Hello, we are TheSpaceXFans and welcome to TheSpaceXShow,
the place where you can stay up to date with everything SpaceX.
There’s an article related to Starlink which says “SpaceX is leasing a 124,907-square-foot
building complex that’s under construction in Redmond Ridge Business Park, east of Seattle.”
Apparently the new building “is just a block away from SpaceX’s existing facilities at Redmond
Ridge. Those facilities serve as the headquarters for SpaceX’s Starlink satellite development and
manufacturing operation.” In another article, SpaceX narrowly missed a collision with another
satellite. It says “Two satellites from the fast-growing constellations of OneWeb
and SpaceX’s Starlink dodged a dangerously close approach with one another in orbit last weekend,
representatives from the US Space Force and OneWeb said.” Eric Berger posted a tweet saying
“2021 orbital launches by U.S. companies: SpaceX: 10 Rocket Lab: 2 Northrop Grumman:
1 and Virgin Orbit: 1” Musk responded with “Global payload to orbit is the key metric.”
Musk was asked “Any news or pictures of the new A Shortfall Of Gravitas droneship?” He said “Coming
soon. Crazy number of launches this year!” There was a tweet about a Falcon 9 booster landing.
It says “If I saw this in a movie, I would think, "Neat in concept - but it would never work."
Absolutely genius engineering. SpaceX is *literally* turning science fiction into reality.”
Musk tweeted a response of “Starship booster, largest flying object ever designed,
will be caught out of sky by launch tower. Big step forward, as reflight can be done in under
an hour.” In response, he was asked “What about the Starship itself? Landing legs or catching
with tower as well?” Elon Musk responded with “Ideal scenario in my opinion is catching Starship
in horizontal “glide” with no landing burn, although that is quite a challenge for the tower!
Next best is catching with tower, with emergency pad landing mode on skirt (no legs).” He was also
asked “Ok but what about for mars where there is no tower.” Musk said “Needs legs for moon & Mars.”
Somebody tweeted about an FAA filing confirming SpaceX is building a launch/catch tower for
Super Heavy boosters. Musk responded with “Just one skyscraper catching another,
no big deal.” Musk was also asked “How do you plan on doing that? by the gridfins?”
He said “Load points just below the grid fins.” Musk tweeted a response to that
with “Shock absorption is built into tower arms. Since tower is ground side,
it can use a lot more mass to arrest booster downward momentum.” Musk posted yet another tweet
saying “The Starship launch tower that catches the giant rocket booster is basically Mechazilla.”
Plus “Just needs some legs.” Here’s a view of the orbital launch site tank farm infrastructure.
Here’s the hardware currently being constructed in the production yard for the orbital launch mount.
There’s an article about a YouTuber who went to Boca Chica and trespassed at the launch
site to film SN11. This is not acceptable so if you’re going to visit the site, please don’t go
trespassing on SpaceX land. Apparently SpaceX has been informed of this situation and I wanted to
share this article. There’s a pretty cool diagram created by The Ring Watchers of the production
area of SpaceX’s facility. It gives an overview of the main things currently going on around
the yard. Somebody posted a picture in a tweet where they said “Starship with a full tile set!
Augmented reality, by editing my render onto a pic by BocaChicaGal. Looks so surreal.”
A new dome has been sleeved in the yard. There’s a new lower booster bulkhead with a lot of engine
mounts. A new nosecone has been spotted out in the yard. An interesting new cap was added
to the blunt nosecone. On the left is the new ground support equipment tank, GSE 2 I believe.
On Thursday, the Starship SN15 prototype was rolled out to the launch area.
It was then lifted onto the suborbital pad A mount. With SN15 now rolled out,
somebody posted this cool timeline of each vehicle from rollout to launch on his website. There was
a tweet posted saying “SpaceX has requested to operate a single Starlink terminal on the ground
or during test flights (max 12.5km/8 minutes). Also, a new white dish has been spotted on SN15.”
Looking at the road and beach closures on the Cameron County website, there is a closure for
tomorrow and Tuesday. So as soon as tomorrow we could see a cryogenic proof test at least. The
upper dome for the first orbital Starship, serial number 20 has been seen sitting outside.
I believe this is the Super Heavy booster number 2 upper dome that’s waiting to be sleeved.
I’m pretty sure it’s now been sleeved. We can’t finish our Sunday video without taking a look
at the latest Starship and Super Heavy build diagram thanks to Brendan Lewis. We also have
to thank Mary, known as BocaChicaGal who is out there non-stop filming the awesome footage. Also,
thank you to the NASASpaceflight team which is a great team putting together awesome 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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