We all know about Musk's ambitious goal….which is, colonizing Mars and supporting a permanent
city on it!!
And for this, he had launched his starship program.
Nowadays, this program is gaining speed rapidly!
As we know, nothing great comes easy and lightly…, that's why SpaceX built its first static fire….that
can lift a weight up to 300 tons.
Wait a sec, are you wondering about this?
watch our video to the end as we will be disclosing everything on SpaceX first static fire!
SpaceX starship and Raptor engines, both are necessary to each other!
As Musk dreams to make a city on Mars, the first static fire of SpaceX will be beneficious.
This static fire generally means an engine which is fired for a few seconds while the
launch vehicle is held firmly attached to the launch mount.
These are the test engines that startup after measuring temperature, propellant-flow gradients,
and pressure and can be performed with or without payload.
The capability of this static fire to bear payload is undoubtedly insane!!
It can lift 300 tons of raptor engines into space with no trouble!!!
And these raptor engines have been claimed to be able to deliver "long life", with its
fuel power…methane turbo pump, and also utilize a full flow combustion cycle and an
oxygen turbopump.
Raptor engines locally have a thrust of more than twice the SpaceX Merlin 1D engine, which
powers Falcon 9 and Heavy launch vehicles.
In April, when Musk showed off a batch of the new Raptor 2 engines at SpaceX's Starbase
facility in Texas, seemed proud!
These raptors will be used on the first orbital flight of the company's Starship mega-rocket
later this year.
The Raptor 2 rocket engines at Starbase, equally produce over 230 tons of force.
Musk wrote in his Twitter post on April 26.
The SpaceX starship contains six raptor engines.
But true optimization seems more obliging and that's what matters.
The optimization for six raptor engines is three for sea-level and three for vacuum.
SpaceX is making good progress toward the heavy-lift static fire.
This all started in July 2021!
And in May, it completed its upgrading for a super heavy-lift!
This goal is being completed by 33 new Raptor 2 engines, which are more powerful than previous
raptor 1 engines.
Nothing is impossible if we dare to pursue it, was the only thing Musk might be thinking
while the installation of new Raptor 2 engines in the starship!
The work of this insane static fire was divided into stages.
The first stage involves the installation of engines with clearance and the second stage
involves the use of the arm stabilizers.
To make a static fire lift 300 tons of weight to space is not an easy task.
Infact, installing raptor 1 engines is an easier task than installing raptor 2 engines.
The arm stabilizers are located below the arms and convey in stabilizing either boosters
or the ships during lift operations.
These reduce the risk of vehicles as they hang several meters above the ground and allow
the arms to control more carefully.
These stabilizers moved inwards against the booster.
The arms then moved the booster to the launch mount and lowered it into position and the
work was completed here with the booster being connected to the launch mount clamps and successfully
secured to it.
Once the arms are stable the lifting will be started one more time!
And in the month of June, the first testing of static fire was done.
Every single person awaited to see that lift!
And, in its first test, it had lifted 1 at a time.
In the second test, which was completed in November the Starship SN20 vehicle had ignited
all six of its Raptor engines in a brief "static fire" test at Starbase.
And the new one will soon complete its first orbital flight with 29 engines.
SN20 is a starship prototype.
This plan however changed with Elon Musk.
He announced that the first orbital flight would involve Raptor 2 engines.
Ship 20 or SN20 have significant improvements and orbital capability.
"Next major technology rev is at SN20.
Those ships will be orbit-capable with a heat shield & stage separation system.
Ascent success probability is high.
However, SN20+ vehicles will probably need many flight attempts to survive Mach 25 entry
heating & land intact."
This would mean that S20 will be the first prototype of the third batch of fully stacked
Starships, with the first batch being SN8-11 and the second batch being SN15-16.
This ship work on the TPS tiles continued for one month and after it underwent an ambient
proof test and was cryo proof tested for the first time.
After that, Rvac5, which is a vacuum Raptor engine with reduced bell size for sea level
testing and a SL Raptor, both were installed in Sn20.
Musk probably isn't literal, but yes he had informed us a lot about the raptor engines!
This static fire had faced a lot of problems throughout its construction.
Also, Elon Musk is looking for a launch license, because now only the guarantee of the Federal
Aviation Administration USA for the first orbital flight.
The test flights will be taking place in South's Boca Chica, Texas.
To make this flight successful, Elon Musk has to keep an eye on each and every single
thing and mainly the 75 changes suggested by the Federal Aviation Administration FAA
USA.
We know Musk will look through the environmental assessments for outstanding upshots while
testing the spacex static fire.
Moreover, starship is SpaceX's ambitious project to date as the Elon owned entity wants to
use it to send humans and cargo to Mars using this vehicle.
In fact, Starship has already been selected by NASA for making a starship to land on the
moon before 2025 and the latter's Artemis mission as the first crewed lunar landing
system.
SpaceX is on the cusp of kicking off one of the most important and awaited test campaigns
in the history of Starship.
Well, we all probably know that Starship is planned to be used in various applications,
including Earth-orbit satellite delivery, deployment of a large portion of SpaceX's
Starlink satellite constellation, and exploration, but more importantly it was mainly for the
Moon landing and the colonization of Mars.
The Starship rocket will assess its abilities to burn fuel consistently over a time period.
Starship is a two-stage-to-orbit launch vehicle.
It consists of the Super Heavy booster stage and the spacecraft.
The spacecraft has four variants.
They are: cargo, crew, propellant tanker, and lunar lander.
This Starship program includes the first-stage booster and upper-stage vehicle.
The stages consisted of super heavy vehicles up to 165-metre tall and a Starship.
Both are made with a fully reusable design.
And because they are made reusable, that's why they are wished to look at every single
thing and the environmental requirements given by the FAA.
The FAA several times had delayed the deadline, saying it had to discuss the findings with
other agencies and sift through thousands of public comments which were sent after a
draft version, released in September 2021.
The time they are fully stacked the Starship and Super Heavy combined stand 395 feet tall
which is approx. 120 meters, making it the world's tallest rocket!!!
SpaceX eventually plans to use this starship to take us and cargo to the moon eventually
for NASA, and then aim for Mars and other solar system destinations.
"Now, we will have a second Starship stack ready to fly in August and then monthly thereafter,"
Musk added in a tweet.
SpaceX will continue to prepare its latest Starship prototype for a landmark orbital
test flight!
Starship is NASA's lander of choice for its Artemis program.
This program aims to put astronauts on the moon, but no earlier than 2025.
And Musk wants to send people to Mars around the same time.
Landing moon and Mars at same time, not possible, so what will you choose landing to moon or
landing to Mars!!
But Musk is probably known for setting aggressive targets at both places SpaceX and his car
manufacturing company, Tesla.
And definitely, anyhow, Elon Musk will achieve his aim and make his dream come true!!
Things like this will continue to happen, Elon Musk will undoubtedly fulfill his dream,
but apart from all this, what are your views on these questions…
Will the static fire lift this much weight or will Musk's dream of colonizing Mars be
just a dream?
Will this starship land on Mars?
Will Musk get that launch license?
Musk already has a plan to handle life in raptor’s journey and planning to make it
land on Mars soon in case of all this succeed.
And talking about success, SpaceX has also Finally Shown its Super Heavy Lift Mechazilla
Rocket OLM with B7 33 Engines that Ready to go, to know more about this, just click on
the video.