Hello, we are TheSpaceXFans and welcome to TheSpaceXShow, the place where you can stay
up to date with everything SpaceX.
The very delayed Starlink-17 mission was even more delayed over the past few days with the
last attempts scrubbed.
On Sunday or Monday, depending on your timezone, SpaceX tweeted “Auto-abort at T-1:24 ahead
of tonight's Falcon 9 launch of Starlink; next launch opportunity is tomorrow, March
1 at 8:15 p.m. EST.”
Later into the day on Monday, SpaceX also tweeted “Due to poor weather conditions
in the recovery area and to allow additional time for pre-launch checks, now targeting
Tuesday, March 2 at 7:53 p.m. EST for the launch of Starlink from LC-39A.”
Yesterday they also posted “Now targeting no earlier than Thursday, March 4 for launch
of Starlink due to a Range conflict and unfavorable launch and recovery weather.”
So looking at TheSpaceXFans website, you can see that Starlink-17 is now scheduled to lift
off tomorrow at 8:24am UTC or 3:24am EDT.
SpaceX also tweeted a couple of Starlink related tweets on Monday.
The first says “At a time when more people are working from home and more students are
participating in virtual learning, internet connectivity is more important than ever.
With Starlink, we’re able to deploy quickly to areas that need it most.”
Then they posted another saying “Last month, Starlinks were deployed to the Wise County
Public School District in rural Virginia, where ~40% of students and teachers did not
have internet access at home, helping to broaden connectivity in the area.”
There was a NASA briefing about the Crew-2 mission and Jeff Foust posted some tweets
about the event.
His first says “NASA’s Steve Stich says Crew-2 is still no earlier than April 20,
but may adjust date to optimize orbital mechanics.
Still looking to fly between Soyuz missions in early April and beta cutout in May.”
There were another couple of tweets which said “SpaceX’s Benji Reed say the Crew-1
vehicle relocation from one docking port to another as soon as the end of this month.”
And “Reed adds that the refurb of the Demo-2 Crew Dragon for Crew-2 is going well.
Same for the Falcon 9 booster that will be reflown on the launch.”
There was yet another tweet relating to Crew Dragon that will fly Crew-2.
Jeff Foust tweeted “Reed: replaced some valves, thermal propulsion system elements
on Crew Dragon capsule after Demo-2 in prep for Crew-2.
Otherwise it’s “really the same vehicle” that’s been carefully inspected and prepared
for reflight.”
There was also another tweet relating to capsule reusability which said “Stich: don’t see
a higher risk with reused Crew Dragon vehicles because we go through a methodical process
of reviews.”
There was also some information given in the briefing relating to the issue that caused
the Falcon 9 landing failure recently.
Jeff tweeted “Reed says the failed Falcon 9 booster landing was caused by an engine
shutdown.
Hot gas got through a cover or “boot” on the engine that caused the shutdown; engine-out
capability allowed the vehicle to complete primary mission but didn’t have enough thrust
for landing.”
Also he posted “Reed noted that the cover was a “life leader” in the fleet, having
flown more times than any other.”
There was an interesting tweet posted by Stephen Clark relating to the reliability of Merlin
engines.
He said “I count 1,079 Merlin engine flights to date in the Falcon 9 era, with three early
shutdowns in flight.
On all three occasions, the rocket completed its primary mission.
That puts the Merlin engine success rate above 99.7% in the Falcon 9 era.”
Moving onto the stuff in Boca Chica, the orbital launch site work is continuing.
SpaceX are doing some work just in front of their wall at the launch site.
The new orbital launch pad structure being worked on in the yard is also continuing.
Here’s that new high bay elevator we saw put up recently, in action.
There’s a new CNBC article which says that SpaceX is planning to construct a new facility
in Austin Texas.
They will apparently construct Starlink equipment with SpaceX saying “To keep up with global
demand, SpaceX is breaking ground on a new, state of the art manufacturing facility in
Austin, TX.”
Musk posted a tweet saying “Creating the city of Starbase, Texas”.
Scott Manley responded with “I hear Boca Chica Village was once known as Kopernik Shores
- after Copernicus.”
And Musk confirmed by saying “Indeed it was.”
Michael Baylor posted a tweet “The Boca Chica Village area (part of Cameron County)
will be incorporated as Starbase, Texas.”.
Musk responded with “An area much larger than Boca Chica.”
Raptor engine SN47 was seen delivered to the yard recently.
Mary tweeted about this Raptor SN47 as it had a message which said “Wen Hop?
Much Wow.”
There’s another new body flap that was delivered.
An interesting unknown dome was seen being moved.
This new ring section was spotted being worked on in a tent.
Just to throw in some more Starship news, Yusaku Maezawa made an announcement on Tuesday.
He said he would be inviting 8 people to join him on the dearMoon mission which will consist
of about 10 to 12 people in total.
The final remains of SN5 were recently moved to the scrap yard.
On Sunday, the flight termination system was installed onto SN10 in preparation for her
maiden flight.
Everything looked to be in place for a flight on Monday until Mary posted a tweet to the
contrary.
She said “I have just received an update that Starship SN10 will not fly until Wednesday
March 3.
Tomorrow’s attempt has been cancelled.
No hop tomorrow.”
SpaceX had attempted to launch SN10 earlier today when there was an abort.
Musk tweeted a little later “Launch abort on slightly conservative high thrust limit.
Increasing thrust limit & recycling propellant for another flight attempt today.”
Then after a couple of hours, SpaceX launched their 3rd full size prototype, Starship SN10.
Whilst editing this video, after SN10 managed to land successfully, she also decided it
wasn’t over and exploded.
Nonetheless SN10 did incredibly well, congrats to SpaceX.
As always, thank you to Mary, known as BocaChicaGal who is out there all day every day filming
the awesome stuff in Boca Chica.
Also thank you to the NASASpaceflight team working hard behind the scenes on their videos,
livestream and other content.
I also want to say thank you to each and every person who has subscribed to this channel.
This is my 100th Starship Updates video and it’s been a long road but this is just the
beginning.
I can’t thank you all enough for the incredible support.
Just a reminder, we have a shop with some cool SpaceX themed stickers if you’re interested,
there’s a link in the description.
Also we have a Discord server where you can come and join a bunch of space fans, there’s
a link to that in the description too.
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