How’s the progress on SpaceX’s Starship 20 and Booster 4?
When will we see that orbital flight?
Will there be a full 29 engine Super Heavy static fire soon?
How does such a large booster even manage all those engines?
What’s up with SpaceX possibly going bankrupt and why and how are they building a second Starship Pad at Kennedy Space Center?
Let’s find out!
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
And we’re back again after a few weeks of touring the US and visiting Starbase.
SpaceX didn’t sleep while I went to see the progress firsthand and with my own eyes.
This place just never stands still.
There’s always something to see and experience.
Or just to dance in front of a LabPadre live cam.
You know…
Besides all this, SpaceX is getting ready for the orbital flight.
Work on Ship 20 has continued over the past few weeks.
But there still are a few things left to be done.
Without a doubt, this Starship is more finished than any other Starship before.
Raceway covers are going on the prototype for example.
That’s never been seen before on a Starship.
Why? Because no other Starship needed them before.
This one will go to orbit. There’s no doubt about it.
Looking at the other side of the prototype reveals that most of the heat shield looks intact as well.
Here and there are a few spots that look a bit wonky, but this is the first heatshield of this kind ever.
To get this right just takes more than one build.
On Ship 21 for example, which is receiving it’s heat shield right now,
we can already see the difference from heat shield number 1 to version number 2. Much less cracked tiles.
Much more uniform placing.
And if you’re wondering, if the colored tape guys went completely nuts now, those tiles are held in place to ensure spacing.
They have been freshly placed.
And as an adhesive, SpaceX is likely using RTV or room temperature vulcanizing silicone.
Even though RTV silicone begins curing immediately after being exposed to air, it takes some time to harden.
The general rule here would be that it sets within 3 hours and takes 24 to 48 to completely cure.
To ensure tile spacing while this process is going on, SpaceX likely uses the tape to hold the Starbricks in place.
Another mystery solved.
As always, though, SpaceX is not working on one thing at a time.
They’re doing it all at once. So much so, that there literally is activity everywhere at Starbase.
Ship 20 has attempted another static fire.
The reason for this one likely is to draw propellant from the header tanks this time and to test all the different operational methods.
There’s a big difference, if you draw propellant from main tanks or header tanks.
Different plumbing is used. Different setups.
All of this needs to be tested before a flight can be attempted.
And every time you change something, a new static fire needs to be performed as well.
Nothing happened. Once this static fire is done, though, it’s very likely that Ship 20 is ready for a flight.
Next SpaceX will need to put Super Heavy Booster 4 through its paces.
Finishing work on the outside.
Maybe some engine replacements and most importantly cryo tests and static fires.
And of course, the biggest question here would be when!
When is the action going to happen?
When are we going to see 29 Raptor engines roar?
Are we ever going to see them roar at all before a flight?
What’s next for booster 4?
So, one thing is for sure. We’re getting closer to some booster action every day.
As the latest addition, some of the aero covers have finally been mounted on the boosters aft section.
Sitting around in the Texan sun for weeks now,
SpaceX workers have finally covered the HPU’s on either side or on plus y and minus y of the aft section of the booster,
as an engineer would say.
Let’s do a quick rundown on the Super Heavy Boosters systems again, shall we?
So, what recently got covered with aero covers are the so called HPU’s.
That stands for Hydraulic pressurization units.
Here they can be seen on the outside of the boosters aft section without the freshly installed covers.
Their sole purpose is to give the engines hydraulic pressure.
And what do they need it for? TVC.
To be able to move and thus change the thrust vector in flight the center engines need hydraulic pressure.
The two HPU’s supply that pressure.
On a Merlin engine for example, the one SpaceX uses to power a Falcon 9, there is no need for a Hydraulic pressurization Unit.
Pressure for the gimbal system comes directly from the turbopumps.
Smart! It’s unknown, if SpaceX can implement a similar system maybe for Raptor v2.
After all RP1, which the Merlin engine runs on, should be better suited for such a process than Methane, which is used on a Raptor.
It would save SpaceX the weight of two HPU’s though.
Besides the HPU’s we can also see a lot of different bottles on the outside of the booster.
The large black ones are COPV’s or compositeoverwrapped pressure vessels.
728 leiter bottles. Thanks, Anthony.
They’re used to do a so-called spin purge.
In the same way, as on a Starship, nitrogen from inside the COPV’s is blasted through the Raptor engines right before ignition.
This is to ensure that there are no foreign objects in the engine,
no water vapor or anything else and it spins up the turbo pumps at the same time as well.
All the cables likely are control circuits and avionics.
All the electronics needed to run a Raptor engine.
Then there are two small bottles below the large COPV’s.
So, this is speculation, but my guess is that those are the fuel for the torch igniters.
A Raptor engine uses a system similar to a blow torch to reignite.
Those would need fuel. That task would perfectly fit those two bottles.
But again, that’s unconfirmed.
So, take it with a grain of salt.
Last but not least, there’s one last thing that’s interesting to mention about the whole setup.
Here’s a recent picture posted by Elon Musk himself.
It shows the SpaceX Super Heavy Booster 4 from below.
A maze of plumbing and cables.
Freshly installed heatshields for the engines can be spotted as well.
Incredible work. But even though this seems like a chaotic ball of pipes, there very much is a system behind all this.
For example, there are four of the COPV slash electronics slash igniter bottles on the outside.
This means that the center engines are likely setup in pairs.
For every two center Raptors there’s one set of COPVs on the outside.
Well, with the exception of the very center engine.
It’s likely just tied in with one of the other groups.
The same goes for the outer engines.
The boost engines.
