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SpaceX is getting ready for Super Heavy and Starship orbital tests.
Booster 4 is back on the pad and Starship 20’s heat tiles are making excellent progress.
The new Super High Bay is taking shape as well and WAI has all the information you need!
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
Here we are again, with another episode of What about it and the space industry is not standing still right now.
I honestly don’t even know, how I will fit all that’s happened into this episode, but as always, I’ll try.
We’ll start this one off with an incredible view of SpaceX’s Starship Super Heavy booster number 4 being rolled out from the construction site
to the launch site. After last months full Starship stack SpaceX decided to roll the booster back to the construction site to do some more modifications
on it. These modifications seem to be done now and SpaceX is getting ready for more tests.
What kinds of tests is still unknown, but if it all unfolds anything like the past Starship prototypes,
we should now see more cryogenic tests and in the end a full 29 Raptor engine static fire.
I most likely don’t have to tell you, that this would be an incredible sight to see.
It’s also risky, though. SpaceX has never lit 29 Raptor engines at the same time.
No one knows if the boosters design can take it.
All sorts of problems can occur.
Keep that in mind if anything happens.
This is prototyping and Booster 4 is the first test candidate to attempt all this.
And where there’s a roll out, there also is a lift!
We’ve seen it many times, but handling a Super Heavy booster still is a relatively new task for the crew.
None other than Frankencrane itself, the Liebherr 11350 crane, is needed to perform the task.
We’re talking more than 200 tons of stainless steel and Raptor engines.
It almost looks easy like this, but it isn’t at all.
If anything goes wrong at such an operation.
If a cable bursts. If a frame doesn’t hold, hell would break loose, and it would cost SpaceX months of delay.
Looking at all this up-close reveals a fact that’s in plain sight but not often recognized.
SpaceX workers are lifting a next generation rocket prototype onto a… construction site.
The orbital pad is covered in scaffolding.
The launch support tower in the background is missing vital systems.
The whole place is not complete yet.
The tank farm not ready. Even the rocket itself.
Not finished. But being prepared for more testing.
With 29 Raptor engines under the thrust dome.
Almost all of this is future tech to other rocket developing companies.
None of them possess the tech that’s dangling down from the crane here.
And even though there was not much time for the crew to improve the booster and get it to an at least more finished state than before,
there are tons of little changes visible.
Especially the large COPV’s and the spiderweb of cables and support systems surrounding them have seen lots of love in the past weeks.
These COPV’s are likely for engine startup.
So, they must be connected to and be communicating with all 29 Raptor engines, which makes this setup a very complex one.
Where on Starship prototypes, we saw plumbing and cable harnesses for 3 engines, it’s a whole other level on a Super Heavy booster.
The pipes running straight up from the engine section for example likely are autogenous pressurization feed pipes.
On a Starship one of them was enough.
On Booster 4 you can see four of them only on one side.
Everything is more complex here.
This picture for example, taken through the tank farm GSE tanks shows the side of booster 4 and the fueling port.
Right now it looks like the Starship will be fueled through the quick disconnect arm on the orbital launch tower,
which we’ll be talking about later on in the episode and that the booster will be fueled through the orbital launch mount itself.
The complexity, even though SpaceX is trying to keep it simple, is impressive.
Here’s another good example for SpaceX’s prototypes constantly evolving.
Do you see those covers?
Those effectively turn the ullage gas vents, needed to keep main tank pressure stable even in space, into thrusters.
Super Heavy will need an RCS in the same way as for example a Falcon 9 booster does.
There are two of these vent locations.
The methane tank vents. High up.
Torque is high up there for a thruster and so they’ll contro l the attitude of the booster while in space.
And secondly those visible in this picture.
The lox vents. Those are being redirected downwards by these covers.
Downward thrust is needed to settle the propellant in the tanks while in space to re-ignite the Raptor engines without any hiccups.
By utilizing the ullage vents as thrusters SpaceX is trying to get rid of yet another system.
No RCS thrusters in a traditional way.
The best part is no part.
And they were not present on booster 4’s first roll out last month.
All in all, Booster 4 is yet another milestone in build quality as well.
This can not at all be compared to the early beginnings of Starship prototypes anymore.
It’s clean and looks like it was built with a solid plan behind it.
More and more systems are being covered up.
The raceways going up and down on the side are clean and straight.
Here’s another view of the autogenous pressurization lines.
Three continue upwards to the methane tank and the top of the booster and two enter the lox tank just below the common dome.
Those autogenous pressurization lines have an important task too.
When a Starship or Super Heavy or any rocket lights liquid propelled engines, the tanks empty at a fast rate.
If at this moment you don’t add a replacement gas to the tanks,
the rocket engines would create a low pressure inside the tanks which would likely crush the rocket like a soda can.
To prevent this from happening, most rockets use Helium to replace the propellant and keep the tanks at a stable pressure.
Starships and Super heavy boosters use a different system though.
Here you can see the top o booster 4 slowly passing by at the roll out and it gives a perfect view of the top ends of the methane tank autogenous
pressurization feed pipes. Those pipes transport gasified oxygen and methane directly from the turbo pumps upwards into the tanks again.
