Starship Updates – Solar Orbiter: Close To The Inferno
My name is Felix and I am your host for today’s Episode of What about it!?
And as always, there has been a lot going on in the Space Industry lately, so let’s dive right in!
Starship Updates
SpaceX is busy as always and we’re here to watch them. Why we do this twice a week might seem strange to the outsider.
Why do we do this?
Why would you want to watch some people at a prototype rocket construction site in south Texas
do their job twice a week? To those, who know what’s going on here and what the implications might be for the future,
it’s quite obvious though
If this works out,
we’re in for a treat. Starship is something that’s difficult to compare to any rocket out there. Anything that’s ever been and quite frankly also
anything that’s being planned right now. What you see here, is Maria Pointers latest footage from the Shipyard.
This is, where SpaceX right now is building the new High Bay.
It will be 80 meters tall and host the construction process of the so called
Super Heavy. The fully reusable first stage booster
to give Starships enough speed to leave the atmosphere and enter orbit around Earth. And to me right now
it looks like it will have enough room for two parallel builds.
As you can see in one of iCANimagine’s pictures, the Mid Bay is large enough for two separate builds of Starship Tank stacks.
The new High Bay would be large enough for either one Super Heavy and a Starship with nose cone or two Super Heavies.
It’s likely, that SpaceX will go with the same approach for Super Heavy, as they did with Starship prototypes
and it’s also likely, that first Super Heavy flights will not sport 31
Raptor engines. For first flights,
SpaceX will likely use 3 or maybe 6 Raptor engines to first of all not lose so many engines if an anomaly occurs and
secondly to be able to incrementally test the Super Heavy thrust structure,
which is one of the most difficult engineering challenges to be solved for Super Heavy.
This in return will likely enable SpaceX to go for the same approach with Super Heavy as they did with Starships.
More than one prototype at the same time.
So, expect a lot of prototype construction to be done here in the near future.
And SpaceX is progressing fast. The second level of the High Bay is already going up.
This video is from LabPadre’s webcam from June 20th at 7 am local time. Soon
it will be higher than the Mid Bay next door.
Speaking of multiple Prototypes, there’s something new growing in the Mid Bay. See these rings to the right of Serial Number 6?
Say hi to Serial Number 8! It’s not much yet,
but multiple ring segments have already been spotted in one of the construction tents and we all know, how fast
SpaceX is at stacking these by now.
It should be a matter of weeks, until we can see yet another Tank Stack in there
and again with major upgrades. Due to the reflective nature of the steel,
it’s really hard to tell, if the material used on those two rings is any different. What do you think?
How long will it take SpaceX to build Serial number 8 and are they using 304L? As
always, Tell me in the comments!
Back at the windbreaker
or Low Bay, as I’ll call it from now on to have a unified name scheme for all three bays in use right now,
the new Fairing section is already welded. Again, Maria took some very nice footage at the site.
Make sure, to check out her channel for the full video. Link is in the description! Upon closer inspection though,
I am not too sure, if these welds are flight ready. They look rough and kind of temporary.
I am still not a welding expert, even though I’ve done some rather extensive research on all sorts of welding techniques by now,
but this certainly could be done better.
We’ll have to wait and see, what exactly SpaceX will use it for in the future.
The guessing game is not over yet. I have another question.
Is there something like a competition going on at the Shipyard? Who can build more noses!? Nomadd, a local photographer,
has posted a few pictures of a new nose cone, that recently came out of one of the large construction tents.
There are 4 different nose cones at the low bay right now. One already stacked onto a fairing skirt, one from Mark 1 and two
more sitting next to it.
The three new noses look almost identical and I was not able to make out any
significant differences even on closer inspection of some better quality pictures,
I am unfortunately not able to show you here due
to threat of legal action if I do so. If there are any differences, they’re very subtle. Again,
we’ll have to wait and see, what exactly SpaceX will use them for. There’s
one more object currently at the Shipyard, that I’d like to talk about on today’s Episode. I present to you…
well… the window brick. At first glance I thought “now we’re talking! A Crew access arm!”
Because… well…
it looks very much similar to what SpaceX has built at Kennedy Space Center’s Pad
39A to give Astronauts access to the Crew Dragon Capsules. Besides being shorter,
it looks almost exactly the same. It does.
What would SpaceX use a crew access arm for in Boca Chica right now?
So, my next guess was, that it might be a viewing gallery to be installed at the launch site?
Maybe on the new Launch Control center, or the bunker as Maria Pointer refers to it? Either way, it looks awesome.
I’ve compared the Pad 39A crew access arm to designs from
2001: A space odyssey before and I love the design.
Great to see SpaceX continue this design philosophy at their Boca Chica launch complex. Why not make it look great? An approach,
we’ve seen many times on SpaceX projects. Well done, Elon!
Down the road on the way towards the launch site,
there are two good old friends sitting next to the road. Recently power washed and made all shiny again, you’re looking at Mark 1’s aft fins.
Likely never to be used on any Starship prototype anymore, SpaceX seems to have something coming for these two relics.
They look like they could be right out of one of Howard Hughes hangars.
