In the year 2022, SpaceX aims to send their BFR rocket on its first trip to Mars.
Standing at 106m tall and 9m in diameter, the BFR will dwarf the Falcon 9
and Falcon Heavy rockets.
This raises the question, how will SpaceX transport the BFR?
In this video we are going to look at the different methods SpaceX might choose to transport
the enormous BFR rocket across the country.
We are also going to look back to the early days of spaceflight
and compare how the Saturn V was transported.
In order to understand how challenging the BFR’s journey will be, we have to know where
it’s coming from and where it’s going.
The BFR looks set to be manufactured at a factory in the Port of San Pedro, Los Angeles.
The intended launch site for the BFR is not yet decided, however, initial launches are
expected to take place from Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center.
Static fire tests will most likely take place in Boca Chica, Texas, where SpaceX are building
a brand new facility.
In a previous Primal Space video, we looked at the long journey the Falcon 9 travels from
California to Florida.
When the Falcon 9 was designed, the diameter of the rocket was limited to 3.7m in order
to fit under every overpass it would come across on it’s journey.
Not only will the BFR be much wider than the Falcon 9, it will also be much longer, making
the logistics even more difficult.
With the booster section being 58m long and the spacecraft section being 48m long,
it would be impossible to transport the BFR by road, air OR rail.
The only possible way the BFR will be able get from California to Florida is by sea.
With the new BFR factory being located in the port of Los Angeles, the BFR sections
can easily be loaded onto a barge which will take them to the east coast.
Once the parts are on the barge, they will then travel south and make their way through
the Panama canal and back up to Cape Canaveral, where they will be assembled and launched.
While it may seem impractical to have the BFR factory on the opposite side of the country
from the launch site, building the new BFR factory in California is actually very sensible.
It makes much more sense for SpaceX to keep their base in California, where all of their
employees and resources are located, than to move everything to a factory on the other
side of the country.
Back in the Apollo days, the Saturn V used a very similar method of transport, with the
second stage following the same journey from California to Cape Canaveral, passing through
the Panama canal.
Although it looks like the BFR will follow a similar journey to the Saturn V, it will
be a much simpler journey overall, since the BFR has less parts, and all of those parts
are coming from the same place.
The Saturn V on the other hand, was built in a number of different States, making it
a logistical nightmare to transport it to the launch pad.
Although the BFR will most likely be shipped as two large sections, the Raptor engines
will still have to be transported by road to the testing facility in McGregor, Texas
and then back to California to be attached to the BFR booster.
It’s also possible that smaller parts like the Delta wing could be shipped by road and
assembled once it reaches Cape Canaveral.
So as we look forward to seeing the progress SpaceX make to their BFR, we can appreciate
the enormous effort that’s needed to transport the machines that will take us to Mars.
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If you would like to learn more about how rockets are transported, check out my video on
how SpaceX transport the Falcon 9
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more about all things space.
Thank you very much for watching and I’ll see you in the next video.