this video is sponsored by brilliant hey hey marcus house with you here it has been action a
plenty at the boca chica production and launch site this week loads of updates on the next
starship number 15. we have just got to check out what is happening over at the mcgregor testing
facility with the new wrapped engine test stand under construction what will that mean for raptor
development spacex says bon voyage to the two falcon 9 fairing catcher vessels we'll explain
why that is an interesting test of an orion test article making a big splash this week as well
crew one went for a quick spin around the block to prepare for crew 2 and their arrival later at
the international space station and yet another exciting starling mission with an awesome live
booster landing to top all of that off we had the mars helicopter ingenuity placed down
on the surface of mars ready to conduct the first ever powered flight on another planet
on monday spacex rolled its crane tankzilla to the launch site in preparation for the first
ground support equipment tank or gse tank this tank was then rolled down to the orbital launch
complex just a few hours later and installed atop a concrete stand the next day as a full
starship and super heavy stack is going to need around 5 300 cubic meters of propellant spacex
wasn't able to get such big tanks delivered to the orbital launch site to accommodate for this and as
such they needed to resort to building their own tanks this first tank here is expected to be for
liquid nitrogen and hold approximately 1825 cubic meters in volume now there are probably at least
seven more concrete stands so it's pretty certain that we'll start seeing many more of
these orbital launch pad gse tanks being built and transported in the near future at 9am on
thursday that same tank was standing on its own as the crane was unhooked ahead of sn15s rollout
at 10 am that huge beast rolled out of the production facility and started making its
way down the road arriving at the launch site at 1pm just a few hours later the crane then
hoisted starship sn15 off the transporter and placed the vehicle onto sub-orbital launch pad a
in preparation for that testing campaign it has actually already had its ambient pressure test so
next week we expect to see a cryotest and static fire it could perhaps be possible to see a flight
test very late in the week but i'd expect to more realistically see that happen no earlier than the
week after spacex has also levelled off the large orbital launch pad supports in preparation to
stack the launch table on top that launch table is that huge structure that we've seen being worked
on over the last couple of months it is really nice to see this progressing now as those large
pillars have been sitting there stationary for quite some time now we have some more information
relating to last week's failed landing attempt and explosion of sn11 many online rumors had started
saying the flight termination system was triggered due to the vehicle possibly being off course it is
quite largely understood now that the likely cause was an explosive engine failure during
the relight process that destroyed the vehicle itself elon musk was asked on twitter here how
the investigation into sn-11's rapid unscheduled disassembly was going he replied here saying that
the ascent phase the transition to horizontal and control during freefall were all good a relatively
small ch4 leak which is of course the methane led to fire on engine 2 and fraud part of the avionics
causing that issue with the ch4 turbo pump notably it's possible that the small methane leak blamed
for sn11's failure was visible here on raptor engine sn52 less than 30 seconds after starship
lifted off this therefore left plenty of time for the fire to severely damage the faulty engine
and even the adjacent raptors for those that haven't caught up on sn11's flight check out
the video from last weekend thanks a lot for everyone's great discussion in the comment thread
for that one and of course for liking and sharing these videos it really does help this work get out
there along with subscribing to the channel here thank you as always for the incredible support
now looking towards the future with sn15 i've collected a short list of major updates that
this starship prototype will include as elon has been letting us know over the past few months
sm-15 was always slated for these major upgrades but they are coming much sooner than we may have
expected these changes could drastically help the starship program with production
reliability and overall development the two most notable changes include the redesign of the thrust
puck which is at the bottom of the thrust dome and a minor modification for the soon-to-be
mass-produced raptor engine the thrust puck on sn15 is set to be tested this coming week to
ensure that the build quality and designs meet the necessary specification to withstand the raptors
enormous thrust to test this specification a massive hydraulic ram with a special jig
is connected to the bottom of this starship thrust park for sn15's thrust ram a special six-point
mount has been fabricated to connect the ram to the new raptor thrust vector control attachment
points on the thrust park itself this then leads us into the raptor modifications which are minor
to the overall build but drastically helps in reliability and reusability
on previous starships prior to sn15 the thrust vector control arms would sit directly attached
to the thrust dome and not the thrust puck itself this led to issues of raptors taking up a lot more
room than necessary and the thrust dome required extra reinforcements and bracing now with this
new design of raptor starting from raptor number 56 and beyond these thrust vector control arms
will be actually mounted directly from the engine to the thrust puck itself therefore alleviating
any extra stresses to the dome and instead transferring them straight to the puck itself
this additionally makes the engine much more compact and less likely to cause issues with
interference and clearance from other things around it other differences of this new series of
raptor includes the turbo pump spin start valve placement which is much more tidy and compact
at the raptors gimbal head on the prior engines dating back before raptor 56 the serial number
for each engine sat 180 degrees to where they are now which indicates that the methane pre-burner
is now facing away from the center point of the vehicle rather than facing towards the center
point finally the last major change for these raptors is the colour of their nozzles now spacex
has been testing these green coloured nozzles on and off with different raptors since raptor 43
but the very first to fly on a starship vehicle was raptor 45 with starship number nine since
raptor 56 through to 59 we've seen all of these engines wearing that green coat instead of the
