A second Starship tower!?
My name is Felix, and I’m your host for today's episode of What about it.
This is going to be the best WAI episode in a long time!
We have breaking news! Let’s dive right in!
Starship Updates
SpaceX is on track! We have tons of extremely interesting information about their current and future plans.
But more on that in a bit. First, let's take a look at what happened at Starbase, Texas!
To bring it to the point right away, SpaceX is as busy as it’s never been before at Starbase, TX.
They’re testing one Super Heavy Booster and two Starships.
All intended to go to orbit and soon.
Now you might ask, why only one Super Heavy booster?
Well, Booster 8 has gone to the rocket garden.
It was obvious for some time now.
Booster 8 was sitting at the Launch site without activity.
The grid fins intended for it were recently mounted on Booster 9.
Nine/nein, yeah!
On October 29th, so two days before SpaceX rolled Booster 8 back to the rocket garden,
workers installed the chine covers along the sides of Booster 9 as well.
No one knows exactly what was wrong with booster 8 besides, of course, SpaceX.
Maybe the build quality wasn’t sufficient.
Maybe it got damaged or maybe it just got taken over by the next generation of hardware.
SpaceX’s innovation cycle at Starship development, so the time from a new idea being brought up to it being implemented, seems to be very short.
This is common for Musk companies.
For Tesla, for example, the innovation cycle can be measured in days rather than months, which would be typical for the automotive industry.
The same seems to be true for the Starship project.
Was Booster 8 already outdated before it even had a chance to fly?
This happened the same day as the booster 8 rollback.
These are Booster 7 and Starship 24 on the orbital launch mount, performing a partial cryogenic test.
Detanking happened quickly. Again, not much is known, but SpaceX might have hit a problem here after booster 7’s lox tank was partially filled. Quick detank, and on we go.
The aborted test might have been the result of quick disconnect issues.
SpaceX has been doing tests on the upper quick disconnect lately.
Including realignment work.
On November 1st SpaceX put Ship 25 through its first successful cryo-proof test.
This is the Starship with the operational payload door, whereas Ship 24’s payload door was welded shut a while ago.
Both Methane and oxygen main tanks inside the ship's 9-meter diameter stainless steel hull were filled, brought up to pressure,
and detanked again without visible problems.
Again, SpaceX’s innovation cycle on these is very short,
so there are likely dozens of small internal changes to Ship 25’s hardware compared to 24’s.
Same story on Wednesday, November 2nd.
Another round of cryo-proof testing for Ship 25 and no visible issues.
Ship 25 is advancing through the test pipeline extremely fast.
This is testing crunch time. Test Pad A is very busy these days.
Huge venting accompanied the test.
Mesmerizing. There must be a reason why SpaceX is testing Ship 25 so fast.
There’s only one launch planned for this year.
The orbital test flight. Is ship 24 really going to fly, or are they getting Ship 25 ready to do the flight and use 24 as a ground test article?
What do you think? As always, let me know in the comments.
I’ve so far only talked about 4 days at Starbase, and the best is still to come.
Chief’s work at Starbase is mindblowing.
Like, subscribe, and stay with me as we go for the big news today!
On we go. Still November 2nd. Still, Starbase, Texas.
It’s Raptor time again. To be precise, Raptor 2. New deliveries of the wonder engine.
SpaceX is planning to make this the first ever rocket engine in human history to be flown like a commercial jet engine.
With hardly any maintenance between flights.
We’re not there yet, but SpaceX is making extremely good progress.
In fact, these are only a few of the engines photographed…
…By this guy at Starbase, Texas.
Chief, you rock!
These pictures are from October 28th, so just a few days prior.
SpaceX is pumping Raptors out at an incredible pace.
I quote: If 200 Falcon second-stage vehicles and Merlin Vacuum engines weren’t enough for you,
the Raptor team recently completed the 200th Raptor 2 engine!
End quote. This was Twitter by the official SpaceX Twitter account on November 4th.
200 Raptor 2 engines.
Here we go with the big news. Nasa recently released a big update about their HLS or human lander system program.
