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  • Fueling Starship

    From JF Mezei@21:1/5 to All on Sun Feb 20 14:52:13 2022
    Elon Musk's recent presentation alluded to the quick turn around and
    multiple launches per day, likely from offshore platforms because
    launching from ground would create a lot of noise for local residents.


    So they'll have fancy cryo transfer system for LOX and Methane tank
    farms to rapidly fill up the ships' tanks. But how will they refill
    that tank farm at a rate that matches launch rate?

    This past week there was video of a small tanker truck delivering
    methane to Boca Chica. How many of these per launch will be needed,
    especially for launches whose purpose is to carry fuel to refuel
    orbiting ship?

    And once launches move to offshore platforms so they can have high
    frequency without noise annoying local residents, how would they bring
    such large quantities of methane and LOX to the launch platform?

    Or does "iterative design" mean they haven't gotten to thinking about
    that aspect yet ?

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  • From Snidely@21:1/5 to All on Mon Feb 21 00:30:34 2022
    JF Mezei was thinking very hard :

    This past week there was video of a small tanker truck delivering
    methane to Boca Chica. How many of these per launch will be needed, especially for launches whose purpose is to carry fuel to refuel
    orbiting ship?

    Lots. A static fire is likely to require somewhere between 4 and 12 truckloads. You can easily estimate how much is in a truck by using
    it's length and radius, and ditto estimate a full tank on a booster and
    a ship, although I think the nominal capacities are on various
    websites.

    Also, you can go through the daily footages and count the trucks so
    far. The methane tankers deliver on the landing field (the two white horizontal tanks are in play; the 9M tanks may get repurposed). The
    LOX and LN2 deliveries are by the tank farm pipe works.


    And once launches move to offshore platforms so they can have high
    frequency without noise annoying local residents, how would they bring
    such large quantities of methane and LOX to the launch platform?

    LOX is easy on the open sea; methane slighlty harder, but since SpaceX
    is going to making methane on Mars (Sabatier process?) it wouldn't be surprising for them to practice it here on Earth.

    I would expect the fuel platform to combine solar, wind, and tidal
    power sources to run the processes.

    Meanwhile, do you know how LCH4 is transported on the sea now? Super
    tankers. I'm sure that SpaceX could arrange to have some deliveries
    made by the guys that pull up to the dock in LA and other ports.

    But I would expect a heck of a lot of launches to be from Kennedy in
    preference to the offshore platforms, and Kennedy will almost certainly
    be ready first.

    /dps

    --
    And the Raiders and the Broncos have life now in the West. I thought
    they were both nearly dead if not quite really most sincerely dead. --
    Mike Salfino, fivethirtyeight.com

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