The Hardpoints on SpaceX’s Starship 20 are back!
But why? I’m answering your Twitter question!
And the Starbase Mechazilla moved for the first time!
Ready for launch? The second orbital Starship is almost ready!
What's the hold-up? And Raptor 2. The world record rocket engine is getting ready for mass production!
Let’s do this!
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
With the recent FAA delay due to too many responses by the public, SpaceX is in kind of a dilemma right now.
But what are they doing to get out of this?
Literally, every aspect is seeing more love.
Here, for example, you can see SpaceX workers performing tasks on the Forward Flap motor assembly of Ship 20.
It’s been sitting on the suborbital launch mount for a while now, but that doesn't mean nothing's happening with it.
Static fires, heat shield improvements…
There’s another aspect of Starship building that needs a little more explaining.
I asked you on Twitter if you'd like a deep dive into this, and you said yes 159 times.
Looking at the comments under the Tweet shows the confusion in the community.
So, here we go. Starship Hardpoints in a nutshell.
Remember when I told you that SpaceX removed the ground handling hardpoints on the Ship 20 nose?
This is a video from January 3rd and from Chief, the WAI cam operator.
After the recent static fire, it shows the ground handling hardpoints on the Ship 20 nose cone.
SpaceX removed the filler tiles again in a first step to reattach them.
After the procedure, the hardpoints looked like this.
Empty space with the hook attachment mechanism exposed.
SpaceX workers just latched the hooks in place again in a second step, and the ground handling hardpoints were back.
Now, why is the nosecone hardpoint system removable, and why does SpaceX do this in the first place?
Here’s one of RGV aerial photography’s most famous pictures yet.
The full-stack Starship was photographed from above.
Epic shot! That was 5 months ago.
Can you believe it? If you now pay close attention to the ship 20 nose cone, you can see what those hardpoints on the nose are used for.
A crane can easily attach itself to those hooks and lift a Starship up.
In this case, the ground handling hardpoints were even used for a procedure typically done with the Mechazilla chopsticks.
Stacking Starships on top of boosters will likely be done utilizing the integration tower in the future.
Here's another one of Mauricio's shots.
This time it shows Ship 20 inside the high bay before rollout.
And again. Ground handling hardpoints are in use.
Whenever a Starship needs to be secured.
These hardpoints are essential whenever it needs to be held for stability reasons and whenever it needs to be lifted around.
Going back to Chief's pictures, we can clearly see that SpaceX has installed the hardpoints again just after the recent static fire was finished.
And this gives away the reason why they did it.
Fit checks. As I said last month, they removed them temporarily to test the process and to do a static fire with the filler heat tiles attached.
Now that the static fire is over, they’re back.
There is another set of hardpoints on Starships and Super Heavy Boosters, though.
The Mechazilla hardpoints. Why not just use those?
Owe from SpaceX 3D creation eccentric has made a detailed animation on how SpaceX intends to catch super-heavy boosters utilizing the Mechazilla
hardpoints. For ground handling, you want to grab a prototype all the way on top, as that is the most stable position for a lift.
And on a Booster, that might even work for ground handling as well, as some of the Mechazilla hardpoints are on top of the booster.
On a Starship, though, the Mechazilla hardpoints are just below the forward flaps.
Perfect if you want to grab a Starship coming from above.
Not so ideal if you're going to lift it up from above.
SpaceX would need to construct a system for their cranes that reaches above and goes around those flaps.
Doable but complex and bulky. Not suitable for use inside a high bay, for example.
So, the hardpoints are extremely important for ground handling, they're removable, and SpaceX can easily do so as well.
Do you have any more questions about the hardpoint system on a Starship in general?
As always, tell me in the comments, and I'll get to it!
Now, you might be wondering, for how long SpaceX will be using these ground handling hardpoints.
The answer is in plain sight. As long as Starships are built vertically, they’ll need to have ground handling hardpoints.
And it's easy to see that SpaceX intends to use vertical assembly as their preferred method of Starship construction for the foreseeable future.
They're building a new highbay right now.
To be more precise, they're building the Mega Bay, which is the internal name given by SpaceX to this new structure.
Level three is up, and progress is steady.
One more level should be enough to get it up to the desired height.
This is where SpaceX will start mass-producing Starships later this year.
Because many prototypes will be needed to perfect the design.
And that's a bit like here on WAI.
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Now, let's jump from one bay to another.
Mega Bay to Mid Bay.
Here we can find Ship 22. It's the second orbital Starship, and the SpaceX workforce is making excellent progress.
Seeing all this in the open still is a miracle to me.
Imagine we would have seen NASA build the first Space Shuttle openly and next to a public road.
Looking at the tank section up close shows a few cracked heat tiles between the segments and some more on the hull.
These Starbricks are delicate and easily broken.
Luckily they’re easily replaced as well.
