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How does the Orbital Launch mount work?
How does a Super Heavy booster rest on it.
How does it connect to it? Will there be a sound suppression system on it?
And why is SpaceX building it for their Starships the way they are?
Let’s find out!
My name is Felix, and I am your host for today’s episode of What about it!?
And as always, there’s been a lot going on in the space industry lately, so let’s dive right in!
Starship Updates
SpaceX is currently focusing on Mechazilla, Ship 20, Ship 21, Ship 22, Booster 4, Booster 5, booster 6,
the orbital fuel farm… this is not going to work.
Let’s do this differently. Today’ we’ll pick one single topic and do a deep dive into how it actually works!
And what better to pick then where it all begins!
The first few full stack starship launches will happen at the orbital launch mount.
And it’s a bit more complex than you might think right now!
To start the topic, we first have to talk Super Heavy.
There’s been lots of activity on booster 4’s engine section.
All sorts of systems have either been installed or finished on the outside of the hull.
These COPV’s on the outside of the engine section likely have two different purposes.
Engine relight of the center engines and maybe even pressure for the RCS.
The small reaction control thrusters on the outside of the booster.
In combination with the engine gimbal system, they give the Super Heavy booster the ability to change direction in flight.
And if you look at the surroundings of those tanks, you’ll notice a yellowish blanket.
That’s thermal insulation and it’s recently been put around every single one of these systems.
Mauricio was in the air again and his latest pictures give the answer to the question of what’s next.
Those covers lined up here at the launch site are aerodynamic covers and they will be installed on the booster next.
It will change the visual look of the booster quite a bit and they’re likely temporary in shape and little refined,
but after they got installed, we’ll see what a Super Heavy booster prototype looks like when almost finished for the first time!
As you can see, there are lots of very large COPV’s installed on the outside of the booster’s engine section.
But even all those tanks won’t likely be enough gas to start up all the engines at once.
Musk and his team likely have taken a different approach here.
Instead of plastering the booster with COPV’s all over the engine section just to get the system to start up,
they’ve chosen to do what they’ve done quite a few times before.
Is there a way to remove the system from the rocket and instead put it on the support structure?
This is a render done by Owe from SpaceX 3D creation Eccentric and it shows the orbital launch table,
sitting on top of the orbital launch mount and there even is a little SpaceX astronaut for size comparison.
We're talking about this thing.
Currently completely wrapped in scaffolding for constructing reasons, it looks much cleaner on Owe's render.
I want you to pay close attention to the inside of the launch table ring.
Looks awfully complicated, right?
Let me shed some light on it for you.
It’s a very clever design intended to remove more systems and thus weight from the rocket itself.
SpaceX is trying everything to remove unnecessary systems from the Starship.
And if you thought, it looked complicated before, here’s what’s hidden inside the table and what got removed from the booster.
The missing COPV’s for the outer Raptor boost engines.
Now, you can’t see any COPV’s here, of course.
So, what am I talking about? Let’s explain what just extended out of the table.
I’ve heard the question a few times, what the booster is resting on, when sitting on the orbital launch table.
Wouldn’t it fall into the hole without any sort of legs?
First of all, we have the clamps, the booster is sitting on.
Mystery solved. The booster's engine section is placed on these clamps.
It sits there until lift off.
Then the clamps retract out of the way as soon as there’s no weight on them anymore.
This is what it looks like with a Super Heavy Booster sitting in it and not on it.
It’s hard to see from the outside so the confusion is perfectly understandable!
Owe to the rescue!
Onward to the next tool extending inwards.
This little arm here. There are 20 of them extending and they have little connectors on them.
Now, where can we find the number 20 again?
Right, on the booster's outer engines.
If we count the number of Raptor boost engines on the outer most ring of the booster, we land at the exact same number.
The inner engine setup will change to 13 in the future, but the outer one will likely stay as it is now.
To start up so many engines is not that easy and requires a lot of equipment.
All that is taken out from the booster itself and replaced by these little connectors here.
They provide the engines with the needed nitrogen, hot oxygen and hot methane for a proper ignition.
Nitrogen to spin up the turbo pumps and gaseous oxygen and methane to provide fuel for the ignition.
On this beautiful picture by Mary for NASA Spaceflight you can even see the Quick disconnect panel on the engine,
providing the connectivity towards the Orbital launch table.
What a clever design!
Completely outsourcing the ignition system out of the booster stage and into the launch mount for almost two thirds of the engines.
And they don’t have to spin up after that first ignition either.
The boost engines are not used for anything but the initial burn up to MECO and stage separation.
After that, so the boost back, any possible reentry burns and the landing burn are done with the center engines.
Now you know, why SpaceX makes a separate engine design for this task.
It’s another perfect example for how Musk and his team think.
Every part is questioned. Nothing is just done as it is because it’s always been like that.
Is this part needed? Can we reduce the size, build it differently or completely get rid of it?
Many things SpaceX does the way they do on the Starship project is based on this principle.
Next up we’ll talk about one last mystery about the orbital launch mount that still wasn’t solved until today and the fuel disconnect sitting
on top of the launch table. It’s worth it!
Stay tuned!
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One last Mystery about the orbital launch mount still remains.
What about a flame diverter? A sound suppression system.
Anything that would mitigate the sound waves produced by 28 and later 33 Raptor engines igniting at once?
This for example is footage from the SpaceX Crew one launch produced by Cosmic Perspective.
If you don’t know their channel yet, a link is in the description.
Pay close attention to the plume directly surrounding the rocket.
Do you see that wobble? Those wave-like deformations of the cloud of water vapor?
Those are sound waves. Strong ones.
The cloud of water vapor comes from the deluge system.
Water is used to dampen the shockwaves because water is extremely good at that.
