Leaning Rocket of Chica (SN9)

On Saturday, JF Mezei exclaimed wildly:

SN9Ms support bucjkeld and SN9 topped and now leans against the high bay
walls (tonight, there is a crane that should attempt to right it)

I was told here that much of a rocket's strength comes from when it is
pressurized.

As a sanity check, would this incident require major work to revalidate
welds etc, and remove any dents in the steel? Or would pressurizing it
remove the dents naturally and this is really an event with few
consequences?

SN9 is now on Pad B. The right canard and aft flaps have been
replaced, while SN10's nosecone has been stacked with just one flap.

Based on road closures, we can expect tanking tests, probably including
cryoproof, on Dec 28 or following.

NSF reported during the NROL-108 coverage that some viewers thought
they'd seen SN8's tiles in the SpaceX video; my guess is just below the
ice band at the T+2:18 mark
URL:https://youtu.be/ap-BkkrRg-o?t=6627
Aside: at T+3:30 you can see way down below the smoke plume from
lift-off.

Fair to assume that the engines would not yet have been attached to the
rocket? (It didn't seem far off the ground on the side of stand that was
still normal).



(Leaning Rocket of Chica expression from the NASA space Flight folks who
got that from one of their viewers).


We are coming to a point where one of the upcoming SNs will be expected
to be clothed with heat tiles for a suborbital or orbital test, right?

So far, we've only seen naked SNs, with some sporting a couple of test
tiles.

Since SpaceX is already building SN16, I would assume that some of the
SNs already built are targetted to orbital or suborbital flighst needing
tiles.

SN17 parts have been spotted.

Are the tile attach points added during the manufacturiung of rings in
the controlled environment, or would they be added only after the ship
segments have been mated/welded together ? Just curious if SpaceX may be
stuck having to use ships with the tile attach points already on for
tests where tiles are not needed, especially if SN9 ends up a write off,
changing sequence by 2 SNs (SN10 playing role of SN8 and so on).

(If tule attach points are only added once ship is fully assembled, then
it is a no brainer since none of them would have them now, so easy to
use any for atmpspheric tests without tiles).

SN9 may have a patch of tiles at mid-belly, which is where I think the
SN8 ones were, or maybe a little higher.

/dps

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