The Official Space and Astronomy Thread v. Well, this is weird.

[El Barto]

I think the footage of all the cables crashing down was a controlled demo.

They weren't to that point yet. A controlled demolition was certainly coming up, that was the recommendation of numerous engineering consultants, including the CoE, but I don't think they knew how to do it safely yet. Moreover, they would have salvaged what they could have before blowing the thing. Lastly, it was too uncontrolled to be controlled, if you see my point. That was a violent failure. My take on it is that they were still conducting analyses and were coincidentally at the point of interest when the failure occurred. 

Here's the official report on the decommissioning. At the bottom are three different engineering assessments that I'm rather keen to dig into when time permits.

https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=301674

[Chino]

I'll be damned. What timing.

[El Barto]

I'll be damned. What timing.

Yeah, I'm guessing the fourth thing out of that drone operator's mouth, after 3 rounds of hollllllly fuck, was "I didn't do it! Wasn't even close to it! I was ten feet away, I swear!"

[faizoff]

I'll be damned. What timing.

Yeah, I'm guessing the fourth thing out of that drone operator's mouth, after 3 rounds of hollllllly fuck, was "I didn't do it! Wasn't even close to it! I was ten feet away, I swear!"

I was wondering about that drone and thought the same myself. What a capture.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

I'll be damned. What timing.

Yeah, I'm guessing the fourth thing out of that drone operator's mouth, after 3 rounds of hollllllly fuck, was "I didn't do it! Wasn't even close to it! I was ten feet away, I swear!"

I was wondering about that drone and thought the same myself. What a capture.

Yea that had to be a holy crap moment for the drone operator. Unreal to see the pure force from the cables being pulled from the attachment. 

[El Barto]

I'll be damned. What timing.

Yeah, I'm guessing the fourth thing out of that drone operator's mouth, after 3 rounds of hollllllly fuck, was "I didn't do it! Wasn't even close to it! I was ten feet away, I swear!"

I was wondering about that drone and thought the same myself. What a capture.

Yea that had to be a holy crap moment for the drone operator. Unreal to see the pure force from the cables being pulled from the attachment. 

Yeah, I was surprised by how violent the whole thing was. There really wasn't any place safe in an enormous area, all the way out beyond the backstay anchorages, which is more than double the diameter of the dish itself. In the drone video you can see the entire anchor point for the number 12 tower backstays being ripped out of the ground, and one of the cables cutting a lateral swath through the trees. When they said they didn't think it could be repaired safely they definitely weren't kidding.

[Chino]

I'll be damned. What timing.

Yeah, I'm guessing the fourth thing out of that drone operator's mouth, after 3 rounds of hollllllly fuck, was "I didn't do it! Wasn't even close to it! I was ten feet away, I swear!"

I was wondering about that drone and thought the same myself. What a capture.

Yea that had to be a holy crap moment for the drone operator. Unreal to see the pure force from the cables being pulled from the attachment. 

Yeah, I was surprised by how violent the whole thing was. There really wasn't any place safe in an enormous area, all the way out beyond the backstay anchorages, which is more than double the diameter of the dish itself. In the drone video you can see the entire anchor point for the number 12 tower backstays being ripped out of the ground, and one of the cables cutting a lateral swath through the trees. When they said they didn't think it could be repaired safely they definitely weren't kidding.

That's why I thought it was an intentional demolition at first. Those cables came out with such force, I figured there was a charge placed there or something.

[El Barto]

That's why I thought it was an intentional demolition at first. Those cables came out with such force, I figured there was a charge placed there or something.

The cables on the other side of the dish (tower 12 [o'clock]) were under a load of 512 KIP (thousand pounds). A half million pounds aren't going to let go gracefully. But yeah, it's still shocking to see happen like that.

After reading up on the engineering reports and assessments, this is going to be a pretty easy one to solve. Shoddy workmanship and/or manufacturing. Two different components failed in different manners, and they fell far short of its designed safety margin. Each tower had 4 mains and 2 aux cables. The auxiliary cables were only ~25 years old, installed when they installed the Gregorian dome. One pulled out of its socket, and the others were showing significant slippage. Either the anchors were installed wrong, or the mortar failed. The one that failed was on tower 4, which therefore distributed its load to the other 4+1 cables. This shouldn't have been an issue at all. Engineers over-engineer. They were operating on the assumption that they'd simply replace Aux-N and get on with it.

