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they are doing an amazing job of capturing the history now coming back to our today's episode
first we are going to discuss about the booster 7's downcomer damage which happened
during the pressure test you may have seen this image on twitter which was circulating
a lot during the last two days so this is basically the down comber tube of booster 7
and is a crucial component of super heavy booster this component is responsible for
transferring propellant to the vehicle's engines and the impact of the damage on spacex's plan
of quickly conducting an orbital test flight for the rocket is uncertain spacex conducted
the pressure test of booster 7 earlier this month and the results appear to have identified a fault
whether this flaw is a result of the testing itself which would indicate a design
miscalculation or a procedural error which would imply that the event was a one-off occurrence
is open for debate so last week after conducting several ground tests spacex rolled back booster 7
back to the high bay and i am pretty sure that the rollback was for the replacement of the down comer
because today a new downcomer tube was delivered to the production site like the lox tanks it has
to be pressurized to withstand the forces acting on it since the oxygen tank itself
is also pressurized for structural stability and optimum storage to light up its raptor full flow
methane fueled staged combustion engines starship uses a combination of methane and liquid oxygen
the down comber is obviously flattened in this view indicating that it was unable to survive
the surrounding forces this happened after spacex performed pneumatic tests on booster 7
earlier this month and the image appeared after the booster returned from the testing site
to evaluate the boosters performance standards pneumatic tests totally pressurized the booster
this isn't the first time a down comer has come into the public eye with the tubes for both the
starship upper stage and the super heavy having been spotted during transportation the tube
travels from the bottom of the boosters methane tank to its engines and it is placed inside the
lox tank the lox tank will be chilled at extreme temperatures and due to the booster size it is
believed that it will be pressurized at a higher level when compared to the upper stage starship
a similar failure although not with the same component for fuel caused a rare falcon 9
explosion in 2016 the fully fueled rocket with its payload attached had exploded at the
cape canaveral space force station in florida and spacex's investigation which took months revealed
that super cooled oxygen might have breached tiny tanks within the primary liquid oxygen tanks
these tanks are filled with a non-reactive gas and they ensure that the primary tank
maintains its pressure as it empties during flight since a loss of pressure structurally damages
the vehicle unverified rumors on social media suggest that the down comer failure was due to
a spacex employee leaving it unpressurized even as the pressure was increased in the surrounding tank
if true then this would discount structural or material failures as being the cause it would also
imply that the remaining booster prototypes are free from defects and do not require overhauling
even as it deals with booster 7 spacex is speeding ahead with rocket production with
the latest footage from its facilities showing steady progress with the next booster in line
booster 8. finally it is unlikely that this was an example of spacex testing its equipment to failure
since any such tests will have been conducted before the downcomer is sealed inside the booster
spacex safely returned its crew dragon spacecraft from orbit on monday carrying the private crew of
axiom space's axiom one mission back from the international space station
crew dragon capsule endeavour splashed down off the coast of jacksonville florida in the atlantic
ocean the axiom one mission was commanded by retired nasa astronaut michael lopez alegria
with real estate investor larry connor as the pilot and canadian investor mark pathy
and former israeli fighter pilot titan stibby as mission specialists lopez oligria is axiom's vice
president of business development while the other three are passengers whose trips were paid for by
other organizations axiom one launched on april 8 with the crew originally scheduled to spend
eight days aboard the iss before returning however due to unfavorable weather conditions for splash
down in either the atlantic or the gulf of mexico the mission's return was postponed multiple times
spacex coordinating with nasa and axiom delayed the undocking from its original schedule to april
24th with the crew dragon capsule departing the iss on sunday evening the delays meant
the axiom one crew ended up spending 15 days in the orbiting research laboratory
axiom's first astronaut mission marked spacex's sixth human space flight to date
previously launching four nasa missions and the private inspiration for mission
in total spacex has flown 22 astronauts to orbit since its first crew launch in may 2020 with
further government and private flights planned for later this year and that wraps up today's episode
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