And as you might know, SpaceX’s Starship already is a big part of it.
NASA and SpaceX have held an update event.
The NASA Advisory Council committee on October 31st.
And they’ve spilled the beans.
One of the criteria NASA has set for SpaceX, and the HLS contract is a Raptor engine production capability demonstration of 7 engines in one week.
And SpaceX has made the milestone happen.
Congratulations! Now, don’t confuse this with a sustained production rate.
This could well have been a burst production.
But are they close? How many do they actually produce on average?
Let’s take a look at the numbers!
Rhino from Twitter has a project going on called the Raptor 2 tracker, and it’s by far the best source for Raptor 2 delivery numbers and facts.
Definitely worth following! So, let’s take a closer look.
First Raptor 2 ever spotted. Raptor number 5, on April 17th of, 2022.
The last one on his tracker, R186, was spotted on October 28th of 2022.
Well, technically, we have Raptor number 200 from SpaceX’s tweet on November 4th.
So, let’s use that one. This gives us 196 Raptors from April 17th to November 5th, as we don’t know much about the first 4.
So, April 17th to November 4th would be 164 days.
164 days divided by 196 engines.
0.836. Considering that a production curve on a new production line normally goes up over time,
it’s surprisingly safe to say that these 7 engines in a week NASA pointed out at the Advisory Council committee weren’t burst production.
In fact, it seems like this is rather close to a normal day at Hawthorne.
This is incredible news. Extrapolating the 0.836 engines a day and not even taking into account that SpaceX’s Raptor production will likely go
further up, this would mean that right now, they’re capable of producing 305 engines per year.
That’s almost 8 full Starship and Super Heavy Stacks per year if none of them are reused.
But wait, there’s more!
Under Completed SpaceX Option A contract milestones in calendar year 22 NASA and SpaceX list Landing Software and sensor demo,
Software architecture review, Sea Level Raptor engine cold start demo, Advanced lander system design maturity,
of which the one Raptor per day production rate is a part.
Cryo fluid management, which includes planning an in-space propellant transfer and long-duration flight tests.
And finally, prep for the first Starship orbital flight.
NASA deputy associate Administrator for Artemis, Mark Kirasich, also stated that a first orbital flight test is expected in early December.
This pushes Musk's latest statement for a November test launch out again, but it also shows how confident NASA is in SpaceX making it happen.
Last but not least, for today’s Starship news, I’d like to point something out.
This is a picture from RGV Aerial Photography.
Mauricio's latest flyover. See anything interesting?
So, this is suuuuper speculative, and it could well be wrong, but… do you see this?
I’m just saying. Looks rather similar to the bases of Mechazilla and OLM right next to the new development.
Mechazilla 2 for Starbase? It’s been long proposed by SpaceX in many plans and even renders.
This, for example, is a render directly from an FAA assessment.
It came from SpaceX.
I’m just going to leave this thought with you.
Speculation, you know… Next up, we have Falcon Heavy!
The most powerful rocket in operation finally took flight again, and WAI was there for you!
USSF 44. November 1st, 941 am Eastern Time.
Very foggy. No problem for SpaceX, though.
If you want to know more about Falcon Heavy, watch my last video after this one.
Today, we’re going to take a look at the actual flight.
And what a launch it was!
It was our first Falcon Heavy launch in person.
It’s hard to describe. Triple the noise level of a Falcon 9. Incredibly long flames.
A booster separation visible from our vantage point with the naked eye, and those tiny boosters falling through the sky like bullets.
Mindbogglingly fast. It’s hard not to be surprised by the sonic booms.
Incredibly loud. Much louder than the rocket itself and audible long after the boosters have already landed due to the time the sound needs to
travel from the booster to us.
"When you come to sonic booms.
There is the second one!"
We were as excited as little children.
So much for the emotional part.
This just doesn’t come across on a stream.
I hope I was able to describe it to you as well as possible.
From SpaceX’s view it was a perfect delivery.
Falcon Heavy, powered by 27 merlin engines soared into the sky.
The footage SpaceX delivered to 1.6 million people was stunning.
