Hello, we are TheSpaceXFans and welcome to TheSpaceXShow,
the place where you can stay up to date with everything SpaceX. After many many delays,
Starlink-17 finally lifted off on Thursday to put another 60 Starlinks into orbit.
Booster B1049 which launched the mission, then landed successfully for the 8th time on
the droneship Of Course I Still Love You. Taking a look at TheSpaceXFans website,
we can expect another Starlink launch this week with Starlink-20. It’s scheduled to lift off on
Wednesday at 2:58am UTC or Tuesday at 9:58pm EDT. Gavin Cornwell posted a tweet with some
interesting information about job listings for upcoming Vandenberg launch recoveries.
He said “With the launch cadence set to ramp up at Vandenberg, SpaceX is hiring for fairing,
droneship, and recovery engineers on the West Coast. SpaceX has not had a droneship in the
Pacific since August 2019. These listings suggest that is likely to change soon.” There’s a Facebook
post about SpaceX being selected to launch a Ukranian Sich 2-1 satellite. Apparently the
price to launch the 170kg spacecraft is $1 million which is apparently 8 times less than originally
planned. There’s an article about another mission SpaceX will be launching quite soon,
around mid-2021. “Kleo Space announced that its second satellite cluster, the Polar Vigilance
Mission (KSF1), has passed a critical design review milestone and is ready for a mid-year
launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.” Over in Boca Chica, SpaceX’s oil rig named Phobos is now
undergoing conversion into an off-shore launch platform for Starship. Somebody posted a shot of
the rig in the process of being stripped down and Musk mentioned not long ago that we could see some
operations from the platform as soon as this year. He also posted some other cool progress shots of
the work going on with Phobos. As always, here’s the latest orbital launch site construction work.
Tankzilla was rolled to the launch site recently. I want to share some plans for the Boca Chica
launch site that were discovered by NSF forum member Pyromatter. I’m going to talk about some
of the things I have seen on the plans. The first and most important is that Starhopper
is included in the plans so Starhopper is going nowhere. In the expanded area, it looks like they
will be building a new orbital pad B launch mount as well as an orbital pad B tank farm.
They currently have 1 structural test stand where SN7.2 is currently sitting but they
are planning to build an additional stand for structural testing. They are also planning to
build a 2nd landing pad to the left of the new orbital pad B tank farm. Also just next to their
existing suborbital tank farm, they’re planning to build a crane assembly and storage area.
So we have a lot of construction work to come in the launch area at Boca Chica. I want to
also share a tweet from RGV Aerial Photography. They posted a shot of a recent flyover they did
with the construction plans overlaid on top so you can get an idea of how the site will expand.
The self propelled modular transporters were moved into the yard. They then moved a heavy
duty transport stand to the high bay/mid bay area. This GSE-2 LOX aft dome was recently sleeved.
A new dome was placed on the sleeving mount. A new Raptor engine was spotted being delivered.
Raptor engine SN58 was also delivered with a message “Much land, where box?” Yusaku Maezawa
posted a tweet saying that the number of dearMoon crew applications is now over 500,000 with
applicants from 239 countries and areas. Somebody posted a tweet with a screenshot of a software
engineer job posting at SpaceX. He said “A very interesting job posting for SpaceX! Looking
for a Software Engineer who can help develop the “Super Heavy launch/catch tower.” So... the whole
catching concept is more than just an idea.” Crews are continuing to work on the SN7.2 test tank.
At this point you will definitely know about the incredibly successful SN10 flight on Wednesday.
As well as its equally incredible landing.
You will also know that unfortunately after the landing, SN10 exploded.
Musk posted a response to a tweet from Everyday Astronaut where he said “RIP SN10, honorable
discharge.” Somebody posted a tweet which said “Insane that it only took 3 attempts to do what
many considered impossible just two or three years back. We truly are living in the future.
Congrats Elon Musk and SpaceX on this incredible feat.” Musk responded with “SpaceX team is doing
great work! One day, the true measure of success will be that Starship flights are commonplace.”
Somebody also posted “Whoa... that’s some sick CGI Elon Musk! seriously, is this the real world?!?!?”
Musk said “cgi irl SpaceX.” Somebody posted a picture of Starhopper next to the explosion like
“this is fine.” Musk responded with “Starhopper is an old timer who has seen a lot of things!”
Musk was asked “If the Legs would've deployed properly ... would SN10 have had a softer
landing?” He responded and said “This was way past leg loads. They got squashed hard.”
Somebody posted another tweet about the SN10 explosion saying “In rocketry,
this is a rare event that might happen once or twice in an engineer's career. The great
thing about being a game developer is that you can experience similar things every day just in
the normal course of writing and debugging your code.” Musk responded with “Was super fun tbh.”
Musk also gave some more information with regards to SN10 and future landings. He said “Thrust was
low despite being commanded high for reasons unknown at present, hence hard touchdown. We’ve
never seen this before. Next time, min two engines all the way to the ground & restart engine 3 if
engine 1 or 2 have issues.” Austin Barnard posted some shots of Zeus, SpaceX’s Boston Dynamics Spot
robot going to check out SN10. Here’s a view of the SN10 wreckage after the explosion.
SN11 is waiting in the high bay for testing and will likely be rolled out soon. As we head towards
SN11 testing, thought I’d share this infographic from a Twitter account called Boca Charts.
It’s a “Graph of Static fires and Engine swaps (from Rollout to final static fire).” Let’s also
take a look at the road closure currently posted on the Cameron County website. It says tomorrow
the road will be closed with the beach remaining open and with Tankzilla at the launch site, this
is probably for the rollout of SN11. The nosecone for SN15 which will come after SN11 was moved into
the high bay/mid bay area of the yard. Somebody named Leo posted about SN17 or 18’s aft section
saying “So the aft section of (what was thought to be) SN16 is now up for scrap. Notice how it
was using the same legs as the current version. May have been scrapped in favour of newer legs,
or a newer aft section design ... or both!” He added “CORRECTION: This is actually either
SN17 or SN18's aft section (well, not anymore...) SN16's aft section has already been mated.”
Finally, to finish off our Sunday video as always, we have the latest Starship & Super
Heavy build diagram thanks to Brendan Lewis. SN11 is up next for testing, SN15 which will
have modifications is coming together, and SN16 isn’t too far behind. Super Heavy Booster Number
1 will also be done pretty soon too. I’m also going to share another cool diagram from Brendan.
This one shows all the decommissioned Starship SN test tanks and prototypes. As always, thank you
to Mary or BocaChicaGal who is out there non stop filming the amazing stuff going on in Boca Chica.
Also thank you to the NASASpaceflight team working hard behind the scenes on their videos,
livestreams and other space content. That’s it for this episode of TheSpaceXShow, I hope you
enjoyed the video, if you did, make sure to hit the like button and leave a comment down below.
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