As far as I can tell, Starship is very early hardware and massive
marketing. I had not heard of a flight yet. Can you point me to a video of
this Starship prototype flight?
--- Carl Tedesco
*From:* arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> *On
Behalf Of *Craig Fink
*Sent:* Friday, June 7, 2019 11:47 AM
*To:* arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Subject:* [AR] Re: Embry-Riddle Prescott Liquid Rocket Engine Hot-fire
Yeah, I always tend to take things to the limits, to see what that looks
like. A rocket spread out all over the place is much easier to work with,
which is what a test stand is. Taking things to there limits is usually too
far.
SpaceX went from starting to build the Starship prototype to first flight
in under 5 months, including first burn of the new Raptor motor at a test
stand, integration into the vehicle, and first flight at a new space port.
They are extremely high on the learning curve and accelerating fast, soon
to be out of sight of any competitors.
On Fri, Jun 7, 2019 at 9:06 AM Stephen Daniel <swd@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In my very limited experience a test stand is much easier to work with than
the inside of a rocket.
Our current motor development project is to build a motor that will
eventually fit inside a 6" diameter rocket. However the motor today is
various bits of plumbing, tanks, chamber, valves, etc all bolted to a
uni-strut frame that is about 2' wide and 4' tall.
This makes everything easy to access for modifications, rebuilding, etc.
Some of the plumbing is simple flex-hoses. When we had some issues with
contamination clogging our filters and valves we could easily take them out
and clean them. Building all the plumbing to fit within a 6" airframe is
going to be a significant challenge, one we will not take on until this
version of the motor is reliably working to spec.
Our test stand is a 16' length of antenna tower, strapped down to large
stakes. We mount the motor frame onto the tower with some bolts.
The motor is instrumented with pressure sensors, but we have no strain
gauges or load cells. We compute thrust knowing the chamber pressure and
the nozzle geometry.
In short, I believe motor design is much simplified by using a test stand.
On Fri, Jun 7, 2019 at 11:39 AM Craig Fink <webegood@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Thu, Jun 6, 2019 at 10:51 AM Daniel Dyck <daniel.dyck.379ba@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Jake, not really. I have started writing some stuff here:
https://danieldyck.com/portfolio/test-cell-3/, but its far from complete.
I'm happy to answer any questions about the facility, as that is what I led.
Craig, all the same points that Henry made, as well as the fact we plan on
testing engines that won't be used in flight: heat sink engines,
demonstrator engines, etc.
Daniel, nothing wrong testing engines in a test stand if your not building
a rocket, even if you are building a rocket.
I just find SpaceX campaign to build their next rocket interesting, it
should be much shorter than traditional approaches. SpaceX campaign to land
the Falcon 9 was anything but traditional, getting customers to pay most of
the development, testing and destroyed vehicles along the way.
I suspect Blue Origin is using a more traditional approach, so when they
crash their first beautifully designed, fully tested, stylish and expensive
New Glenn during development, it will be a big set back in both time and
money.
If you want to be successful in the future, you can emulate NASA like Blue
Origins, or you can emulate SpaceX. The SpaceX approach for a 4 year
undergraduate degree where the student learns more about rockets, less
about test stands and gets to fly more would also be more fun.
--
Craig Fink
WeBeGood@xxxxxxxxx
--
Craig Fink
WeBeGood@xxxxxxxxx
