Yep. That thing is crazy large, and it’ll fly soon!
My name is Felix, and I’m your host for today's episode of What about it.
A sense of scale. Extremely important with SpaceX’s Starship, but so hard to get on a computer screen.
Ever wanted to know how large a Starship is?
Stay with me! Ship 24 is almost ready for the orbital Starship flight!
The Booster 7 33 engine static fire is imminent!
A water deluge system might be a great idea!
So many questions and insights!
Stay tuned, and let’s dive right in!
Starship Updates
SpaceX is in full prep mode for the Starship orbital flight.
The Spaceflight community has been waiting for a long time, and hopefully, there’s not much time left now.
Chief, our WAI Cam operator is on-site every day, capturing SpaceX’s struggles and advances in building the most giant rocket in human history.
What you’re looking at here is the hottest candidate for the first Starship to go to Space.
Ship 24. And even its name tells you something about the difficulties of this undertaking.
It’s ship 24 by now, and it hasn’t reached orbit yet.
This is because SpaceX’s Starship is more fundamental research than most rocket design projects these days.
It does many things differently than SpaceX’s current workhorse, the Falcon 9.
Our Patrons and YouTube members have been looking at these pictures for a few days now.
Chief went straight up to Ship 24 as soon as it arrived at the construction site and took some incredible up-close detail shots.
Ship 24 is a veteran by now. The first parts of its construction were spotted in November 2021.
The first roll-out to the launch site was done on May 26th, 2022.
A lengthy test campaign has left its traces on the ship's hull.
Rust can be seen everywhere.
This is due to the constant salt breeze everything at the launch site is subjected to.
This recent picture taken by Mauricio from RGV Aerial Photography on January 31st shows the distance very well.
It’s almost on the beach. A few hundred feet away from the Gulf of Mexico.
And salt water is the biggest enemy of anything with iron in it.
Don’t worry, though. At least the rust on the outside of the hull is not problematic at all.
It’s just the surface. This doesn’t even influence structural integrity.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that you can just let it sit in the salty breeze.
At some point, this will cause problems.
Especially thrusters, valves, engines, and plumbing are much more sensitive to rust than a 3.97-millimeter thick stainless steel outer hull.
Besides the rust, we can see that Ship 24 is in excellent shape.
Its heat shield is not missing tiles after the recent static fire.
Its quick-disconnect port very much looks ready.
Chief’s pictures even let us read some of the labels.
For now, though, Starship 24 is safe at the production site.
And the reason is a very positive one!
Work on the nose cone has begun.
Hardpoints need to be removed, and the big question mark, the heat shield, needs work too.
Because this won’t do. My research, especially regarding the capabilities of Stainless steel to deal with reentry heat,
has made me much more confident, but missing tiles will have to be replaced before the launch.
Similar preparation work can be seen at the launch site.
Mechazilla and the orbital launch mount are closing the shutters.
Here you can see workers mount more blast shields on the draw works housing.
All of it is in preparation for the Booster 7 33 engine static fire and later for the launch.
Everything on the tower and the OLM looks like this by now.
There aren’t many unprotected spots left.
Looking at all this shows that SpaceX is no longer far from that first launch test.
This has a giant scale, and protecting against 33 times 250 tons of thrust is difficult.
Alex Delderfield has worked with us to try and give you a sense of the scale of Starship and Super Heavy.
It’s difficult, but I think this one will give you a good feel!
Everyone knows this meme. How it started.
How it’s going. It is going pretty good!
Here's the first comparison Alex made for us to give you a feel of SpaceX’s Starship and how large it actually is.
Falcon 1 compared to Starship.
That tiny rocket there on the left is SpaceX’s first rocket.
Three failures and two successful launches from 2006 to 2009.
Total payload to low Earth orbit?
345 kilograms on two flights. Total height 22.25 meters.
Alright, that was cute. Let’s do something more serious!
Let’s use mighty Falcon 9 for the next comparison!
This bad boy must surely stand a bit better against Starship, right?
Hmm, okay, that's less than what I thought.
Mighty Falcon 9… not so mighty anymore.
At 70 meters, Falcon 9 is a respectable rocket.
It is arguably the most advanced rocket out there, yet it looks like a toy compared to a Starship.
That’s precisely why I asked Alex for these renders for you to look at.
This shows how different a Starship actually is.
How larger the scale, the power, and in return, the forces are that the SpaceX engineers must keep in check.
Even when adding Falcon Heavy to the mix, it still doesn’t want to seem smaller.
At 120 meters in size and 9 meters in diameter, SpaceX’s Starship 24 and booster 7 seem surreal.
Last but not least, Starship Heavy.
I know you were waiting for it.
Likely never to be built and likely utter nonsense, but we can dream, right?