On the very top of the tanks of course to not be blown into the still cryogenically cooled liquid but instead to keep the pressure high and stable
inside the empty part of the tanks.
So, in a sense,
these 29 Raptor engines are creating a problem for the rocket by sucking out propellant and oxidizer at incredible speeds but they’re also solving
it at the same time by using the trick of feeding some of it back into the tanks in gas form.
This way SpaceX can get rid of the helium system.
This reduces complexity and it solves another problem.
There’s very little Helium on Mars.
Musk can only use what he can find on Mars, if he wants to use the same engine for his planned trips to the red planet.
Besides that, it’s ridiculously impressive to look at these engine pictures and I could watch this for hours.
29 of them. Can you believe it?
Next up we’ll talk Super High Bay, the attack of the pincher and Starship heat shield progress!
Stay tuned!
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SpaceX isn’t sleeping and Mauricio from RGV Aerial photography isn’t either.
He’s done two flybys since my last episode and the Space Community has an invaluable ally in him.
Go check out his Patreon page to become a flight supporter!
Link is in the description!
SpaceX is constructing the new and larger high bay right now.
Here is Luis’s view from the ground.
Sometimes the view from above is what you need, though.
From the air the full extent of the construction becomes visible.
The SpaceX crew has been working in two spots.
They’ve laid down new foundation in front of the current high bay and they’ve massively continued work on the foundation for the Super High Bay.
First beams can already be seen laying on the ground in the middle and around it the old concrete foundation has now completely been removed and
is now being replaced by a stronger steel concrete foundation.
And again, it’s typical SpaceX speed.
The high bay we already know hasn’t even been finished yet.
There still is work going on at the top.
The High Bar,
Elon’s visitor bar and possibly test viewing site on the top of the largest building at the construction site is still undergoing construction
and next to it they’re already working on the next high bay.
SpaceX’s efforts to make the Starship program work are very dedicated and determined to say the least.
Mauricio was also able to take pictures of a new item being made at the construction site.
For lack of a better name, I’ll call it the pincher.
It’s a massive grabber like arm extension and there already is some wild speculation as to what it could be.
Right now it does look like there’s only one possible place, where this could be installed.
Here. This is the quick disconnect arm installed on the orbital lauinch support tower.
It’s recently been outfitted with actuators to make it move and as said on the last episode,
I do think that it’s still missing a tip of some sort.
Owe from SpaceX 3D Creation Eccentric has been tinkering with the idea as well and he’s already released some renders for us to see.
This is the object, and it does look like it could be used to fuel the Starship and to stabilize the stack before launch.
It’s something common on almost all rocket pads.
You need some sort of structure to give the rocket stack some support, while it’s sitting on the pad, waiting for the launch.
Since this would be needed even for the first Starship orbital flight, it makes sense, that SpaceX has been constructing this so quickly.
Charles Cronley has already tweeted out a first animation and it perfectly shows how it could work in the end.
The whole quick disconnect arm articulates forward and around the tower and the pincher then grabs the booster just below the grid fins.
What do you think? Is this what SpaceX will end up building?
As always, tell me in the comments!
Last but certainly not least let’s talk Starship 20.
What’s the progress? Is it ready for the flight yet?
Let’s dive right in!
Starship 20 is doing many things differently than its predecessors.
It’s more refined. It uses vacuum Raptors as well as atmospheric Raptors.
It has hundreds of little changes compared to Starship 15 which was the last prototype to take flight.
Let’s compare Starships 16s and 20s aft sections just to get a feel for how much has changed again.
16 didn’t fly. The reason? Obsolete directly after finishing the build.
20 is the new king and it shows everywhere.
The entire raceway is different.
Almost none of the pipes and cables are in the same spot as on 16.
At least the upper part of the raceway on 20 looks much cleaner and the connections at the end of it are likely temporary and for testing.
Finally, S20 has a fueling adapter on the outside in the same way that Booster 4 has one.
SpaceX seems to completely have parted with the idea of fueling the starships and boosters from the bottom.
The quick disconnect arm and the orbital launch mount are going to do this instead.
So, there is a lot of stuff different on the next generation starship.
It needs to go to orbit and for that you need a cleaner and more refined design.
Finally, let’s look at the latest pictures again and see, what the heat shield has been doing!
The left aft flap seems to be completely covered now including the aero covers above the flap.
The only tiles missing I was able to spot on the right side are two on the tip of the aero cover and one part on the edge of the right flap.
So, there’s been huge progress in the past week.
Same picture on the nose cone as well.
Far less tiles are missing compared to a week ago and most of the colored markers are gone as well.
At this speed, the heat shield should be finished by next week at least on the outside.
Durability is a different thing.
Of course, the system will have to prove its durability in flight,
but this should at least give SpaceX a fully built Starship 20 with a test worthy heat shield.
So, when orbital flight? One week left for the heat shield.
Another 2-3 weeks for testing Super Heavy Booster 4 and the Starship itself.
And then… I’m not going to say it.
Too many things can still go wrong and mess up SpaceX’s schedule, but it’s safe to say that we were never closer to an orbital launch worthy prototype.
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