On the Starship orbital launch mount nothing of that sort is visible even though a Super Heavy booster will dwarf anything a Falcon 9 could
put out. It will have more than double the thrust of a Saturn V. Still… nothing.
By the way, all these and many more pictures and videos can also be found on our new Sub channel WAI plus.
Click the infocard for more… info!
Either Elon Musk and his team at SpaceX have found an extremely clever way of just not producing that much sound,
which honestly would be incredible, or they just don’t care about it, or we just haven’t found the system they will implement yet.
Either way, the solution to the mystery will be extremely interesting to know and that’s why we keep speculating.
So, here we go. Here’s yet another speculation on how a deluge system could be incorporated into the Orbital Launch table.
Owe has done an excellent job of imagining such a system on the OLM.
Make sure to check out his Twitter and his YouTube channel for almost daily animations and renders about SpaceX’s Starship infrastructure.
So, if there is a deluge system planned, it needs to either be surrounding the mount or it needs to be integrated into it.
On Mauricios weekly pictures from above we can clearly spot the orbital launch mount and surrounding infrastructure from above.
But no matter from what angle we look at it, there’s nothing that would suggest a deluge system surrounding the mount itself.
No connectors on the ground for rain birds to be installed later.
No strange pipes sticking out of the ground, nothing.
All the pipes visible are fuel related or at least directly connected to the mount itself.
On the left we have large, insulated pipes going in.
Likely cryogenic fluids. Methane, oxygen nitrogen.
On the right we have smaller pipes.
Here’s a picture taken by Luis, the WAI Cam operator, from the ground.
Small pipes are visible on the left.
Those likely are the talked about ignition system pipes and pipes for COPV load.
Pipes for non-cryogenic fuel. On the right there are larger black ones.
Those are for fueling. They lead towards the quick disconnect on the launch table.
So, this panel is for COPV load.
There literally is a label on it.
These pipes either are for the Prepress system or for backflow.
Nongaseous nitrogen for prepress or nongaseous oxygen and methane for back flow.
Again. Nothing here points towards water for a deluge system.
So, all we can do is imagine, what such a system would look like.
Rainbirds inside the inner ring of the launch table, spewing water into the middle.
The exhaust from the Raptor engines would then hit the water in the middle,
turn it into water vapor and get rid of the dangerous shockwaves and at least some of the heat.
That’s the theory. Again, it’s really hard to imagine the orbital launch mount without this system for obvious reasons.
An orbital Starship launch will be absolutely incredible to watch.
And the main reason for that will be 28 and later 33 Raptors under Super Heavy pushing the largest rocket ever into space.
This will create immense forces and I pity the poor orbital launch table, if there really isn’t a deluge system.
If the FAA gives a go with the environmental assessment as talked about on the last episode, we might see the launch at the end of next month!
Finally let’s talk about an object that is heavily underappreciated, as it tells us a lot of things about how everything connects.
The Quick disconnect on top of the launch table.
So, this is what we’re talking about.
Simply put it’s the system fueling the Super Heavy booster before a launch.
It attaches to the booster on the quick disconnect panel on the side of the engine section.
Here’s a picture of booster 4, showing the panel, where it connects.
And, of course,
awesome Owe from SpaceX 3D Creation Eccentric was able to help us out again with this awesome render of the quick disconnect arm plate in the
front of the arm. Let’s see, what we can find here!
There are a couple of holes here and bolts.
All of them have some sort of job to do and they tell us a lot about how the orbital launch table works.
First of all, we have these bolts.
They fit into counterpart holes on the booster to correctly and quickly align the fueling adapter with the receiver plate on the booster.
Quick and easy.
We also have locking hooks. As soon as the alignment pins are pressed in all the way, these hooks snap into place,
preventing the QD arm from moving at all.
Next, we have these two large holes in the middle.
That’s where the main fuel lines for Liquid Oxygen and methane are connected.
They are responsible for filling up the main tanks and fast to reduce boil off before a launch.
Fueling is supposed to take as little time as possible.
Now come the three holes in the middle.
On the bottom we have fuel bleed.
It’s a line that goes out of the booster.
It’s a fuel backflow line preventing over pressure inside the tanks.
In the top right of that we have LOX pressurization and on the left CH4 pressurization.
Those lead into the main tanks but don’t provide fuel.
They’re likely for nitrogen. It’s pumped into the main tanks when there’s no fuel inside to pressurize the tanks and give hull integrity to the booster.
There also are two control valves on the plate for liquid methane and liquid oxygen flow.
Of course, we also have a high voltage connector.
Internal systems are only switched to internal power right before the launch of the booster.
Before that, it receives its power through the quick disconnect arm.
And finally, we have what I talked about in the beginning.
This time just for the center engines.
Gaseous feeds for Helium, Methane, Oxygen and Nitrogen.
Those are needed for engine startups and to fill up the COPV’s on the outside and inside of the booster.
It all gives us a lot of information on how the Booster works.
It’s kept under pressure when empty.
It is capable of a fast fueling process and it receives all the gasses needed for an ignition from the outside.
Is there anything we missed about the orbital launch mount and do you find it as awesome as I do?
Tell us in the comments!
Now you hopefully know more about one of the most important pieces of infrastructure at Starbase.
The Orbital Launch mount is a marvel of engineering.
It shows how clever SpaceX approaches the whole Starship program and it shows how different the execution is compared to other rockets.
And it’s going to be wonderful to see it all work on the first orbital launch!
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Today’s team shout out goes to Owe from SpaceX 3D Creation Eccentric.
I know, you’re not on the team list, as you do your own thing, but working together with you is a blast and a pleasure at the same time.
You’ve done so much for the Spaceflight community.
I hope you know that we all hold you in very high regard.
So, here’s to you, Owe. You Rock!