"That was pretty awesome!"
I agree, Jana. That was pretty awesome!
Was a pleasure meeting you at Starbase!
I’ll be back soon!
What you just saw was a Spinup quick disconnect test on the Orbital Launch table.
To be able to remove systems from the booster rocket itself, SpaceX decided to integrate the boost engine spinup,
so the engine startup mechanism for the outer most ring of the boosters engines, into the launch mount.
SpaceX has tested the system on the Orbital Launch mount several times recently to dial in flow rates and test all the valves and systems running the gadget.
All these are indicators for SpaceX nearing completion of the booster itself and the needed ground systems.
We’re getting closer and closer to booster operation!
Next up we’ll talk Static fire speculations, SpaceX going bankrupt and finally a second Starship Pad in Florida!
So, stay tuned!
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There’s always the next craziest thing on the horizon at SpaceX’s Starbase.
Right now my upcoming favorite, even before an orbital launch, would be the Super Heavy Static fires.
And we’re definitely closing in on something.
SpaceX will need to do several static fires on Booster 4, just because there are different engine setups.
Boost and center engines. Both will need to be tested.
And finally, at least that’s my guess, SpaceX will perform what comes as close to a launch as possible, without actually letting the rocket go.
A full stack static fire with all 29 Raptor engines.
I recently did a poll on Twitter to check with the WAI community as I am always interested in your opinion and Twitter just is the perfect tool for that.
Aaaand the opinions couldn’t be further apart.
A bit more than a third thinks the same I do.
Full stack static fire before the end of the year.
Maybe even as a Christmas present from SpaceX!
More than half do think that it won’t happen this year anymore.
Surprisingly almost 10% think that there won’t be a full static fire at all!
Please do use the comment section below the video.
What’s your idea? Will there be a full static fire simulating a launch just without lift off?
Will it be this year? Or won’t there be one at all?
As always, tell me in the comments!
Last, but not least we have one last thing to deal with.
The Space headline of the week.
SpaceX going bankrupt! The facts are pretty simple.
Musk wrote an internal email.
So, this is, what all the fuzz is about.
Funny enough I was sitting down for dinner with a few SpaceX employees in Brownsville, Texas,
when the email leaked and they started staring at their phones.
Fun story.
First of all, shame on those, leaking this stuff out.
You just never should. There’s a reason, why this is internal communication.
It’s because the media outlets will use it against SpaceX and to create clickbait.
To sum things up, Musk rants about Raptor v2 production in this internal email.
In his typical fashion and maybe with a slight bit too much emotion in it, he complains about the fact that it doesn’t ramp up fast enough.
That there aren’t enough engines.
The reason, why he’s emotional about it is perfectly fine.
Raptor v1 can not be used for commercial flights and unless Starships start doing commercial flights rather soon, they’re a huge money drain.
Secondly he connects this to an interesting new information.
Starlink and Starship. To be precise, Starlink v2.
The plan seems to be to send Starlink v2 into Space using Starships.
The interesting part is that v2 seems to be much larger than the current Starlink satellites.
Musk states that neither by volume nor by mass Falcon 9 would be capable of sending v2 satellites to space.
The problem here is that SpaceX has already begun ramping up production of the Starlink v2 hardware before being able to send them to space,
as the engine delays make prototype testing slow.
So, To be profitable, Starship is supposed to send payload to space rather soon.
The email reads as if SpaceX intends to send Starlink satellites to space using Starships as soon as possible.
In fact it sounds like they want to do this early next year.
Starlink is the perfect payload.
In house production. Cheap. No big problem if lost on launch.
But to do so, SpaceX needs Starships to fly.
In the beginning recovery rate will be low.
If neither booster, nor Starship are recovered on a launch, that means 41 Raptor engines gone.
Even if not, to do a meaningful amount of launches in the beginning, hundreds of engines will be needed.
For this, Raptor v2 is absolutely necessary.
Cheaper and faster to make, far less plumbing and cables.
Less data throughput as it’s not an early prototype anymore and thus has much less sensory hardware.
In short, if SpaceX wants to get Starships profitable, they’ll need it to launch Starlink v2.
For that they need hundreds of Raptors.
That’s what Musk was mad about.
Chances of SpaceX actually going bankrupt over this are relatively low.
Musk was likely just… well… mad.
And SpaceX’s intent to make things move fast couldn’t be more obvious.
Recently tweeting that construction of Starship orbital launch pad at cape Canaveral has begun, Musk and his team couldn’t make it clearer.
2022 is going to see far more Starship launches than currently expected by most.
After reading this, I had a camera in the air and above Pad 39a within hours to see, what’s already been done.
So, here we go. Pad 39a as seen from the WAI cam cape on December 4th.
With a beautiful Falcon 9 for the IXPE launch on the pad right before the static fire.
Looking a bit more to the right, this is, where SpaceX has already begun first work of what’s to become the Starship launch mount at Pad 39a.
NASA has already confirmed, that SpaceX is allowed to build within the perimeter of Pad 39A, so here we go.
Will have similar, but improved, ground systems & tower to Starbase.
So, we can already spot some piling work being done indicated by the yellow crane on site.
The old flame diverter that was built last year as a first try to build a Starship launchpad at Pad 39a is gone by now.
I took this picture myself in February of last year.
If we look at the same location now, it’s clearly gone.
And if the piling work is any indicator for what’s going to go where, it might look like this in the end.
And since SpaceX perfectly knows by now, how to build Mechazilla and OLM, it won’t take them long either.
Some of the parts are even built at Starbase.
Keep a look out for trucks leaving with parts from Boca Chica to the Cape in the future.
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