The second point of failure was the main cables, original equipment, which turned out to be far weaker than they were designed to be. One of those failed at tower 4 not quite a month ago, two months after the aux cable failure, which took everybody by surprise. Upon further examination other cables were showing burst wires, and that's when the whole thing became a lost cause. Even if the rest of the cables were of good quality it would still put tower 4 well below its designed safety factor, and they weren't. Six days later recommendation went from ways to salvage it to basically "GTFO, right now!" Two weeks later they started doing just that, and ten days later it fell over. The drone was just monitoring the continued failure of the tower 4 cables. You can see frayed and burst wires in the drone footage before the ultimate failure, which had been building up over the last couple of weeks.

So, yeah. The anchors installed 25 years ago were breaking down, and the original cables were failing well short of their designed load capacities.

[Azyiu]

So, yeah. The anchors installed 25 years ago were breaking down, and the original cables were failing well short of their designed load capacities.

Sounds depressing... I mean, poor design or installation and then thanks to subsequence poor maintenance were the culprits... 

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Great video analyze by Scott Manley:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59WQIRvezzI&ab_channel=ScottManley

[Chino]

SN8 high altitude test today  They're going for just shy of an 8 mile high hop. Should be a great show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhxtcRKEyQA

[Chino]

That SN8 launch was one of the craziest things I've seen in a while. What a show.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Was watching Everyday Astronauts livestream and you can't help but get excited by their excitment. 

I just saw a recap and didn't actually know it's flightplan. I thought the plan was to just bellyflop into a huge fireball so it was so cool seeing it stabilize before impact and well....almost land it. 

[v_clortho]

That was awesome. I bet they get it next time.

[Azyiu]

At least it landed... just not in one piece... 

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Just to be clear, it was never intended to actually land right? I mean I saw no landing gear.

[Chino]

I watched Everyday Astronaut's stream as well. I love that guy's content. I kick him $5 a month as a supporter and bought a shirt yesterday. Thought he deserved it after all the footage he brought us. There were like three different moments pre-belly flop that I thought were going to result in fireworks. I thought the engines were failing throughout the launch, but after watching SpaceX's footage last night, all three relit without issue when it came in for landing.

Just to be clear, it was never intended to actually land right? I mean I saw no landing gear.

I'm not sure. SN7 had legs, but they weren't anything like what the final versions will use. I wouldn't be surprised if this version didn't have legs. Elon said a few weeks ago that he gave the craft a 15% chance of getting anywhere near the landing zone, so maybe they didn't see it as a test-critical. The priority was to gather data for the belly flop and pendulum swing at the end, and they got everything they needed out of the test in that regard.

Watching the fins, thrusters, and engines work in unison in this clip is a thing of beauty:
https://fb.watch/2h_fKVDDvl/

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Yea that's kinda what i thought, so much other things that were prioritized than to actually land it not to say they didn't try to get as close as possible atleast.

That footage is awesome! That was the highlight for me.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Pretty cool view from a distance with Everyday Astrounat, his excitement is captivating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujCmpqWcJxk&ab_channel=EverydayAstronaut

[Chino]

That was a cool view. I was hoping we would get that footage. You could see the phone in the whole background during the original stream. I wonder how much those hotel rooms (assuming that was a hotel) cost.

[CrimsonSunrise]

That was SOOO EPIC!!!!!!!!

[hunnus2000]

While that was cool, I'm not sure what the purpose of the exercise was. Was it to test the side boosters while in space or while here on Earth? Also, was the intent to blow it up or did the rocket come in too hot during landing?

[Chino]

While that was cool, I'm not sure what the purpose of the exercise was. Was it to test the side boosters while in space or while here on Earth? Also, was the intent to blow it up or did the rocket come in too hot during landing?

This is going to be a drunken word salad... fair warning.

We currently have the dragon capsule that sits on top of the falcon 9 rocket. This can carry 7 astronauts to the ISS and can only dock to the ISS or orbit the Earth and come back. It rides on top of the Falcon rocket that can land itself, but the dragon capsule still touches down with chutes.


What we saw tested was SN8, the 8th iteration of "Starship". Starship will sit on top of the "super heavy" rocket.