The same goes for the Ship 22 nose cone.
It’s readily waiting outside the high bay for a stack.
Again, same hardpoints on the nose and a much better-looking heat shield than Ship 20.
In short, SpaceX is almost ready for two orbital flights, and they still don't have FAA approval.
In the end, this might be frustrating at first.
SpaceX clearly is more and more ready.
Musk stated that he'd want to launch a Starship to orbit in January,
and they just can't proceed due to the FAA taking longer to formulate a decision on whether they're allowed to or not.
There’s one bright aspect about it, though.
Once the FAA has given the OK, SpaceX will instantly be ready to launch two orbital test missions.
Jumping back to the pads or Launch site as it’s commonly referred to, SpaceX is not standing still on any of their projects.
The orbital launch mount or OLM is in full prep mode.
The quick disconnect is seeing last updates such as thermal insulation for the fuel lines,
and the launch table itself is seeing more and more shielding being attached.
Massive steel plates are being installed on top to give the launch mount a fighting chance come booster ignition.
There are tons of vital systems connected to the outside of the launch table, and those need protection from 29 and later on even 33 raptor engines.
More and more pipes are being installed as well.
The orbital launch mount is slowly but steadily turning into an incredibly complex structure.
It's incredible to see these people at work building the future of spaceflight in plain sight and for everyone to see.
And right next to the orbital launch mount, something exciting happened as well.
This is footage from LabPadre, and it shows the first real movement ever on Mechazilla.
SpaceX performed a full articulation test.
Up and down. And the Chopsticks moved as well.
All powered by the tower itself and not an external crane.
This movement was slow, and the footage was sped up, but this marks the beginning of Mechazilla operation.
Owe from SpaceX 3D creation eccentric has made a render showing all the parts responsible for moving the chopsticks.
By now, the tower has all the systems in place to enable full movement in every direction.
And by February,
the system will likely be ready to stack a Starship on top of a Super Heavy booster and get it ready for the final 29 Raptor engine static fire.
Once this final test has a checkmark, SpaceX is ready for the first orbital Starship flight in human history.
Of course, a few things are still missing to have a completely finished Mechazilla.
Covers for the outside, for example.
Bars will be attached on the outside to cover it against the booster's rocket exhaust while it's going up alongside the tower.
But that will come last once everything else is finished.
Booster 4 is the last puzzle piece that needs to be done and in place for the orbital launch to happen,
and SpaceX indeed is in the final stage of construction.
Covers come last. Right now,
workers are busy all day installing raceway covers and more clamps on the autogenous pressurization pipes leading from the engines all the way
up to the common dome and to the booster's top dome.
The hydraulic pressurization units received aero covers a while back as well.
A few covers are still missing, though.
For example, the large black double COPV's are a part of four Engine startup and operation systems on the outside of the boosters.
Those assemblies hold everything from Spin purge COPV's to igniter fluids to avionics and control systems for the engines,
and there are four of them on the booster in total.
Mauricio's wonderful flyover pictures show us that the covers are next to the booster.
They've been sitting there for a while now and are ready for installation.
I wouldn't be surprised if this happens in the next few days.
If you want to see more of the booster construction, click the info card and head over to WAI plus, our sub-channel,
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Finally, let’s talk Raptor once again.
A significant milestone for the future of the Starship program is about to happen."
Raptor 2 now operates routinely at 300 bar main chamber pressure.
Wow. Two years after reaching 268.9 bar, which was a world record, SpaceX routinely operates the Raptor 2 engine at 300.
What does this mean for the Starship program?
It basically means that SpaceX is on track developing something no one has ever done before.
A mass-produced methalox full-flow staged combustion engine.
That's a first in so many ways.
And it will be needed to continue from here on.
SpaceX will need 33 sea-level Raptors for the booster.
And on a Starship, they will need another 3 sea-level Raptors and 6 giant vacuum raptors or short RVac's.
In the beginning, they'll likely lose many of their prototypes.
This will result in hundreds of engines needed only to keep flying until Starships and boosters can be recovered reliably.
These pictures from Gary Blair for Nasa Spaceflight show the progress of the Raptor 2 factory being built at the McGregor Test site in Texas.
Its only purpose will be to produce Raptor 2 engines as fast as possible.
By now, the factory is almost operational, by the way.
These pictures are from last year.
It’s SpaceX’s way of saying goodbye to an era of spaceflight.
In the future, this period will be called the transition to reusable launch vehicles, and it will change everything about our access to space.
A huge thank you goes out to RGV Aerial Photography and SpaceX 3D creation eccentric for their teamwork with What about it!?
Go check out their channels. Links are in the Description.
Team Space rocks!
Let’s do it! Let’s save the world!
But first, let’s buy a new Smartphone, plan the next vacation and stock up on plastic wrapped vegetables, right?
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