Hello, we are TheSpaceXFans and welcome to TheSpaceXShow, the place where you can stay
up to date with everything SpaceX.
I want to start this video with some information about the last Starlink mission a few days
ago.
Eric Berger tweeted “After learning to crawl, walk and run, the Falcon 9 is now sprinting.
Today: 100th consecutive, successful launch of a Falcon 9.
16th launch of 2021, a cadence of one rocket every nine days.
6th launch during the last 33 days, once every five days.”
Musk responded with “Cumulative payload to orbit is the really crazy number.
Falcon has delivered more than double rest of world combined over trailing 12 months.”
Somebody tweeted in response “Starship's cumulative payload to orbit will be out of
this world!”
Musk said “Potentially, 1000 times higher.”
Somebody posted a picture of space junk by altitude on Twitter with Starlink in the kept
clean by drag area.
Musk responded and said “Exactly.
Atmospheric drag clearing out orbital debris is a major reason why we dropped altitude
to ~550km.”
ESA posted a tweet saying “ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti is named to serve as
Space Station commander on Expedition 68, following an in-principle agreement by international
partners on 19 May.
As part of Crew4, Samantha will fly on a SpaceX Crew Dragon in 2022.”
Here’s an overview of the orbital launch site construction progress.
Crews are pouring a giant slab of concrete in front of the orbital tank farm.
There was another vehicle integration tower segment rolled out to the launch site.
This section was stacked on top of the integration tower to increase the height even further.
A cryo tank shell for the orbital tank farm was also moved to the launch site.
Chris B posted a picture on Twitter caught by Mary of a new Super Heavy thrust puck arriving
at the production site.
Michael Baylor responded and said “There appears to be a mounting point for a ninth
Raptor in the center, which would mean a total of 29 Raptors once the outer ring of 20 is
added.”
Then Elon Musk responded to Michael and gave soe more information with “29 Raptors on
Booster initially, rising to 32 later this year, along with thrust increase per engine.
Aiming for >7500 ton thrust long-term.
T/W ~1.5.”
Everyday Astronaut responded as well, asking “Raptor production has to be a bit of a
bottleneck though, right?
How long before not only 29 Raptors, but then ANOTHER 32, assuming you won't get any back
from the first orbital velocity test.
Won't that be quite a while before you have over 60 flight worthy Raptors?”
Musk said “Raptor production is approaching one every 48 hours.”
There was also another tweet asking “So designing the thrust structure/puck is the
hardest part of booster design, right?
I mean designing something that can accomodate/support that high thrust of 30+ Raptors (eventually)
is hard to imagine.”
Musk responded with “Actually, so-called “secondary” structure is the hard part
– so many pipes & wires.
Tall stuff & small stuff are the toughest things about Starship.”
There are loads of sections at the production site, with a Ground Support Equipment stack
in front here for the GSE-7 tank.
A new Starship upper dome section was seen outside, hooked up to a crane.
During last week, the Starship SN15 prototype was moved back to the production yard.
Musk posted a cool shot on Twitter of Starship SN16 and part of the next Super Heavy booster
prototype in the high bay.
He said “Ship 16 and Booster 2, Starbase Highbay.”
Finally, to finish up our Sunday video as always, we have the latest Starbase production
diagram thanks to Brendan Lewis.
You can see he has also included the progress with the Ground Support Equipment tanks.
As always, I have to say thanks to Mary, known as BocaChicaGal who is out in Boca Chica all
day, every day filming the amazing footage.
Also, thanks to the NASASpaceflight team working hard behind the scenes on their great videos,
livestreams and other space content.
That’s it for this episode of TheSpaceXShow, I hope you enjoyed the video, if you did,
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