This capsule, unlike dragon, can land itself like the Falcon 9 rocket. The Starship will be able to carry (allegedly) 100 passengers at a time. This is the craft (or an evolution of it) that will be used to colonize the solar system. The idea is to be able to land this thing on Mars, Europa, the moon... wherever. What's cool is we can in theory retrofit a bunch like condos, land them upright on Mars, and launch a follow up Starship full of passengers that can live in the ones we previously sent. It will have a massive payload that can be used from ferrying 100 passengers at a time to being used as a refueling station in space.

Comparison for scale:
Take a look at the falcon heavy. That's basically what I posted above, just with three boosters instead of one.


You can see how big starship is in comparison to everything else. Because of its mass, its landing isn't the same as the Falcon 9 boosters we are accustomed to seeing. There's an entirely difference approach and reentry "dance" if you will. It's been labelled the "belly flop", where the Starhip free falls back to Earth. It's followed by a rather violent "pendulum-like" swing as the rocket attempts to become perpendicular to the Earth instead of parallel like it is in the belly flop. This is actually pushing some pretty crazy physics when you consider the scale. This test of the SN8 was to primarily test that belly flop bit, and everything else was secondary. Landing wasn't really a checkbox they were trying to check off. They do that regularly. It's easy. The goal was to belly flop and hit the pad, and they freaking nailed it.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Awesome stuff Chino! Is the Super Rocket under production?

[Chino]

Awesome stuff Chino! Is the Super Rocket under production?

It is. There are rumors that it will be ready to test in the next month, but who knows. We've been seeing pieces of it getting brought into the vehicle assembly building down in Boca Chica.

[TAC]

SN8 high altitude test today  They're going for just shy of an 8 mile high hop. Should be a great show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhxtcRKEyQA

It didn't take off in this video?

[Chino]

SN8 high altitude test today  They're going for just shy of an 8 mile high hop. Should be a great show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhxtcRKEyQA

It didn't take off in this video?

It got scrubbed that day. That was to the live stream.

[TAC]

Nevermind, I get it, you posted the link BEFORE the stream.


You said it should be a great show, and I was like WTF?

[mike099]

A friend of the family lives in the country north of Nashville, Tennessee and she took these 3 pictures of what they are calling the Christmas star.  The window was short on getting the pics and the blue picture was right after sunset.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Really nice pictures. I actually didn't know about the chrismas star. Apparently it's Jupiter and Saturn in conjuction with eachother.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/the-great-conjunction-of-jupiter-and-saturn

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

SN9 rolls out to the launch pad

I enjoy watching videos like this, seeing all the activity is exciting. It's fun having access to the progress. This whole place (Boca Chica) feels like a "budget" NASA launch facility kinda in a DIY style but with a much quicker assembly line. 

[Chino]

SN9 rolls out to the launch pad

I enjoy watching videos like this, seeing all the activity is exciting. It's fun having access to the progress. This whole place (Boca Chica) feels like a "budget" NASA launch facility kinda in a DIY style but with a much quicker assembly line. 

It's a very agile way of doing things, and it's the right approach IMO. Fail fast, learn faster.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

SN9 rolls out to the launch pad

I enjoy watching videos like this, seeing all the activity is exciting. It's fun having access to the progress. This whole place (Boca Chica) feels like a "budget" NASA launch facility kinda in a DIY style but with a much quicker assembly line. 

It's a very agile way of doing things, and it's the right approach IMO. Fail fast, learn faster.

Yea it seems like a very efficient way of doing things, can't wait for all the exciting things they have in store for 2021.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55580816

James Webb launch window is this year. I know that a rocketlaunch with a big boom is exciting with spacex however this launch I would be really sad if that would happen, I know the possibility is probably low since they choose a very proven and used type of rocket. Eitherway I feel this is probably the next most exciting thing close to a human launch to the moon or mars.

[Chino]

The JWST launch is going to be the most nerve-wracking launch in recent memory. That thing has been in development for so long and has been delayed so many times. If it blows up before it reaches space, there's no way they'll approve the building of a new one. 

[Chino]

Looks like SpaceX purchased two offshore drilling platforms to be converted into launch platforms for Starship. The names Deimos and Phobos are fitting. I'm really interested in seeing the conversion process.

https://www.chron.com/news/space/article/SpaceX-gulf-coast-offshore-spaceports-15887227.php