SpaceX breaking ground on Starbase Factory construction for Starship and Super Heavy Production!
How big will it be? James Webb Telescope aligning Mirrors!
How Precise does it get?
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
The past week was packed with action for the space industry!
From ULA launching an Atlas V and Rocket Lab Electron number 24 to James Webb with unimaginably precise mirror alignment.
We have to start somewhere, though, so why not with the big fish.
Starbase Texas and a new cryo test!
SpaceX has been focusing on cryogenic proof tests in the past few weeks.
First Ship 20 with its fourth test and now Booster 4, equally with its fourth test.
A huge thank you goes out to Chief, the WAI cam operator, for doing some overtime here and filming the whole process for us to see.
And it was worth the wait. Besides the test going very smoothly with no visible problems or hiccups,
it's also by far the most complete feeling we've seen on a Super Heavy booster so far.
As you can see by the frost lines, the lower oxygen main tank was filled entirely this time, and the upper methane tank was almost filled as well.
So, we're roughly looking at 3100 to 3200 tons of liquid nitrogen here.
Just to give you a reference, this would roughly translate to 92 large liquid nitrogen tanker trucks.
When talking Starship, numbers are always blown out of proportion.
Everything’s bigger at Starbase.
Next up, we have the mega Bay.
With Level 5 stacked and the side panels going up, the look of the finished building becomes more and more visible.
It is already taller than the high Bay, and with a considerably larger footprint, it will be the most prominent building on-site once finished.
Mauricio was up in the air again as well, using the perfect weather condition to create some stunning aerial images again.
One of them shows the new gantry crane system for Mega Bay,
and it's recently been painted white from its original bright yellow to reflect the corporate ID of SpaceX.
It will be installed inside the new Bay and under its roof, enabling the SpaceX workers to lift, position,
and stack Starship and Super Heavy segments and parts.
Ship 24 has made considerable progress over the past two weeks.
The tank section has been stacked, and besides the usual missing tiles, it does look delicious.
It’s still unknown if Ship 20 will fly.
The latest official info still states that it will.
No matter what, though. Ship 24 will be ready for a flight come April.
So, SpaceX will be able to pick.
Will Ship 20 do the flight? I am still undecided.
What’s your idea? Tell me in the comments!
Ship 24’s nose cone is under heavy construction as well.
It does definitely look like it has a slightly different heat shield pattern compared to Ship 22 and ship 20.
New simulation data? Since the heat shields have never been flown yet, there is no actual data.
SpaceX is already playing around with different patterns, though.
Nic Ansuini took one of those rare shots through the open tent doors, and this is the result.
It's Booster 7's aft section with the new header tank sticking out.
This tank will sit on top of the fuel manifold and be the boosters landing burn fuel reserve.
Booster 4 does not have this yet.
He also took these two pictures of the attached Quick disconnect panel.
It's the panel that interfaces with the orbital launch table quick disconnect arm, and it is responsible for fueling,
engine startup connections, and electrical and data connections.
And it's been redesigned. SpaceX must have found flaws in the old design while doing cryogenic testing on the orbital launch mount.
This is an excellent example of why even a phase with no flights can bring considerable progress.
Thank you, Nic. Awesome pictures!
On we go with booster 8. You start to feel how many prototypes SpaceX is working on.
This is booster 8’s forward section.
You can tell by the circular holes.
Those are where the giant super heavy grid fins will be mounted.
And here they are. Freshly delivered to the site and seemingly the same as before.
No design change here. With boosters 7 and 8 being assembled and Booster 4 maybe still planned for a flight as well,
we're looking at the third super-heavy booster readied up for testing.
A few more images in Mauricio's latest flyover are of particular interest.
Do you see the new foundation work right in between the Starbrick bakery tent and the larger production tents?
This is SpaceX breaking ground on what’s to become the new Starship production complex.
The Starship StarFactory has started construction!
It is also expected that SpaceX will construct it in three phases.
This is done to continue production and development at Starbase while the Factory is being built.
SpaceX can't afford to stop its prototype development for months.
Phase one will cover the current construction area and lay a foundation for what’s to come.
Phases Two and Three will then extend the Factory and, in the end, complete it.
The construction will take several months and is a considerable investment for SpaceX.
This is a very uplifting sign for Starbase.
SpaceX continuing the build plan and finishing Starbase can only mean one thing.
Starbase won’t be closed any time soon.
Let's hope that the FAA greenlights Starbase at the end of this month so that we can finally see some more action in Boca Chica again!
If you like WAI, now is the time to pause the video, give it a like, subscribe to the channel, become a channel member or a Patron,
or go all in and buy yourself a brand new Starship shirt from WAIWear!
On we go with Rocket Lab, and the Owl’s night continues!
Jumping to beautiful New Zealand and Rocket Lab, we had another Electron Launch on February 28th!
It was launch number 24 for the still young Electron rocket and the first of three scheduled launches for their customer Synspective.
Two launches in 22 and one more planned for 2023.
Rocket Lab certainly doesn't have a customer shortage, and if we look at these pictures, it's clear why.
Synspective isn’t a new customer either.
Their first Electron launch in December of 2020 carried StriX Alpha,
the first of more than 30 satellites in Synspective’s planned constellation,
designed to collate data of metropolitan centers on a daily basis to support urban development planning, construction, and infrastructure monitoring.
These services are more and more important in a connected and globalized world.
Fast response to natural disasters is among the use case list, making the world a bit safer with each satellite.
