SpaceX ships another huge propellant tank to South Texas BFR test site

[Elderberry]

TESLARATI  By Eric Ralph 10/24/2018

Captured by NASASpaceflight.com forum user “bocachicagal”, the second of several massive liquid methane tanks has arrived at SpaceX’s prospective Boca Chica, Texas facilities, to be dedicated to integrated testing of BFR’s spaceship/upper stage.

If there was any doubt beforehand, the arrival of a second ~100,000 gallon vacuum-insulated tank all but guarantees that SpaceX is planning a major campaign of BFR spaceship testing in South Texas – with as much as 200,000 gallons of storage capacity in those two tanks alone, SpaceX could easily top off two Falcon 9’s with liquid oxygen and still have more than 100 tons left over.

Per NASASpaceflight.com’s forums, it appears that this newest tank arrived at the site sometime yesterday or the day before. Thanks to the fundamental properties of BFR’s planned liquid methane and oxygen fuel and oxidizer, aspects of basic ground support infrastructure may actually be a significant improvement over Falcon 9’s refined kerosene (RP-1) and liquid oxygen, and dramatically superior (at least in a logistical and practical sense) to hydrogen/oxygen, a popular choice for many rockets.

More: https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-second-huge-propellant-south-texas-bfr-test-site-arrival/

[Elderberry]

Reactivated: Work picks up at SpaceX launch site after lull

https://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/local/reactivated-work-picks-up-at-spacex-launch-site-after-lull/article_95e81a8e-da3c-11e8-8b8b-7b4c74a89cf0.html

 Posted: Saturday, October 27, 2018 10:00 pm

BY STEVE CLARK STAFF WRITER

In late 2015 the trucks started rolling, dumping more than 300,000 cubic yards of locally sourced dirt at the future SpaceX launch pad site where S.H. 4 dead-ends at Boca Chica beach.

The technical term is “soil surcharging,” a process of compressing the underlying soil in order to stablize it — in this case to create a suitable foundation for launch-complex structures. That process now complete, the artificial mesa is currently being leveled by earthmovers.

Once that’s done, SpaceX will install a 95,000-gallon liquid oxygen tank and an 80,000-gallon methane tank that the company has taken delivery on in recent months. The tanks, stored for now at the SpaceX control center area a couple of miles west of the launch site, will be used to support propellant-loading operations during space vehicle tests beginning sometime in 2019.