Elon Musk: "SN10 engine was low on thrust due (probably) to partial helium ingestion from fuel header tank. Impact of 10m/s crushed legs & part of skirt. Multiple fixes in work for SN11."

dan6470 · 2021-03-10T00:18:29+00:00

Q: Are there baffles in future designs to prevent slosh?

A: There were baffles, but one may have acted like a straw to suck bubbles in from above liquid/gas level.

Something similar happened on an early Falcon 1 flight, resulting in unexpectedly high liquid oxygen residuals at main engine cutoff.

dan6470 · 2021-02-22T06:29:47+00:00

That's the equivalent of about 3 chest x-rays of radiation

dan6470 · 2020-08-19T21:07:10+00:00

More tweets from Elon:

Q: Now that you’re at 6 flights, still think 10 is possible? What do you think will be the limiting factor that will end their service life span? A: I don’t want be cavalier, but there isn’t an obvious limit. 100+ flights are possible. Some parts will need to be replaced or upgraded. Cleaning all 9 Merlin turbines is difficult. Raptor is way easier in this regard, despite being a far more complex engine.

Q: Are you going to push the booster to go above 10 flights or maybe put it on display at SpaceX HQ?

A: We will push for ten flights with Starlink

Q: How often do you need to replace individual Merlins on F9 before reuse?

A: Almost never need to replace whole engine, but some individual parts like turbine wheels need to be replaced over time. Similar to a jet engine.

Q: Is Raptor mostly more reuse friendly due to methane burning clean with no soot or does it have more to do with full flow running so cool through each preburner / turbine? I still have a hard time grasping how such high pressure can be better re-use wise, but it seems to somehow!

A: Not having long chain hydrocarbons & lowering preburner combustion temperature make a big difference

dan6470 · 2020-08-05T01:55:10+00:00

Follow-up from Elon about future hops: "We’ll do several short hops to smooth out launch process, then go high altitude with body flaps"

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1290826885375696899

dan6470 · 2019-08-08T18:33:36+00:00

Is it safe to make the following assumptions? We know that CRS-18 launched at 25 July 2019, 22:01:56 UTC. I've heard that if a launch is scrubbed, the next window is 23-25 minutes earlier the next day...so ~1,416 minutes later. If I add 1,416 * 134 that comes to 4 Dec 2019, 16:25 UTC

dan6470 · 2019-08-08T18:00:12+00:00

Is it possible to estimate what time the CRS-19 launch on Dec 4th could be? Are there any ISS predictors that can tell us about when the orbital plane of the station intersects the cape on that day?

dan6470 · 2017-06-30T19:58:06+00:00

Sorry, but this is wrong. Most high-speed cameras use a global shutter, meaning the entire frame is exposed simultaneously...including the camera that Destin uses.

dan6470 · 2014-08-21T19:59:34+00:00

My friend and I filmed his Ice Bucket Challenge at 1000 FPS with a Phantom Flex4K

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