With Launch Complex 1B just opened up at their launch site in Mahia, New Zealand,
Rocket Lab is expanding its launch capability and ramping up for a bright future.
By the way, this is Rocket Lab’s third pad for their Electron launcher.
Two in New Zealand and Launch Complex two located in Virginia on the east coast of the United States.
The space industry is busy. So, here’s the next rocket launch coming from ULA and launched on March 1st!
Atlas V 541 is one of the most elegant rockets in business.
541, for those who don't know, standing for a 5-meter fairing, 4 boosters, and one Centaur upper stage engine.
As with Tory Bruno and team ULA almost all of the time, the launch played out absolutely perfectly.
Clear skies above Cape Canaveral.
Perfect condition.
Incredible pictures of the solid rocket booster separation.
Perfect payload separation.
GOES-T is the third one in the latest Geostationary operational environmental satellites fleet, called goes.
The most advanced environmental monitoring system in the western world.
Goes Satellites orbit 22236 miles above the Earth equator at speeds equal to the Earth's rotation, making them geostationary.
So, they always view the same spot on Earth, enabling them to do long-term monitoring.
GOES keeps watch of more than half the globe.
High-resolution imagery in near real-time.
Weather forecast, severe weather prediction, lightning detection, and solar activity.
GOES T, the latest satellite in the fleet, by the way, has been renamed GOES 18 as soon as it reached orbit.
It replaces GOES 17 in the western orbit and modernizes the system further.
It keeps watch over the Pacific Ocean, Hawaii, and Alaska.
Many of the weather systems affecting the continental US originate over the Pacific,
so GOES T is a vital puzzle piece for the constellation giving NASA and the NOAA data to predict tropical storms and Hurricanes.
On we go with a Payload that’s been launched a while back.
December 25th of 2021. Remember the date?
Since its launch out of the European Space Port in French Guiana, James Webb has been very busy.
13 days of deployment and half a year of mission-critical tests and adjustments are needed to make this technological marvel work as intended.
NASA has provided a website for those who want to follow along closely.
A link to the site is in the description of the video.
Right now, James Webb is going through a process called Mirror alignment.
It's divided into 7 different steps, and right now, the telescope is busy doing the so-called coarse phasing.
What the heck is that? It's divided into 7 different steps, and right now, the telescope is busy doing the so-called coarse phasing.
Image stacking came first. It provided the first image from James Webb.
NASA pointed it at a bright star and created a mosaic utilizing the near-infrared camera.
Then they looked at the image and saw the unaligned mirrors.
All those bright spots are actually one Star.
Good news, though. This first image was actually well within what NASA expected.
They looked for all 18 spots and identified each one of them.
This way, they were also able to tell which ones were from the two wings of the mirror.
And then they moved the mirrors so that all those dots were in one position.
NASA also took a selfie picture of James Webb utilizing a unique lens with the sole purpose of creating these selfie images.,
showing the mirrors in their deployed position for the first time.
And just by looking at it, you can see the misaligned segments.
This is image stacking, but this way, all the 18 segments still operate like separate telescopes.
It's not nearly precise enough.
Now comes one of the most incredible parts of the alignment process.
The mirror segments are aligned with an accuracy smaller than the wavelength of light.
This is done three times. Each time correcting the vertical displacement of the mirror segments further and further until everything is absolutely
perfectly aligned. Using a technology known as dispersed fringe sensing,
James web utilizes the NIRCam to capture light spectra from 20 different pairings of mirror segments.
Just to give you an small - pun intended - idea of how small we're talking, visible light waves have a length of 400 to 700 nanometers.
A human hair has an average thickness of 80000 to 100000 nanometers.
An iron atom, for example, has an atomic radius of around 0.124 nanometers.
So, we’re talking about an alignment precision of around 3225 iron atoms.
For all 18 segments.
This is mind-bogglingly accurate.
And to top it off, the James Webb team is doing it in Space.
1.5 million kilometers away from Earth.
In a completely remote process.
Next up, we're jumping back to SpaceX and to a significant announcement.
On February 28th, NASA announced their extension of the commercial crew transport contract signed with SpaceX.
Until now,
NASA had contracted SpaceX to send 6 Crew Dragon Spacecrafts to the ISS with a total of four Astronauts and mission-critical cargo on board each
time. Initially, the contract was awarded to both SpaceX and Boeing, but with Starliner postponed indefinitely at this time,
SpaceX is the partner to go to.
Now, NASA has extended their contract with SpaceX to provide funding for three additional Crew Dragon flights,
ramping up the total value to roughly 3.5 billion Dollars and extending it to March 31st of 2028.
This date, of course, does not mark the end of the Crew Dragon program.
It just means that NASA has now booked flights from SpaceX up to this date for now.
This, of course, is excellent news for SpaceX, as it gives them security.
A signed contract means that SpaceX can plan ahead.
Budgets for other projects like Starlink or Starship can be calculated with these funds.
Crew one launched on November 16th of 2020 and marked the first commercial crew program flight's official starting point.
Back then, this was a completely new thing.
Before this contract, NASA exclusively used government-funded launch systems like the Space Shuttle or Soyuz.
Now, everything changed. A private company launched Astronauts to the ISS.
And they still are the only private company to do so.
Including crew 9, the Crew Dragon will have sent a total of 36 Astronauts to the International Space Station in under 8 years.
Still not nearly as much as what Starship promises but right now,
the only way for the western world to reliably send Astronauts to Space after recent political changes surrounding Roscosmos.
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