Is that… how it should be?
My name is Felix, and I’m your host for today's episode of What about it.
SpaceX has finished its Super Heavy Test Marathon once more, and there are some things we really need to talk about.
SLS is returning to Earth. Did everything go as NASA wanted it to, and is Artemis 2 moving as planned?
Let’s dive right in!
Starship Updates
We’re in the final stretch of 2022.
Besides having gone through some huge milestones for the space industry, one of the biggest for 2022 might still be ahead.
The orbital Starship flight out of Boca Chica, Texas, and SpaceX’s Starbase.
This is the place where SpaceX is developing the largest rocket in human history.
Their goal? To put permanent human settlements on Moon and Mars.
To make life multi-planetary. Anyone who understands just a little about space knows it’s a very ambitious goal.
Starship, the rocket needed for this task, has to be large, cheap, and rapidly reusable.
Either one of these goals alone would be challenging to achieve.
And yet, all three must be done simultaneously to make it work.
Next up all the way on top of the milestone list is the orbital launch.
The first Starship to actually leave the atmosphere, make a 90-minute trip,
reenter the atmosphere and perform a soft touchdown in the pacific ocean close to Hawaii.
SpaceX is working hard on finalizing that first prototype rocket to achieve this goal.
On November 14th, we saw a 13-engine static fire being performed in Boca Chica.
And even though it’s just 13 engines that fired that day,
this is already stronger than a Falcon Heavy with only a little more than a third of the total available engines on Super Heavy,
Starships booster stage.
Two weeks later, on November 29th, another static fire.
This time 11 engines and a 13-second test duration.
From Chief's perspective, outside the exclusion zone, we can see that the tanks aren’t equally filled up.
If you pay close attention to the frost lines outside the boosters hull, you can see that the liquid oxygen main tank,
which holds roughly 2800 tons of lox, is completely filled.
Whereas the methane tank on top, which holds around 800 tons of liquid ch4, is barely filled.
This is because SpaceX is testing different things during these operations.
In this case, the focus was on the booster's oxygen cycle.
Cosmic Perspective was there, too, and they created a recording of incredible quality.
Let’s listen in on the high-fidelity audio recording done by my friend Andrew Keating.
[…]
Even though SpaceX only lit up 11 of the 33 Raptor engines on November 29th, it is still more potent than a Falcon Heavy.
A link to the original video can be found in the description.
Check it out! They also released a super slow-mo recording in the same video, which shows two fascinating facts.
First, there is a lot of nitrogen vapor under the pad before ignition.
This is to prevent this from happening.
July 11th. SpaceX tried a Super Heavy static fire.
During final preparations, Methane and Oxygen from the engines got trapped under the launch mount and created an explosive mixture.
As soon as engine ignition occurred, the gasses under the booster ignited and created a powerful explosion.
To fix this issue, SpaceX now releases Nitrogen under the launch mount to keep the gas mix from reaching a combustible mixture.
Ignition occurs, and the flames shoot down through the nitrogen vapor.
And here comes the fascinating part.
As soon as those flames hit the ground under the launch mount, the energy they carry immediately gets thrown up again.
Visible shockwaves get reflected by the flat concrete base under the booster.
And as you can see, they go straight up again.
At the speed of sound. This can cause damage to the rocket,
and it is the main reason why every other launch mount of larger rockets has some sort of flame diverter system.
It is to prevent these shockwaves from bouncing back at the rocket.
It’s still unclear how SpaceX is dealing with this issue.
Can the current design just withstand these shockwaves?
The exhaust hits the ground under the pad at roughly 500 meters per second.
Is Super Heavy super tough? It would certainly be one explanation.
But not only the rocket is in trouble at this stage.
Debris can be accelerated to supersonic speeds hitting infrastructure.
Pipes are subjected to the supersonic flow.
The concrete seems to have improved massively, though.
This can be seen at the end of the November 14th static fire.
Those are concrete fragments from under the orbital launch mount catapulted all over the place.
Over thanksgiving, SpaceX replaced the concrete with a different mixture before the November 29th static fire.
And the result can only be described as outstanding.
There’s no visible debris after the ignition.
For a 33-engine static fire, SpaceX could try to create a pressure-based flame diverter which would also solve the shockwave problem.
With a staged engine ignition, SpaceX could create a pocket of dense air under the orbital launch mount,
which acts similar to a flame diverter as soon as an exhaust gas flow is created.
I believe that this is SpaceX’s plan.
A virtual flame diverter. We’ll have to wait for a slow-mo recording of a full 33-engine ignition to confirm the theory.
Booster 7 is now back in the mega bay.
Engines have been taken out. Likely to check them out and do further updates and improvements to the engine bay shielding.
A part of the damage inflicted onto the orbital launch mount by these static fires can be seen in these epic pictures taken by Chief on November
30th. The shielding surrounding all important pipes is paying off.
Damage from the flames is limited mainly to the lower parts of the OLM legs.
If you’re wondering why SpaceX even bothers with replacing the paint on the launch mount legs so often,
this is due to the close proximity to the ocean and not due to SpaceX wanting it to look pretty at all times.
These pictures were taken on December 2nd, so only 4 days after the last static fire,
and you can clearly see what steel does next to a salty ocean without a protective layer of paint.
