SpaceX began testing the first super heavy rocket booster suitable for flight

Share with friends and circle of friends with wechat scanning QR code on December 23, according to foreign media reports, More than three months after lifting the super heavy booster 4 (B4) to the Starbase orbital launch pad, SpaceX finally began its test process. Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX (Elon Musk) claimed that B4 was the company's first super heavy booster suitable for flight. after completing a series of launch pad tests a few days ago, SpaceX began to inject liquid nitrogen into B4 for the first time on December 17. It is unclear what tests SpaceX will carry out on this booster, but in any case, this test will be conducted on starship boosters and orbital launch sites (OLS) is an important and long-awaited milestone. at present, observers of the SpaceX starship program generally believe that the reason why the company spent so much time preparing for the first test of B4 is not because of the rocket itself, but because the orbital launch site needs comprehensive testing. although SpaceX chose not to conduct two suborbital tests at the base And one of the launch platforms conducted some initial test on B4, but it is obvious that the company finally concluded that the successful test of super heavy booster 3 (B3) in July 2021, including the low-temperature test almost exactly the same as the first test of B4, makes this test part redundant in other words, SpaceX must have sufficient confidence in the quality of the first few super heavy launch vehicles launched by its interstellar base factory. It believes that it is not necessary to verify the structural integrity of the first truly completed super heavy booster before putting the only orbital interstellar spacecraft launch site directly in danger. The first low temperature test of B4 shows that SpaceX's hypothesis seems to be correct on December 17, SpaceX conducted a low-temperature test on B4, and its test intensity was twice that of B3. Hundreds of tons of liquid nitrogen (LN2) were injected into the booster, accounting for about 1 / 6 of the storage tank capacity. It is unclear whether this test also raised the pressure of the booster propellant tank to the flight pressure level. If B4 really reaches these pressures, the test will be more important, which partly proves that the rocket is ready for flight on December 21, SpaceX conducted a series of similar low-temperature tests. About the same amount of liquid nitrogen was injected into part B4 again, but it was carried out two to three times continuously. B4 successfully withstood the test for several hours again without any obvious problems. Nevertheless, SpaceX and B4 need more additional tests, some of which are more important among them, SpaceX needs to fill the B4 propellant tank for the first time. Depending on the storage situation, this process may start with the injection of about 2500 tons of liquid nitrogen into B4, equivalent to two-thirds of the capacity of the propellant tank according to SpaceX's own website, this is roughly the same as the propellant weight required for super heavy booster launch. If the low temperature test works well, SpaceX is likely to conduct one or several joint exercises on the pre launch status of key facilities and equipment (WDR), and finally inject about 2900 tons of low-temperature oxygen and 500 tons of low-temperature methane into B4. finally, SpaceX may start a static ignition test, which may ignite only one or several of B4's many engines. Finally, this process may cause all 29 Raptor engines on B4 to ignite, temporarily generating a thrust of slightly less than 5400 tons, which is higher than that of Saturn, which has been retired from NASA V lunar rocket thrust is 50% higher according to musk, SpaceX plans to use B4 and starship prototype S20 for its first orbital test flight, so the scope and scale of the test may only be expanded in the next few weeks. (small)

2023-03-22 10:04:48

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