They have some rough beauty and maybe, just maybe,
SpaceX is finally changing their approach of preserving some of the older prototype parts. Maybe they’ll put them on display?
They would make for some crazy cool entrance gates for sure. At the launch site, Starship
Serial Number 5 is still waiting for static fires and a 150 meter hop.
There was some minor ambient temperature pressure testing performed on the 17th,
but that’s pretty much it as of recording
the episode. Test dates are ever changing and almost impossible to get right. Right now,
we have dates until July 21st, but that might have very well already changed while you’re watching this update,
so we’ll just have to wait and see, when Starship Serial number 5 does its static fire.
The launch control center is making rapid progress. Since there are no windows around it,
it’s likely, that SpaceX will cover the outer walls with dirt. At least making a slope would definitely make sense to mitigate any
potential damage to the building if an anomaly occurs on the pad. It would be exactly the same
approach that NASA has taken while building their Blockhouses for Redstone and Gemini in the 50’s and 60’s.
Here for example is a video
I took at Kennedy Space Centers Launch Complex 14. The site, where for example
John Glenn’s Mercury 6, also known as Friendship 7 took off. What you’re seeing here
though is the Blockhouse close to the pad, where Wernher von Braun and his staff monitored the launches.
They looked through these periscopes on top like a U-Boat captain, as cameras back then were bulky,
expensive and… well… not so good. It’s surprising, how good the view of the launch pad was though,
right Sammy? Again, sloped roof to mitigate damage. Will SpaceX’s bunker look like this in the end? Last, but not least,
let’s take a look at one of RGV Aerials photos from last week again. Nick Henning and I have thought of something
special for you to get a glimpse at what the launch site will look like in a few months from now.
It’s not clear yet, if that’s exactly, what SpaceX will be building here,
but that’s what SpaceX’s launch pad from a well known animation would look like in the spot, where they’ve already
started work on the Super Heavy launch pad. It’s so big, it barely fits into the picture.
Let’s add a super heavy on top and a Starship for the complete picture. That’s a sight to remember.
What do you think? Is this, what SpaceX is building here? Like the update so far? Then click the like button,
subscribe to the channel and maybe even consider becoming a Patron to give some vital support. Link is in the description!
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That’s how old and new connect with SpaceX’s approach. Something we truly haven’t seen since the late 50’s and early 60’s.
Groundbreaking research has not been done for a long time in the rocket business and that’s exactly, what SpaceX is doing in Boca Chica.
Solar Orbiter: Close To The Inferno
The next topic is one that’s close to my heart. Not, because it’s a European mission or because I went to see the launch at ESA’s
center of operations in Darmstadt Germany… well maybe a little.
The real reason though is that Solar Orbiter is exploring our Sun. On Sunday, February 9th,
so only a few months ago, our ULA Atlas
V 411 took off from Kennedy Space
Centers SLC-41 and sent a very special probe towards a Star. Our Star. The importance of these missions
sometimes doesn’t become clear at first glance though. When it comes to Astronomy, a lot of effort is put into watching stars.
Analyzing them, finding out, what their life cycles are and what makes them shine bright in the night sky. The problem with almost all Stars
is though, that they’re very far away.
We’re talking lightyears at best. With the exception of one of them. Our Sun.
In fact, for being such a dangerous object, it sometimes seems uncomfortably close.
This is where probes like Solar Orbiter or the Parker Solar Probe come in.
They’ve been sent out further into our inner solar system to study our parent Star.
The major source of energy and thus the most essential object in our Solar System for the creation of life. Without it,
we would not exist.
Nothing in our solar system would exist.
Solar Orbiter, weighing in at 1 point 8 metric tons has now traveled for around 6 months and made its first closer approach to the Sun at
77 million kilometers beyond the orbit of Mercury.
It’s now back on its way towards us and will have a first gravity assist at Venus on December 26th this year.
Solar Orbiter is tilting its orbital plain, to get an unprecedented view of the Sun’s poles later in its mission,
but that will take some time. In fact, it’s next close approach will be in April
2022, which is still quite a bit into the future.
Never before has a camera been this close to the Sun.
Solar Orbiter is shifting the boundaries of what we know about our Star only 6 months after launch. All
ten instruments were working together for the first time, to bring us these
images. And ESA scientists have already found things, that have never been seen before.
Campfires. Well… not actual campfires of course, but very tiny flashes of light. Extremely small solar flares.
These could be part of the process, that heats up the outer atmosphere of the Sun, also known as corona.
This first data is also used to further calibrate the
instruments for even better results on future approaches to the Sun, that will be even closer.
Even when Solar Orbiter is not close to the Sun though,
it constantly does science, studying
the solar winds on its journey orbiting the only star, we can study up close.
Solar Orbiter will keep on researching and the mission has an extended duration
well into the next decade.
It’s right now hard to imagine, what kind of knowledge and insights it will give us. It’s a very unique mission that I will likely
keep on talking about in the coming years. Having a clear mission layout for years and years into the future, is
essential for such a science mission.
Scientists at ESA know exactly what they will do ten years from now. It all comes down to a good organization.
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