So, this is not about a beauty contest but a constant fight against salt blown in by wind from the ocean, which makes steel rust much faster.
One of the downsides of building the test facility so close to the ocean.
The blast berms separating the Launchpad from the large fuel farm behind it have not taken any visible damage,
but SpaceX is raising the height simultaneously.
This could indicate at least some damage to the fuel farm on previous static fires.
On Ship 24, SpaceX is still concentrating on the heat shield.
This picture taken by Starship Gazer on November 25th shows extensive scaffolding and Heat tiles being removed from Starship 25 in a specific pattern.
Fast forward to November 30th, and Chief being back from his thanksgiving break, the holes in the heat shield are gone.
Three tiles remain to be replaced, and the tiles added seem to be the same ones SpaceX took down.
The adhesive might have gotten an upgrade.
The reason largely remains unknown, though.
SpaceX putting so much extra work into the prototype can only mean one thing.
It gives renewed confidence that Ship 24 still is the one to be launched into space for the first time.
Its body diameter of 9 meters is wider than an Airbus A380 and as tall as a 28-story building.
There currently is only one rocket to come anywhere close to these stats.
SLS.
And this is it. Artemis 1, as seen by us at the NASA Social and from the press site.
November 16th at precisely 1:47 am and 44 seconds eastern time.
We were standing right next to the Launch Control Center.
3.4 miles away from the most powerful rocket ever built.
It’s hard to describe what it felt like.
But feel we did.
As bright as the sun. From total darkness in the middle of the night to bright daylight, including a blue sky.
Surreal. Then came the sound. It was so loud that I could feel the air move in and out of my jaw-dropped open mouth with every shockwave that
hit us. Pay close attention to the plastic bag hanging down from the neighboring tripod.
This is what it felt like throughout our whole bodies.
As said, hard to describe.
Needless to say. Artemis 1 was a massive success for NASA.
Not only did it demonstrate the capabilities of SLS.
It also catapulted Orion toward the Moon for the first time.
Orion is a much more advanced and larger Apollo capsule.
Side by side, the difference becomes visible.
While both vehicles take a similar approach of Service module and capsule, and both are built for a water landing,
Orion has a much bigger diameter of 5 meters and a much larger internal volume of 9 cubic meters compared to apollo's 3.9-meter diameter and 6.2
cubic meters of volume. Orion can carry 4 plus 2, while Apollo could carry 3 plus 2. All at the same time, with much less weight.
Apollo weighed in at 43 tons, while Orion is larger with only 26 tons.
A lot has changed since the Apollo days.
Available videos, for example.
Orion has been sending back incredible footage.
This is the separation from the cryogenic propulsion stage right after Orion reached orbit.
This one shows Orion moving its solar panels into a back-facing position to be able to raise its perigee without damaging them.
And these videos are just mesmerizing.
Taken by Orion's cameras, these pictures show what Artemis is supposed to do in the future.
Bring humanity back to the Moon and later to Mars.
Tomorrow, December 7th will be the 50th anniversary of Apollo 17.
50 years since Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt were the last to walk on the Moon.
Now, Orion is on the way back to Earth.
Its systems are preparing for a splash down off the coast of southern California on December 11th.
Nasa achieved a few historical milestones on this first uncrewed Artemis mission.
Orion coasted above the lunar surface at an altitude of 96 kilometers.
Then it went out to more than 64000 kilometers away from the Moon.
The farthest any human-rated Spacecraft has ever been from Earth.
Hundreds of thousands watched as Artemis 1 had its closest approach to the Moon.
After traveling the distance back to Earth,
Artemis 1 will splash down in the ocean off the coast of California after separating from the European Service Module.
This will be the most critical part of the mission.
The most important goal is to test the capsule's heat shield and reentry capability.
Entering the atmosphere at around 40000 kilometers per hour,
it exceeds the low Earth orbit reentry speeds of SpaceX’s crew dragon by a whopping 13000 kilometers per hour.
Orion will need to get rid of the energy SLS gave it at launch.
Once all this is done, NASA will get to work analyzing the capsule.
Validating the systems and improving details are the only things left before a crewed Artemis 2 can launch no earlier than May 2024.
And progress is being made rapidly.
These are the 4 RS25 engines to be used on Artemis 2’s core stage.
Two engines have been flown up to 15 times on shuttle missions, and the remaining two are new.
The Artemis 2 engine section has been in the final assembly since May and is being joined with the rest of the core stage.
The Orion Capsule to be the home for the Artemis 2 astronauts in 2024 is in final assembly.
Its systems were fired up for the first time in May this year.
The European service module is far along, serving as Orion’s primary power and propulsion component.
Vital systems to keep the Artemis 2 Astronauts alive and breathing, like providing water and oxygen, are part of its tasks.
For Artemis 3, SpaceX will join the team, providing the lunar lander.
Heavily being worked on behind closed doors with Astronaut flight controls among the items being actively worked on right now,
the Lunar Starship will serve as the lander and the habitat for Artemis 3. Many milestones still need to be finished,
but talks I had with NASA Astronauts actively working together with SpaceX have shown me that they’re much further along than expected.
If everything goes well, all this is just the foundation for what’s to come.
The Space industry is going through a phase of learning how to enable humans to leave Earth and venture into the solar system,
and we’re along for the ride.
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Thank you very much for watching, and I will see you next again in the next episode!