrust optimized (~250 ton).

posted 02-03-2019 10:49 PM               

First firing of Starship Raptor flight engine! So proud of great work by SpaceX team!!

posted 03-18-2019 09:35 AM               

In a series of tweets, Musk said flights of a "hopper" test vehicle, powered by a single Raptor engine, would "hopefully" begin this week pending work to integrate the engine, which arrived at the company's South Texas test site late last week, with the vehicle.

Residents of a housing subdivision known as Boca Chica Village, near the test site on the Gulf of Mexico coast east of Brownsville, Texas, received a notice Friday from local officials informing them that the company could start testing "as soon as the week of March 18, 2019," according to copies of the notice posted on social media. The notice said that a "safety zone" perimeter would be established for those tests, including checkpoints on the road leading from Brownsville past Boca Chica Village to the SpaceX site.

Asked on Twitter if the tests were in fact scheduled to begin this week, Musk replied, "Hopefully. Always many issues integrating engine & stage. First hops will lift off, but only barely."

posted 03-21-2019 09:46 AM               

STARSHIP CAM is located on South Padre Island, 6 miles away from Boca Chica Launch Pad. Visibility and clarity is relative to atmospheric conditions.

posted 04-04-2019 12:54 PM               

Starhopper completed tethered hop. All systems green.

posted 04-06-2019 12:50 PM               

Starhopper just lifted off and hit tether limits!

posted 07-25-2019 08:23 AM               

"It appears as though we have had an abort on today's test," SpaceX certification engineer Kate Tice said during a webcast of the Starhopper test. "As you can see there, the vehicle did not lift off today."

[Wednesday's] test flight was designed to be the first untethered flight for Starhopper, with its Raptor engine firing at 80% capacity, Tice said.

"This is a development program," she added. "Today was a test flight designed to test the boundaries of the vehicle."

posted 07-25-2019 10:52 PM               

Starhopper flight successful. Water towers *can* fly haha!!

posted 08-26-2019 03:30 PM               

Starhopper flight currently tracking to 5pm Texas time for 150m / ~500ft hover test.

posted 08-26-2019 05:54 PM               

Second attempt possible today, continuing to evaluate.

posted 08-26-2019 06:48 PM               

Standing down for today. Earliest next attempt is tomorrow, Tuesday, Aug. 27.

Igniters need to be inspected. We will try again tomorrow same time.

posted 08-27-2019 05:16 PM               

Congrats SpaceX team!!

posted 08-28-2019 08:18 AM               

Musk has stated that the company will instead press ahead to flights of prototypes of Starship, designed ultimately to be the reusable upper stage flown on top of a large booster called Super Heavy. Starship, though, will be able to fly on its own and even make orbit, the company says.

Two Starship prototypes are currently under construction, one at the South Texas site and the other at an industrial site in Cocoa, Florida. The Florida version of Starship will be taken by truck and barge to Cape Canaveral for test flights.

Starhopper will now be used as a vertical test stand for Raptor engine tests. "It's quite robust," Musk said of the vehicle's design in an Aug. 25 tweet.

One day Starship will land on the rusty sands of Mars.

posted 09-26-2019 11:23 PM               

Adding the rear moving fins to Starship Mk1 in Boca Chica, Texas.

Lifting lower section of Starship.

On the transporter.

posted 09-26-2019 11:23 PM               

Three Raptors on a Starship.

posted 09-27-2019 05:48 PM            

I look forward to the SpaceX announcement tomorrow. In the meantime, Commercial Crew is years behind schedule. NASA expects to see the same level of enthusiasm focused on the investments of the American taxpayer. It’s time to deliver.

posted 09-27-2019 07:39 PM               

The Falcon 9 rocket is required to fly X number of flights in a fixed configuration, gaining acceptable results, before it gains certification of crewed flight. The Crew Dragon vehicle has had a setback after an unexpected flaw in material was discovered, and NASA should fully comprehend the importance of making sure the design and testing is complete, and that all safety checks have been met before they commit to launching, and also that putting public pressure to launch has resulted in some bad public relations in the past. Such public comment could do more harm than good.

posted 09-27-2019 10:58 PM               

Starship will allow us to inhabit other worlds. To make life as we know it multiplanetary.

Starship halves being joined.