SpaceX is about to launch their new starship rocket using some robot Chopsticks Elon Musk
the company's CEO explained how the Starship rocket will benefit from the New Mecca Zilla
orbital grabbing arm this month catching the ship and its super heavy rocket as they make
their way back to Earth is the objective the method is an improvement over the Drone ships
that are now utilized to return Falcon 9 Rockets to Earth following missions and so what does it
do let's find out hello everyone welcome back to Elon Musk Evolution where we bring you the
most recent news about Elon Musk and his multi-billion dollar companies space news
and the latest science and technology but before we begin make sure you subscribe to our Channel
and click the Bell icon so you don't miss any of our amazing videos the first launches of spacex's
next Generation Starship rocket from the East Coast will be supported by a tower that has two
rocket catching arms mounted on it more than three years have passed since the corporation
began construction on the second of several planned Starship launch sites surprisingly
construction on that pad started before the business began constructing the pad that will
genuinely accommodate starship's first orbital launch efforts the first version of spacex's
Starbase orbital launch site is almost finished and might host starship's orbital launch debut in
a few months it is situated in Boca Chica Texas just a short distance from the Gulf of Mexico in
the latter half of 2020 SpaceX formally started building the starship's Texas launch facility
by the end of 2019 SpaceX had already begun construction of the first Florida OLS however
the business afterwards completely abandoned a Year's worth of development by the end of 2020
after completely redesigning the rocket and its supporting ground equipment the construction of
the second version of the starship's first Florida pad would finally begin in late 2021 the lc39a pad
at Kennedy Space Center which SpaceX rents from NASA still houses OLS number two it has become
more difficult for SpaceX to use the same launch pad for Starship because pad 39a is now the only
location capable of launching either the crew Dragon human spacecraft or the Falcon heavy rocket
SpaceX de-prioritized starship's Florida pad which slowed progress as a result of NASA's concern
that a Starship failure would create an indefinite delay in the completion of spacex's crew dragon or
Falcon heavy contracts for the agency despite this SpaceX has advanced considerably in just 13 months
SpaceX has built foundations converted one of pad 39a's enormous spherical tanks to store cryogenic
methane installed miles of Plumbing built and assembled a second Starship launch Tower the size
of a city block installed the legs of the pad's orbital launch Mount or olm installed a water
Deluge system at the base of the olm assembled the majority of the olm's donut-shaped mount offsite
built a new supersized storage tank and delivered a forest of smaller storage tanks most recently
SpaceX completed construction on a massive pair of Steel arms moved the arms to pad 39a
mounted the arms to a wheeled carriage and then erected the structure on the Florida Launch Tower
of Starship the arms which CEO Elon Musk refers to as Mecca Zilla have been given the affectionate
nickname Chopsticks by SpaceX employees mechazilla is the name given to the launch Tower and arms
that SpaceX has combined to create in order to grasp hoist stack and fuel both stages of Starship
the most basic component of mechazilla is a third arm that swings left and right while being fixed
vertically in place the swing arm has plumbing and an umbilical that attaches to the upper stage
of the Starship and provides fuel gas power and connection the Chopsticks of the tower are a lot
more complicated the two arms are attached to a carriage by enormous hinges that latch onto three
of the tower's four legs with the help of a dozen appendages that resemble skates the carriage may
go up and down tracks included into the legs of the tower thanks to the skate's wheel attachments
steel cable connects the carriage to a powerful Draw Works that can lift the assembly weighing
several hundred tons up and down the tower The Carriage also houses the intricate hydraulic
systems that enable the bus sized arms to move once completed the Florida Towers arms will
be able to precisely lift move stack and d-stack Starship and super heavy even in moderate wind one
day SpaceX might try to quickly reuse starships and super Heavies by catching them out of the air
with its towers and Chopsticks Starship is mostly made of steel and is intended to be completely
reusable it is expected to be the largest most powerful and most competent rocket in history
to prove that the 120 meter tall rocket can even reach orbit let alone be reused SpaceX still has
a long way to go theoretically though Starship is designed to carry up to 150 metric tons into low
earth orbit while still enabling the recovery and redeployment of its orbital Starship upper stage
and sub-orbital super heavy booster even with the significant performance costs associated with
full reusability if SpaceX is able to attain those numbers Starship will be the most powerful rocket
ever built the most powerful rocket ever built the Saturn V could launch up to 118 metric tons
into orbit and was totally disposable spacex's Next Generation rocket may not be able to launch
from Florida until 2024 or 2025. due to NASA's worries about the risks that launches of the
Starship from pad 39a could pose to the company's Falcon and dragon operations at the same site
as the first Florida Mecca Zilla nears completion it is anticipated that the pad 39a Starship launch
location will be prepared and waiting as soon as NASA gives SpaceX the go-ahead and so what
do you think of spacex's mechazilla do let us know your thoughts in the comment section below
