I really thought about it back then and I just think it is just a simple fit check interstage. It is used and before being integrated on that booster, there is a picture from SpaceX's twitter account where you can see it just standing on a random corner of the factory. I don't think it even is intended to fly. Also the interstages are usually installed after the engines (at least that's what they usually have done, but things could change) and I saw the Everyday Astronaut livestream and I noticed there were no engines installed on the booster yet, the booster is clearly a Block 5 but the interstage could have just simply been a fit check article taken from an old previously flown booster.
It was noted that the depiction of Falcon Heavy in the January 2019 version of the User's Guide has a white interstage, rather than black. It does have black raceways. The raceways on the centre core are in the same position as the PY (+Y, left-side) side booster. It could be that they've decided not to - or can't - paint the logo over the raceway as was done for the demo mission. Instead the logo in that rendering has been moved to the interstage.The resolution of the photo isn't quite good enough to be certain, but it doesn't look to me like the interstage is all-white. There could be a logo there. I'm not certain of the orientation of the booster, but there's a darker vertical line down the middle of it which could be the raceway.This is getting a bit off-topic for this thread, though. Perhaps a general FH thread?
Booster seen in Valencia, California on the I-5. Judging by the location this one should be a booster going to Vandenberg and most probably the one for RADARSAT. https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/aip20g/just_spotted_the_falcon_at_a_weighstation_on_i5n/
2. If it's 1049.3, they must either be a) done with the refurbishment already (which would be a huge triumph for Block 5!), or b) planning to do essentially all of the refurb on-site at Vandenberg, which would be a new twist AFAIK.
I agree with the booster being B1046.4. Another option could be B1047.3 but this booster wasn't spotted anywhere else in the US.
Quote from: gemmy0I on 01/22/2019 08:16 pm2. If it's 1049.3, they must either be a) done with the refurbishment already (which would be a huge triumph for Block 5!), or b) planning to do essentially all of the refurb on-site at Vandenberg, which would be a new twist AFAIK.Quote from: Orbiter on 01/23/2019 01:24 amI agree with the booster being B1046.4. Another option could be B1047.3 but this booster wasn't spotted anywhere else in the US.99% chance that B1047 is assigned to PSN-6, no real alternative aside from B1048. B1046 was being refurbished at Hawthorne as of Dec 17, while B1049 was no longer at Berth 52 as of Jan 22 and likely shipped out anywhere from 1-24 hours before.50:50 chance between B1046.4 and B1049.3, imho. B1048 is the wildcard right now.
Meanwhile, I finally went through and tabulated all 2018 core spottings in a spreadsheet! Everything looks great and fits together except for the fact that some contributors seem to have totally forgotten about B1052 and B1053, neither of which has been spotted at or around any SpaceX facilities. B1052 and beyond (excluding B1054) are also the only cores thus far unaccounted for. At this point, I'm nearly certain that - if they weren't skipped outright - 1052 and 1053 are the next two FH side boosters. Both are now in FL. If we extrapolate numerically, the wrapped-interstage booster spotted in McGregor on Jan 10 would thus be B1055, while B1056 is likely nearing completion in Hawthorne. From the perspective of Occam's Razor, one would have to explain what happened to 1052 and 1053 if they wanted to argue that SpaceX has already completed cores beyond B1054 (imho).Just my $0.02 Edit: lol mjsuarez, I probably clicked "post" 30 seconds after you
Quote from: vaporcobra on 01/28/2019 12:17 amMeanwhile, I finally went through and tabulated all 2018 core spottings in a spreadsheet! Everything looks great and fits together except for the fact that some contributors seem to have totally forgotten about B1052 and B1053, neither of which has been spotted at or around any SpaceX facilities. B1052 and beyond (excluding B1054) are also the only cores thus far unaccounted for. At this point, I'm nearly certain that - if they weren't skipped outright - 1052 and 1053 are the next two FH side boosters. Both are now in FL. If we extrapolate numerically, the wrapped-interstage booster spotted in McGregor on Jan 10 would thus be B1055, while B1056 is likely nearing completion in Hawthorne. From the perspective of Occam's Razor, one would have to explain what happened to 1052 and 1053 if they wanted to argue that SpaceX has already completed cores beyond B1054 (imho).Just my $0.02 Edit: lol mjsuarez, I probably clicked "post" 30 seconds after you Looking back in this topic, it seems like the first side booster arrived at the Cape just as 1054 was launching, and so it was assumed that it was 1055. This would make 1051, 1052, and 1053 the CommCrew boosters reserved by NASA and stored at McGregor. 1055, 1056, and 1057 would then be the FH boosters. This thinking also agreed with a reasonable production rate. If at this point we are at 1056 about to leave Hawthorne, booster production is way down. Would like to hear Alexphysics thoughts.
