Five Starships in 2023! -Five?
-Alright, five! -Maan, five!!
My name is Felix, and I’m your host for today's episode of What about it.
Today we’ll analyze SpaceX’s recent Starship full stack test!
We’ll see when SpaceX will do the orbital Starship launch and what SpaceX’s plans are for Starship and the entire year.
We’ll take a fascinating look at recent Starship design changes in detail and do a launch analysis of GPS three!
Stay tuned, and let’s dive right in!
Starship Updates
Starbase is working around the clock.
Shift after shift, day and night.
And the results are slowly but steadily creating the craziest rocket ever built.
Or should I say two craziest rockets ever built?
This is how we know it. Beautifully captured by WAI cam operator Chief.
Starship 24 and Booster 7 at sunrise.
Starbase is a one-of-a-kind project destined to revolutionize space travel.
At least, that’s the future vision.
The timeline is pretty clear by now.
Three main steps are left before an orbital launch.
The first step to expect in the next few days is a wet dress rehearsal.
After the full stack, SpaceX has already done the first cryogenic test of at least booster 7. There wasn’t much visible on the outside,
but SpaceX workers very likely filled both Methane and Oxygen main tanks partially with liquid Nitrogen on January 13th.
Venting could be seen on LabPadre’s 24/7 cams.
So, an initial test was done.
A wet dress rehearsal is a complex test, as every step leading up to a launch is performed, practiced, and tested.
This needs some preparation time.
As I said in the beginning, though, SpaceX might be proceeding slowly, but they are proceeding steadily as well.
January 18th, Starbase, Texas.
One full stack test coming up!
And it looks like SpaceX was very successful!
Fueling and detanking of Booster 7. Another test passed.
The largest rocket ever built, alive and kicking.
Spectacular pictures! Again, something you can only see when watching SpaceX work.
Once the full wet dress is done, SpaceX will destack Ship 24 again because the next step in SpaceX’s road-to-orbit timeline is even more dangerous.
As you can see, the ground handling hard points on Ship 24’s nose have been left on.
The only possible reason is a destack.
It hasn’t happened yet, as of recording the episode, but if it does before you watch it, we’ll show the footage here.
The reason for SpaceX destacking Ship 24 after the wet dress rehearsal is simple.
The next step is a full 33-engine static fire on the booster.
And with 7590 tons of thrust blasting down below the orbital launch mount, you don’t want to take unnecessary risks.
So, that’s your second very important step before the orbital launch.
An inferno that has never been seen before.
53 tons worth of Raptor engines, hopefully not digging a hole under the rocket.
Nope!
The final step after that and the third one on the to-do list for SpaceX is a rollback of both Ship 24 and Booster 7 for final inspections.
I don’t expect them to do upgrades at this stage, as everything should have been in place for the wet dress rehearsal to make it a valid test.
I expect the final checks to take at least a week.
SpaceX will want to be extremely thorough.
Nothing should be left to chance for that maiden flight to Space.
Once final checks are done, it’s all back to the launch site, stack for a last time, and then…
History in the making. Unbelievable views and hopefully a successful launch of Ship 24 and Booster 7 toward Space!
More than twice the thrust of Saturn V.
Needless to say, I will be streaming the first orbital launch and watch it together with all of you.
We will bite our nails, stare at the screen in disbelief, and then… And then what?
What can we expect after that first launch?
I don’t know if I can take this.
Musk tweeted this on January 14th.
When asked by Tesla Owners Silicon Valley on Twitter how many Starships SpaceX is looking to build this year,
Musk replied saying about five full stacks.
I’ve discussed this before, and it aligns with what I expected.
But having a confirmation for 5 Starship launches in 2023 is surreal.
This can mean epic launch glory, but it also means countless opportunities for failure.
Starship is still a very young rocket, and so many things can go wrong.
And there are good signs out there that SpaceX can do five Starship launches in a year.
At least 4 more Starships are in production or ready for tests right now.
This is Ship 25, which rolled out to the launch site on January 17th.
Ready for testing and ready to follow Ship 24 in the launch schedule.
Booster 9 is inside the Mega Bay at the Starbase Production site right now for engine installation and upgrades before rolling out to the Launch
site again and performing the first static fires.
Tons of upgrades like electric thrust vector control, amongst other things.
SpaceX is constantly upgrading their prototypes.
And by now, they’ve reached a level of complexity that looks absolutely professional.
Take a look at this!
Stunning pictures and videos from Chief’s WAI Cam.
