Hello, we are TheSpaceXFans and welcome to TheSpaceXShow,
the place where you can stay up to date with everything SpaceX.
On Sunday, as I was producing my video, there was another Starlink mission launched on a Falcon 9
rocket with Starlink 4-22. [SpaceX Commentator: “One. Ignition. And lift off of Starlink 4-22.”]
The booster which launched this mission, B1051, then landed successfully for the
13th time on the droneship Just Read The Instructions. [SpaceX Commentator:
“Heard confirmation from the teams that the landing legs have deployed.
And confirmation of landing. There was also a callout there for second engine cutoff.
So just in order here. This is the 124th landing of the Falcon 9’s first stage.”]
We can hopefully expect another couple of launches very soon with even more Starlink missions.
As you can see on TheSpaceXFans website, we can hopefully expect the launch of Starlink 3-2,
tomorrow, Thursday 21st at 5:13pm UTC or 1:13pm EDT. As well as that,
we could also see the launch of Starlink 4-25 on Sunday 24th, but there is still no time specified.
Related to the Starlink 4-22 launch, SpaceX posted a Tweet. They said “Falcon 9 has completed 31
missions so far this year, delivering ~351 metric tons to orbit – carrying astronauts & research to
the Space Station, deploying Starlink to provide global high-speed internet,
as well as many other critical payloads for our commercial & gov customers.”
In reference to this Tweet, Eric Ralph also posted a Tweet. He said “There's an increasingly good
chance that in 2022, Falcon 9 will become the first rocket in history to launch the payload
equivalent of its full liftoff mass into orbit in a single year! For F9, that's about 550 tons.”
Sawyer Merritt posted a Tweet saying “SpaceX is now launching 10 rockets for every one by
its main competitor.” Musk responded with “It’s a start. About 1000 times more mass to orbit per
year will be needed to make life multiplanetary.” Musk was asked “Should we anticipate better upload
and download speeds with the increasing volume of starlink satellites? or would we see that with v2
when it comes online?” He responded with “Starlink bandwidth varies a lot, depending on user terminal
density & time of day. That’s why the long wait in some areas. Throughput is roughly linear with
total V1 satellites in operation. V2 satellites are at least 5 times better (conservative
estimate) than V1.” Polaris posted a Tweet saying “The Polaris Dawn crew completed another week
of classroom training and Dragon simulations at SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California.”
SpaceX posted a Tweet about another launch that they have secured on a Falcon Heavy.
It says “NASA has selected Falcon Heavy to launch the Roman Space Telescope, which is designed to
study dark energy and dark matter, search for and image exoplanets, and more. Liftoff is targeted
for no earlier than October 2026 from Launch Complex 39A in Florida.” Of course, NASA also
posted an article about this. It says “The total cost for NASA to launch the Roman telescope is
approximately $255 million, which includes the launch service and other mission related costs.”
Heading to Boca Chica, here’s a view of the orbital launch site. Work has been continuing
on the chopstick catching arms. Another chopstick actuator was seen being replaced.
In the production yard, the work continues at the top of the Mega Bay with beams being added.
Of course, the work on Starfactory also continues in the production yard.
So, it turns out the new building may be a clean room as the Starlink loader was moved inside it.
Kevin Randolph posted some cool pictures on Twitter of Starlink v2 satellites.
He said “Caught several of these loads of Starlinks getting loaded into the payload
integration box.” There was a thread from an Everyday Astronaut Tweet about his Raptor 1 vs
Raptor 2 video. There was a Tweet posted asking “I seem to remember someone saying that 1:1.5
thrust ratio is the holy grail of rocketry and hasn't been done before - is that right?”
Everyday Astronaut responded with “There’s definitely rockets that have had over a
1.5 : 1 TWR. It’s extra advantageous for Starship because it minimizes fuel usage, which for a fully
reusable rocket, is one of the biggest expenses!” Musk then responded to that with “More accurate
word is ‘propellant’, rather than ‘fuel’. Starship is ~78% liquid oxygen, ~22% fuel.
Propellant cost is of primary importance for a fully reusable rocket, so reusable rockets want
high thrust, as thrust below T/W of 1 is irrelevant.” Crews had been continuing on
the Starship 24 prototype to prepare it for engine testing. On Monday, SpaceX successfully performed
a spin prime test on Ship 24, fortunately with no explosion this time. Taking a look at the
road and beach closures on the Cameron County website, we may see more testing this week.
There is a closure currently scheduled for today, Wednesday 20th and there’s a possible
closure for tomorrow, Thursday 21st. The Ship 25 payload barrel section was seen moved out of
the nosecone fabrication tent. Here you also see the Ship 25 nosecone already outside next to it.
The B7.1 test tank was seen being tested at the orbital launch pad. Here’s Booster 7 in the Mega
Bay undergoing inspections after the explosion. SpaceX removed a bunch of Booster 7’s engines,
with a total of 13 removed thus far I believe. To finish up today’s video, after the Starship
spin prime, there’s a new Starbase production diagram to take a look at thanks to Brendan Lewis.
As always, I have to say thank you to Mary, also known as BocaChicaGal for being out there filming
the Starbase content. Also, thank you to the NASASpaceflight team working behind the scenes on
their videos, livestreams and other space content. That’s it for this episode of TheSpaceXShow,
I hope you enjoyed the video, if you did, make sure to hit the like button and leave a comment
down below. If you want to stay updated with SpaceX info, make sure to subscribe and press
the bell icon to get notified when I upload. Thanks for watching and have a great day!