I would leave part of my thoughts here but part of them would be based on L2 info so... *zips mouth* All I can say is that all what I thought was true these past months it is not and that we will have to wait for these boosters to be unwrapped and sitting on the pad to... *drumroll* DISCOVER THE TRUTH /j
Quote from: Alexphysics on 01/28/2019 07:46 amI would leave part of my thoughts here but part of them would be based on L2 info so... *zips mouth* All I can say is that all what I thought was true these past months it is not and that we will have to wait for these boosters to be unwrapped and sitting on the pad to... *drumroll* DISCOVER THE TRUTH /jOK. So I'll change my spreadsheet to 1052-55-53 for FH and 1056 for DM-2.I think L2 silence is silly once this sort of unsourced, yet all-but-certain, press speculation appears.I am not saying the Teslarati info has anything to do with L2. I don't even know what's on L2---I stopped paying because I disliked its secrecy aspect. But the whole thing does leave me scratching my head.
Quote from: mjsuarez on 01/29/2019 02:17 amQuote from: Alexphysics on 01/28/2019 07:46 amI would leave part of my thoughts here but part of them would be based on L2 info so... *zips mouth* All I can say is that all what I thought was true these past months it is not and that we will have to wait for these boosters to be unwrapped and sitting on the pad to... *drumroll* DISCOVER THE TRUTH /jOK. So I'll change my spreadsheet to 1052-55-53 for FH and 1056 for DM-2.I think L2 silence is silly once this sort of unsourced, yet all-but-certain, press speculation appears.I am not saying the Teslarati info has anything to do with L2. I don't even know what's on L2---I stopped paying because I disliked its secrecy aspect. But the whole thing does leave me scratching my head.As one of the people paying close attention to core movements and predicting which core is where and when, mainly for L2, I have to stress that all is pure speculation, except for some tid-bits of which some were not meant to even go to L2... Earlier thinking was heavily based on a statement that SpaceX was effectively producing cores every 20 days..There were some signs that did seem to collaborate this production pace, hence we kept using it. Even when some cores were not seen being transported..We are now moving our thinking to a much lower and less predictable production pace and that no core has reached McGregor unseen... This last assumption would collaborate the theory that 1052 and 1053 actually were never moved to McGregor prior to 1054... between 1051 and 1054 was a big gap and it seems that actually was a production gap.It is uncertain if cores were moved and parked internally at Hawthorne, which could explain the gap...For now most of us seem to be getting more and more convinced that the next FH indeed is 1052-1055-1053...1056 would then be the next out of Hawthorne any time now.Regarding the value of L2 and it 'secrecy'.. L2 is meant to be a source of information that Chris and others can use to compose articles from. It is indeed not to be disclosed to public domain, but anyone can join, so in some sense still open to the public.The fact that this sub-community is impressively self-managing, gives several sources the confidence to share small pieces of interesting information not shared in the public domain. Leaking from L2 would greatly harm this trust and stop these sources from sharing. The money being payed for L2 is going directly to maintaining the servers of NSF, public and L2... And we all benefit greatly from this service, especially on launch days or when something else spectacular happened. So paying for L2 is your way of enabling NSF to keep providing the amazing service they are providing us all..As a nice bonus you get access to a lot of information that is not yet shared (and sometimes never shared) in public domain..
Focusing solely on what info that's readily available to the public, we can see that, for CRS missions, NASA only tends to reuse B5 boosters that have flown on previous NASA missions. My bet is CRS-17 will utilize B1052 as there probably won't be enough of a turnaround to reuse B1051. This precedence may have changed since CRS-15 and, if so, then all bets are off on core assignments: B1048 is likely the PSN-6 booster, so B1047 might be the CRS-17 booster then, but I do not think this is likely.We know B1054 was reserved for GPS III and was expended, and we can count 3 FH boosters that have left Hawthorne and arrived at McGregor. My bet's that these boosters are B1053, B1055, and B1056, but we do not know which-is-which. From the FCC filing for the next FH mission, OCISLY is located nearly 1,000 km downrange. This will be an intensely challenging landing with a higher chance of failure. STP-2 is to reuse the ArabSat 6A boosters, so it's a safe guess that a backup will be available. My guess is that this is B1057 or B1058.
Focusing solely on what info that's readily available to the public, we can see that, for CRS missions, NASA only tends to reuse B5 boosters that have flown on previous NASA missions. My bet is CRS-17 will utilize B1052 as there probably won't be enough of a turnaround to reuse B1051. This precedence may have changed since CRS-15 and, if so, then all bets are off on core assignments: B1048 is likely the PSN-6 booster, so B1047 might be the CRS-17 booster then, but I do not think this is likely.
Quote from: Orbiter on 01/29/2019 05:47 pmFocusing solely on what info that's readily available to the public, we can see that, for CRS missions, NASA only tends to reuse B5 boosters that have flown on previous NASA missions. My bet is CRS-17 will utilize B1052 as there probably won't be enough of a turnaround to reuse B1051. This precedence may have changed since CRS-15 and, if so, then all bets are off on core assignments: B1048 is likely the PSN-6 booster, so B1047 might be the CRS-17 booster then, but I do not think this is likely.I recall that the deciding criteria was the return profile of the core. If the core has a gentle descend, its a candidate for a NASA mission. In the past, that was mostly dragon missions, hence the (in my opinion) misconception that NASA only wants cores from previous NASA missions.