Crisp and clear. 4k, 60 fps. As close as you can get to being there in person.
Switching to onboard cameras, we saw stunning views of the booster separation.
Besides being the only company world wide to recover orbital rocket boosters, SpaceX also does this with two at the same time.
The cameras attached to the boosters, unfortunately, caught some ice on the way up, so the view was not particularly great,
but SpaceX’s tracking ground cameras jumped in and delivered.
As soon as the atmosphere got thick enough,
the ice was quickly blow away from the onboard cameras and revealed the view down towards where we were waiting for the boosters to return.
We even got a view of one booster filming the other's descent and landing!
What more would the space enthusiast world want?
And with those mighty sonic booms, the boosters landed at LZ one and two.
As if it was nothing.
The second stage continued to a nominal orbit insertion, but as this was a highly classified payload, it wasn’t shown live by SpaceX.
We’ll likely never know what exactly was under those two fairing halves.
The center core of this mission was expendable and likely had a very rough landing in the Atlantic ocean.
Incredible work by the entire SpaceX team.
The industry leader shows how it’s done.
SpaceX isn’t alone in trying to innovate, though.
A video from Blue Origin! It’s rare, but sometimes that does happen.
This is one of the BE4 flight engines for the upcoming Vulcan Centaur launch.
ULA’s brand new rocket to lift Amazon Kuiper into space.
A powerful new-gen methane engine.
Different from SpaceX’s Raptor and not with the goal of immediate reuse, it is supposed to power ULA for the upcoming years.
And they’re producing them faster and faster.
ULA is even building new facilities just for those Amazon launches.
Decatur, Alabama, on October 27th.
ULA is breaking ground on the new Vulcan facility to support the largest commercial launch contract in history and double the launch rate.
38 of the 83 total launches planned are in ULA’s books.
1500 satellites over the next 5 years.
Kuiper is Amazon's answer to SpaceX’s Starlink.
Broadband high-speed internet for everyone in range of a Satellite.
For that, you need many satellites, so Amazon booked all available flights… from almost everyone in the business.
Arianespace got 18 launches for the upcoming Ariane 6 rocket.
Twelve launches went to Blue Origins New Glenn with an option for another 15.
38 launches went to ULA’s Vulcan Centaur, 9 more to the Atlas V.
While ULA is close to launching its Vulcan rocket, all three booked vehicles have one thing in common.
They’ve never been flown. They’re not even put together yet.
And at the same time, they’re supposed to launch 1500 satellites over the cause of the next 5 years.
Ariane 6 has recently been delayed again.
Ariane 6 in the highbay in French Guiana.
Don’t be fooled by this image, released by Arianespace on October 17th.
It’s an example, not a flight-worthy rocket.
In fact, only two days later, on October 19th, Josef Aschbacher, Director General at ESA announced that Ariane 6 will have another delay.
The inaugural flight will not occur until the fourth quarter of 2023.
Another year and questions are already being asked if Ariane 6 even makes sense.
Long story short, Amazon is late, and only ULA is delivering so far.
There would be one simple solution.
Why not ask SpaceX? Well… for obvious reasons.
As mentioned, they’re the direct competition with Starlink and their rockets.
If possible, Amazon doesn’t want to feed the Falcons and Starships of this world.
And if not possible? Let’s listen in to Dave Limp, Senior Vice President of devices and services at Amazon.
"Yes, we are open to talk, you know, talking to SpaceX.
You'd be crazy not to, given their track record here.
Falcon Heavy, but more importantly as they think about Starship.."
It was to be expected. Of course, this is not at all a guarantee that we’ll see Kuiper launches with a Starship, but it’s at least out there.
A solution if New Glenn and Ariane 6 can’t deliver.
The last resort. It’ll be interesting to see if SpaceX will accept such an offer if it comes to it.
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That’s it for today! Make sure to check out our WAI Wear merch store!
November is filled with promo campaigns for Christmas!
And if you want to get even smarter about Space and rockets, watch this video next to continue the journey!
Thank you very much for watching, and I’ll see you again in the next episode!