In article ,
says...

On 2018-11-08 06:25, Jeff Findley wrote:

The flight tests will not include vertical landing because Musk says
they already know how to do that (duh).

WOuld the Mini-BFS be powered? new methane engines from the BFR/BFS
project, or fitted with Merlin vacuum engines?

No one knows for sure, but my personal guess is Merlin powered to reduce
development time and for compatibility with Falcon 9 launch facilities.

After separating from stage 12, would Mini-BFS accelerate to orbit and
then de-orbit ? Or would just just detach from Falcon 9, float for a
while before re-entry? (can that be well planned/conrolled ?

aka: how much of a working spaceship does this need to be versus an
empty hull to test the outer skin material?

No one knows for sure, but this sounds a lot like a mini-BFS prototype
and not much else. I would expect it to be as close as possible to the
aerodynamics of BFS, so other payloads on the same flight would be
unlikely, IMHO.

It would seem to me that recovering it bcome important to check how the
skin performed. Would they target a landing on ground (no salt water
contamination) or at sea because easier and salt water doesn't matter
much to exa ine how the skin performend?

Recovery is quite likely, IMHO. SpaceX would want to inspect the TPS to
see how it held up.

And in case you can't tell, this is full of speculation. All we have so
far is Elon Musk Tweets to go on. And they were very limited (i.e.
teasers).

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.