99 Raptor engines… would make for a fantastic song, too!
Thank you, Alex, for working together with us on these.
If you want to show him some love for his work, remember to follow him on Twitter @Alex_ADEdge.
He’s working on a full Starship launch animation right now, and you can follow along on Twitter!
A link is in the description! Next up, let’s look at some recent pictures from Mauricio and RGV aerial photography.
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Thank you!
Mauricio was up flying for us again on February 1st.
And he brought back some stunning pictures again!
A link to his Patreon can be found in the description.
He’s been all over the place again!
After recently confirming it on Twitter as a response to Mauricio’s pictures, there’s no doubt anymore.
SpaceX’s brand-new rocket test facility is making fast progress.
First circular foundations for test stands can already be seen from the air.
These will likely be used for Raptor engine testing, which is currently done at McGregor.
The benefit of SpaceX moving at least part of its Raptor testing right next to Starbase is clear.
Downtime for tests can be reduced significantly.
Look forward to some epic videos from Chief in the future!
Ha-ha. :)
Next up, we have the new construction next to the orbital launch mount.
More foundation work has been done,
and it looks like the first steps of a water deluge system are being built between the launch tower and the dirt foundation.
This still doesn’t solve the mystery of what the large dirt foundation will be used for,
but it gives us a good indicator of what SpaceX plans for after the first orbital launch.
By now, they must have realized that launching the largest rocket ever built without a deluge system might not be the best idea.
These are some Maxar satellite images from May 2020.
They show SpaceX’s initial idea of a Starship launch mount and landing pad before the idea was brought up to catch Starships and boosters with
a tower. SpaceX had installed a powerful water deluge system running on compressed Gas back then.
A water deluge system aims to send as much water as possible from a water storage to a launch pad quickly.
This, for example, is a NASA test of the Pad 39B water deluge system used to protect the pad from the engines of the Space Launch System.
1 point 7 million liters of water is sent across the mobile launcher and the flame deflector.
The pressure, in this case, is built up via pumps and a tall water tower.
In SpaceX’s case, the pressure was supposed to come from high-pressure gas tanks behind the water tanks.
The gas would have been released, pressing the water out of the tanks and sending it through pipes toward the orbital launch mount.
And looking at Mauricio’s pictures again, that looks to be the case next to SpaceX’s Starship launch pad.
The tank foundations can already be seen.
So, give me a second, SpaceX dug out the several years old deluge system at KSC and likely shipped it via barge to Brownsville and Starbase.
As soon as it arrives, we’ll know for sure.
That still doesn’t explain the large dirt foundation behind it.
I’ll keep a close look at it for you!
So, what’s going to happen next at Starbase?
Bill Gerstenmeier, former head of human spaceflight at NASA and now SpaceX’s vice president of flight reliability,
said at the AIAA’s Scitect conference on January 27th that Starship’s 33-engine static fire could happen maybe next week if things go well.
That would be this week, and as of recording the episode, there hasn’t been a static fire yet.
Looking at the currently announced Road Closures at Starbase gives today as a possible date.
Monday and Tuesday are set for possible tests as well.
So, either it happens today, or there’s a good chance we’ll see the static fire after the weekend.
One last and very solid or liquid indicator of SpaceX’s intentions is this picture from January 27th.
Seven Tanker trucks simultaneously unloading fuel at the launch site and filling up the giant GSE tanks in the background.
And then it’s finger-crossing time.
If everything goes well during this likely low power and short static fire, we might very well be in for a launch in February.
If not, and if there’s significant damage to the orbital launch mount and the concrete under it, SpaceX will have to get fixing again.
What do you think? Will SpaceX launch this month?
As always, let me know in the comments!
On January first, Elon Musk visited Starbase and inspected the engine bay of Booster 7. Everything needs to be perfect for the static fire,
so Elon went and did a personal inspection.
And the results?
Raptor engine number 100 is racing down toward the launch site on a trailer.
SpaceX’s Raptor assembly line needs separate praise.
Chief took quite a few pictures of SpaceX’s on-site Starbase Raptor storage, and looking inside of it fills with joy.
This is what it looks like when an engine production line is running at full speed.
How about those two engines.
And these engines are going to be needed as well.
Several super Heavy boosters, Ship 25 on-site, waiting for engines, Ship 27,
Ship 28… there are many prototypes out there at Starbase which depend on this Raptor engine production line to work at full speed.
Looking back at Alex Delderfields comparison shows how much work such a mega-rocket project is.
Thousands of engineers and workers, likely hundreds of millions of dollars until it’s fully operational,
and a prospect that couldn’t be more pleasing.
Fingers crossed for the static fire and the orbital launch!
We’ll be watching!
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