These kinds of pictures make us jump in excitement here at the WAI team every time they come in.
What you’re looking at are Anti Vortex Slosh Baffles.
Owe worked with us again, and the result is an extremely high-detail render of this new construction part.
Now, you might ask yourself, what on Earth is Anti Vortex supposed to mean?
And the answer to this intimidating question is surprisingly simple.
Honey, there’s a fluid vortex in our Bathroom!
Everyone’s seen a fluid vortex before.
When water drains out of a bathtub, for example.
Fluid tends to build up a vortex when draining from a vessel.
Now, what other large vessel can we think of?
Right. This one, for example!
A SpaceX Super Heavy. Slightly different than your bathtub but a huge vessel and likely the future of spaceflight.
And this is what it looks like on the inside.
There’s a pipe going from the upper Methane main tank through the main liquid oxygen tank towards the fuel manifold just above the engines called
Downcomer or transfer tube. The newly spotted part is the top of that pipe, inside the methane tank.
This is what it looks like from above.
Bathtub drain or rocket tank outlet.
No big difference. So, the tank creates the same kind of vortex when methane drains down towards the engines.
And to prevent a Vortex from forming,
which would create fluctuations in propellant flow and make it difficult to drain the entire tank at the same speed,
SpaceX added this part on top of the Methane Downcomer inside the tank.
Wonderful renders from Owe! Thank you so much!
A link to his Twitter and YouTube channel can be found in the description!
If you know something about 3D printing, make an anti-vortex slush baffle and try it out on your bathtub!
Fun real-world experiment!
Right?
Chief also took some stunning pictures of a brand new Transfer tube, including the Hockey Puck for a new 33-engine Super Heavy Booster.
Same story again. A heavily improved design compared to previous versions.
The Hockey puck is the last bit of the transfer tube.
It goes through the liquid oxygen header tank all the way at the bottom of the booster and just above the engines.
It caused a lot of trouble on booster 7.
It collapsed during a cryogenic proof test, and that’s likely the reason why we’re seeing updates to this specific part right now.
SpaceX is evolving the Starship and Booster design further and further even without having done the first launch.
Now’s the time to hit the like button and subscribe if you haven’t done so yet!
Make it a bit easier for us to continue our work!
Thank you so much! On we go with Falcon 9 and GPS III!
This one was for early birds. GPS III vehicle 6. Launch time here at the Cape: 7:24 am.
Much more comfortable for those in Europe!
Right around noon!
And what a launch it was! Epic pictures of GPS III as it rose up into the sky!
And a very important launch for Lockheed Martin and everyone using GPS capability.
Three times better accuracy. Up to eight times improved anti-jamming capability.
A modular and fully upgradable design to make it future-proof.
Those are just a few of the countless improvements compared to GPS II.
Vehicle 6, in this case, of course, means that this is satellite number 6 to modernize the Space Force’s GPS constellation.
This launch saw the second flight of Booster B1077 and a landing on A Shortfall Of Gravitas out in the Atlantic ocean.
B1077’s first flight was for Crew 5 back in October 2022.
Wonderful views from SpaceX’s cameras as the booster pierced through some clouds above the Ocean.
I had the question on the last live stream if catching a Starship would be too risky for crewed flights.
Judging by what SpaceX does with Falcon 9 boosters, landings seem to be a pretty safe thing by now.
This was landing number 165 and number 90 of successful landings in a row.
A Shortfall Of Gravitas, SpaceX’s latest drone ship has never seen an unsuccessful landing.
A bit different than a catch, but still.
Very promising.
Then came a very long coast phase of almost one hour until SES-2, the second ignition of the upper-stage Merlin engine.
This happens when a Payload needs to reach a higher orbit.
In this case, GPS III was sent to a 20,200-kilometer-wide orbit.
And last but not least, one hour and 29 minutes into flight, GPS III vehicle 6 had a good separation.
With up to 32 GPS III satellites in production, only a fifth of the potential amount of GPS III satellites is in orbit by now.
So, we can look forward to plenty more of these!
SpaceX wants to accomplish up to 100 launches this year.
Considering that they’ve doubled their launch cadence from 2021 and 31 successful launches to last year and 61 successful launches,
it might actually seem doable.
But even if the big X would only reach close to 100, it would still be far more than any other launch provider or country in the world.
Good news for us Space nerds!
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That’s it for today! Remember to like and subscribe!
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Thank you very much for watching, and I’ll see you again in the next episode!