SpaceX has now put its head down to get things working fine for the Starship.
For instance, the Starship's full static fire testing has been going through a hectic phase
for some time, and it was that severe to be called a nightmare.
But just in November 2022, Spacex has been on the right move to lift the gigantic Starship
from the ground onto the Moon, but from the last test, only 14 raptor engines were fired
up; why not the 33 raptor engines?
Let's find out in this video why SpaceX tested only 14 raptors 2 leaving the rest 19 engines
to rest.
SpaceX is getting closer to sending a working Starship into space.
The company is still getting ready for the first orbital flight, which will take off
from Boca Chica Beach, Texas, and land in the ocean off the northwest coast of Kauai,
Hawaii.
Engineers could test the operation concept for the Starship launch system and gather
technical information about the fully stacked rocket during the ambitious orbital flight.
This would speed up the development of the rocket ship.
Over the past year, SpaceX has done many tests on the Starship and the raptor engine to ensure
they can handle the pressures of the upcoming space flight.
On November 14th, was the first time SpaceX did a full-duration static-fire test of all
14 Super Heavy rocket engines.
Only 14 of the 33 Raptor V2 engines were turned on.
This is the first time SpaceX has turned on 14 engines simultaneously.
Before this test, they had only fired up seven times.
The engines of the Raptor 2 are powered by a mix of cryogenic liquid methane and liquid
oxygen.
This mix is sometimes called "Methalox."
LabPadre took amazing photos of the engines of the boosters roaring to life.
Each Raptor 2.0 rocket engine puts out more than 500,000 pounds of force, which is about
230 tons.
This is the force needed to overcome both the earth's gravity and the weight of the
rockets and cargo.
SpaceX has never turned on all of its engines at the same time.
This will likely happen before the huge rocket sends Starship SN24 into orbit.
The 14-engine test of Booster 7 comes after Elon Musk put Gwynne Shotwell in charge of
Starship development at Starbase.
Shotwell is the president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, she actually knows her
job to the core.
Musk will focus on his favorite toy twitter, his newest business that he hopes will make
him billions of dollars every year.
After buying the social media platform, Musk will spend a few more weeks at Twitter's headquarters
in San Francisco, California.
Elon’s recent attention which is drawn to twitter will be one of his most lucrative
passive way of making billions of dollars without sweating for it.
A certain date has not yet been set for ship 24, and super heavy to lift off into orbit.
If testing goes well as we hope, the flight could happen before the year 2022 ends.
At the Starbase factory, engineers are still building a fleet of shiny stainless-steel
Starships, even though the testing phase will be kind of hectic.
Each one will go through the same tests until SpaceX develops the final version of the launch
system that will take NASA astronauts back to the Moon and send the first humans to Mars.
SpaceX wants to have a Starship ready for crewed flights by 2024 so that NASA astronauts
and commercial passengers can fly on it.
SpaceX has already signed up a number of customers for Starship.
One is NASA, which chose the vehicle as the first crewed lander for its Artemis program
to explore the Moon.
If everything goes as planned, the Artemis 3 mission will land astronauts on the surface
of the Moon in 2025 or 2026.
Private people have also signed up to go around the Moon on Starship.
One of thme was billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, who booked a whole flight, and Dennis Tito,
a pioneer in space tourism, followed by his wife Akiko bought two seats on a different
mission.
Booster 7's static fire test campaign got back on track with a full-duration firing
up 14 Raptor engines before the long-awaited static fire test of 33 engines.
With this achievement, the Super Heavy booster is one step closer to being ready for the
first flight.
The company hopes to fire up the Starship by December 2022.
However, the work that still needs to be done on both the booster and the ship, as well
as the ground systems and infrastructure at the launch site, will likely push Starship's
debut into next year.
The most frustrating aspect of the testing is that SpaceX has been burning parts of the
launch pad every time it tests the Starship.
So far, there have been a few test flights of starship prototypes that has been successful,
but they have stayed at most 6 miles, around 10 kilometers in the sky.
But the super heavy booster wasn’t involved in any of them.
SpaceX teams have been putting shields on the legs of the orbital launch mount and testing
the fire suppression system in preparation for the next round of static fire tests.
Even though this shielding might not be needed for the 14-engine static fire test, it will
protect the pipes and wires going up into the launch mount for the full 33-engine static
fire test and, eventually, for launch as well.
The first test was done during the prime spin test by removing methane gas from the air
using the nitrogen pressure system.
The second test was done later in the test window and tested the whole system.
During the 14-engine static fire test, it was expected that SpaceX would use the full
nitrogen and water suppression system on the pad.
This would give important details about how efficient is the safety system on the pad.
Also, panels that will protect and shield the Starship Launch Tower are being made ready
for installation.
In the past few weeks, a new wall has been built near the entrance to the tower.
A protective "box" has been put up on the first level of the tower, where the pipes
and conduits from the tank farm meet the tower and start going up its length of it.
Cladding panels have also been seen nearby, which is a sign that they will be put up soon.
This is likely because they will be needed to protect the tower during the launch of
the most powerful rocket ever made.
The most frustrating problem SpaceX has been facing is the launch pad – the main issue
is that the SpaceX launch pad is used to blasting of any time the raptor engine is ignited.
The company has been working hard to fix this issue with the launch pad, which breaks into
pieces and splits its particles into the air with high flames.
SpaceX has tried to fix this issue by reinforcing rigid iron beams to the base of the launch
pad, unlike the concrete casting used before.
The pad is now ready and all set for SpaceX to launch the first starship orbital flight.
But SpaceX testing continued to be another hectic game.
In SpaceX's latest failed test, which happened around July 2022, one rocket booster caught
fire on the ground.
This was a very dramatic test failure.
During the ground test fire in Texas, the Starship component suddenly exploded in a
fireball, which is a crucial element that had delayed Elon Musk's plans to launch his
next-generation spacecraft, which was supposed to go into orbit in 2022.
Musk tweeted in response to a video of the fireball going around social media, "Yeah,
it's not good."
"The team is looking at the damage."
After the explosion, Musk said was caused by a test of the engine's spin start, no one
was hurt.
Musk said that the explosion, which turned the rocket's base into a ball of flames and
thick smoke and seemed to shake the camera, was caused by the engine spin start test.
"In the future, we won't do a spin-start test with all 33 engines at once," he said on Twitter.
And that is a piece of evidence why Spacex engineers have decided to test only 14 raptors,
perhaps because the fireball of all 33 raptors 2 engines cannot ignite at once without catching
up in flames.
So the company has to reduce the testing to 14 engines to see how it works before testing
the other 19 raptors 2 engines.
But what we need to know is if all 33 engines finally work properly at a time when they
are tested at the same time.
Mr. Musk said that the explosion happened during a test of the engine's spin-up and
that "from now on, we don't do a spin-up test with all 33 engines at once."
After that, the booster stayed straight and bolted to a test framework.
Back in February, Elon Musk said that, despite technical and regulatory challenges, he was
very sure that his company's next-generation starship would be launched into orbit as soon
as possible.
Even though everyone knows that Elon is good at blabbing his mouth.
Because this is already the end of 2022, yet the completely stacked starship hasn’t yet
been launched into space.
So, has Elon been giving his fans false hope?
Do you think SpaceX can successfully launch the Starship into SpaceX in 2022?
At least SpaceX has Finally Full Stacked Starship 120m Rocket and Tested the 33 Engines For
Launch, Just click on the video to know more about this.