meanwhile for the 200th time SpaceX has successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket
the 200th Falcon 9 rocket measuring 70 meters tall and 3.7 meters wide launched from spacex's
Vandenberg space Force Base slc-4e pad on January 31 2023 far beyond statistical Milestone the
starlink 2-6 mission was a very routine launch of spacex's own internet satellites but in order
to create a way for an ion orbital transfer vehicle made by the Italian space Logistics
business deorbit SpaceX had to remove two starlink V 1.5 satellites each weighing 310 kilograms four
hosted payloads were installed on ION SC v009 a memorial payload containing cremated human remains
a prototype of a satellite deployment mechanism a computer created by Swiss students and a solar
sail intended to hasten satellite deorbiting the ion scv-009 was deployed by Falcon 9 around
an hour after liftoff 20 minutes later the 200th launch of the Falcon 9 was success fully completed
with the launch of 49 Starling satellites twelve and a half years have passed since the launch of
spacex's Falcon 9 rocket in June 2010 considering that the company's only prior experience was with
a very unreliable rocket roughly a magnitude smaller Falcon 9 got off to an amazing start
seeing just one partial failure in its first five years of service Falcon 9's one and only in-flight
malfunction in June 2015 was a disastrous explosion on the ground in September 2016 caused a
two-year period of suffering however SpaceX hasn't experienced a single failure since bringing back
its Workhorse rocket to flight in January 2017. the Falcon 9 rocket launched starlink 2-6 for
the 177th time in a row with no problems which is a record for all Rockets combined although
it is the only operational partially reusable orbital class rocket Falcon 9 has defied all
Expectations by achieving this level of unmatched reliability a falcon booster utilized for Starling
2-6 was also spacex's 138th launch and 93rd continuously successful Falcon booster Landing
there have been very few rockets in history that can boast 93 successful launches very few still
have launched 199 times successfully out of a possible 200 launches depending on how related
versions are categorized fewer than a dozen of the more than 100 orbital rockets that have been
created throughout the history of space flight have successfully launched 200 or more times
it seems unlikely that spacex's Falcon rocket family would ever be able to equal some soviet-era
rocket variations one of which has flown almost 800 times however it is also likely that it will
be decades before another modern rocket can compete with Falcon SpaceX management
have made it plain that the company intends to someday replace its Falcon Rockets which
are only partially reusable with Starship a more capable completely reusable rocket that is still
under development however Falcon is still far from being finished to reach 100 launches Falcon
9 needed 10 and a half years the subsequent 100 required little over two years while everything is
going on spacex's launch frequency is increasing the 300th Falcon 9 launch may occur in the first
part of 2024 if the business gets its way starlink 2-6 was spacex's seventh launch in a month which
is a repeat of the previous two instances even busier in February why is it named Mecca Zilla
this is most likely a reference to the Mechagodzilla character from the Godzilla
movie genre who originally appeared in the 1974 film Godzilla vs Mecca Godzilla the battle of the
planets in April 2021 musk remarked on Twitter that if it had some legs it would resemble Mecca
Zilla of course musk is widely recognized for integrating allusions to science fiction in the
offerings of his business on the other hand after successfully completing its initial Mission NASA's
space launch system Mega rocket seems prepared to move on to the next major undertaking launching
people the NASA Artemis 1 Mission which delivered an unmanned Orion capsule to lunar orbit and back
over a 25-day period began on November 16 with the first SLS flight it elevated the SLS to the status
of the most potent rocket to ever successfully launch unseating NASA's venerable Saturn V the SLS
rocket received good scores in a first evaluation of its Artemis 1 performance which NASA public
published on November 30. the review found that the rocket operated as planned in every respect
it appears that no significant changes will be needed prior to the first crude SLS launch now
that mission team members have had more time to examine the data the reviews are still excellent
NASA officials stated in an update on January 27 that building off the assessment made shortly
after launch the preliminary post-flight data suggests that all SLS systems worked
superbly and that the designs are ready to support a crude mission on Artemis 2. the
post-flight analysis team will carry out final reportings and keep evaluating data
if everything goes as planned Artemis 2 will launch NASA humans on a roughly 10-day Journey
around the moon in 2024 the SLS crew studied a lot of data to get its most recent conclusions
which as the preceding remark makes clear are not the last word on the Rocket's performance
and future prospects according to NASA officials for instance cameras on the ground on the rocket
and in the air gathered roughly 31 terabytes of visual data about the liftoff which is more than
1.5 times the amount of data represented by the printed materials in the United States Library
of Congress if everything goes according to plan with Artemis 2 Artemis 3 will land astronauts in
or around 2025 near the lunar South Pole and that ends today's episode what do you think
of this episode let us know your thoughts in the comment box below please subscribe
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