2018 design

The BFR system is going over constant design reviews, Elon Musk said that this third major iteration was close to the actual first flight hardware expected to test fly from SpaceX's new Boca Chica Beach, South Texas launch site by late 2019.

BFR 2018

Changes made since the 2017 design

Biggest obvious change to the design is the addition of fins both at the front and rear of the spaceship(BFS) sections.

The legs have now been integrated into the new fixed fins as landing pads on the BFS section.

The two bottom fins at the base of the BFS now include colossal powered hinges requiring 2 meganewtons of actuation power to operate and change position when landing the Spaceship(BFS) section, the third non moving Fin does not affect the landing except for use as the third landing pad and symmetry of the spaceship in flight.

The Raptor engines designs have changed from the two Sea level and space version to a single compromised sea level "medium" Raptor version with thrust reduced down to 100 tonnes to significantly reduce difficult development and cost for producing the original two versions. this compromise equates to a loss of around 50 tons of payload capacity form the 2017 design, but Elon stated the new spaceship designs allow for the addition for space rated version of the Raptor engines at a later date version 2 BFS..

The height has increased making it the tallest rocket ever built. most of the size increase is with the Booster section while the Spaceship section has be stretched a little to increase the pressurized volume from 825 m3 to over 1000 m3. (comment: maybe spaceX have found the issue of the missions for this iteration of the BFS is less of weight to space but volume, particularly with the larger booster first stage.)

Rear cargo panels added to the base to deploy small payloads easily on orbit or easy Mars or Luna surface access without needing to come down a crane from the service hatch half way up the BFS.

BFS rear end diagram

Comments

From the details in the velocity vs altitude graph on the Earth landing simulation, close to landing the speed will be well below supersonic speeds for that whole final descent. The active controlled "skydiver" approach may actually go subsonic high enough the sonic booms aren't intolerable.

So much looking this design is being optimised for Point to Point.

landing profile