previously normal grey black coat now we believe that this green layer comes from the forming
process of taking a sheet of inconel 718 which is spacex's super alloy of choice for engine bills
and making it into the nozzle of the raptor itself during this process which occurs in a reducing
atmosphere the inconel 718 forms a thin oxide layer which slightly helps in corrosion resistance
if this forming process is done in an oxidizing atmosphere a thicker and more detrimental and
heavier black layer forms which can prove to be a challenge to work with so overall spacex we think
could be taking an easier approach in their production by forming these engine bells in
that reducing atmosphere rather than the oxidizing one which would best allow for mass production and
quick turnaround times so that wraps up the major updates for the raptor but let me know if you've
seen anything different with these new engines in the comments below to bring closure to this whole
raptor and thrust puck list of changes the final one i'll mention is the thrust puck's plumbing
as seen on pre-sn15 starships the plumbing for the methane downcomer splits inside
of the liquid oxygen tank and then runs through the thrust puck to the raptor engines for sn15 and
beyond the methane down camera will go directly into the thrust puck and split in the skirt side
of the vehicle rather than the tank side this is going to allow for more direct runs to the methane
turbo pump head on the raptor and should hopefully simplify the plumbing and the connection times for
these engines as well the raptor modifications are going to help smooth out the installation process
into the starship vehicle while also being more effective at doing its job propelling the ship now
there have been some exciting starship updates away from the starbase facility in boko chika
over in the mcgregor testing facility a new raptor engine stand is currently under construction these
test stands are where spacex test fires the raptor and raptor vacuum engines to ensure that they're
performing as expected before they get shipped off this is going to be a really important step in
ramping up raptor production more test stands mean more engines leave the production line quicker
and spacex needs a lot of engines if they're planning on starting the orbital test campaign
in july currently only around 60 sea level raptor engines and two raptor vacuum engines have ever
been produced and an orbital starship will require at least 31 sea level and 3 vacuum engines
so yes spacex needs to really ramp up production in any way they can speaking of the vacuum engine
rvac number 2 has been spotted on a test stand the reason behind this delay is that spacex has been
modifying these engines to squeeze as much performance out of them as possible the starship
and booster construction progress for the week here from brendan shows progress on sn16's nose
area by the time sn15 flies this beast shouldn't be far away we also have updates there with sn20
which should still be an orbit capable ship and booster number three progress appearing as well
interestingly not seeing much progress on sn19 but we'll keep an eye out for updates on that thanks
brendan now sadly this week we bid farewell to the infamous fairing retrieval ships that have
been used for quite some time i'm of course talking about spacex's recovery ships miss
tree and mischief now these sister ships have been assisting spacex in their fairing recovery program
since june of 2019 when spacex first leased them out spacex of course used the vessels to catch
fairings in their nets and had planned to do this for the foreseeable future these vessels were also
designed to pick up the dragon spacecraft and have done that on two occasions as well however during
the fairing recovery program spacex have realised that it was just easier to scoop the fairings
right out of the water instead of catching them in a net so over the course of february and march of
this year the fairing catching nets and arms have been removed from these sister ships we have then
seen a new ship the sheila bordelon arriving in port this vessel is now going to be used
to recover those fairings thank you though for the incredible service of the vessels miss tree
and mischief along with the crew we all hope that they enjoy that change of pace speaking of fairing
retrieval of course we have starlink's latest mission on wednesday this week this starlink
mission was fairly standard with 60 starlink satellites beautifully deployed once again
hitching a ride there on falcon 9. this was the seventh re-flight of this particular booster which
first launched crew dragons endeavour for the demo 2 mission last year there were two pretty exciting
things that happened in this mission though the first is that we got to see an uninterrupted live
landing feed from onboard the booster as it landed on the drone ship of course i still love you this
is all thanks we believe to the drone ships now utilizing starlink pretty cool indeed the new
fairing retrieval ship of course sheila bordelon was out to pick up the fairings as well so a few
interesting updates here that we will hopefully see more of in future missions greg scott out
there as always picking up those great shots and also the return as well it does seem like only
one fairing half made it back on this occasion now on monday this week we saw a first for the
commercial crew program the dragon resilience craft here carried out a port relocation to make
room for the expected april 22nd arrival of crew 2 to the international space station with all four
of the crew one suited up and secured for a trip around the block resilience was released from the
international docking adapter 2 forward harmony port but many may ask why do all four astronauts
need to be on board and suited up as if they were coming home well just in case there was a problem
with the re-docking process the crew could be safely returned to earth instead if there was
some issue and those astronauts needed to remain on the iss without the crew dragon there would
be no way to get everybody home the almost fully autonomous procedure backed the capsule away to a
distance of approximately 83 meters the crew did have the opportunity here to issue some commands
just to test drive the capsule as well with the lidar system activated and tracking the station
the capsule began its delicate move inside the keep out sphere it drifted above the station
to line up and hold around 60 meters out from the international docking adapter number three or the
space facing port of the harmony module after the final clearance the capsule began its move
back in again holding at 20 meters before final approval to doc was granted with that soft capture
confirmed the crew had all of the excitement in undocking and docking all in the space of
around 45 minutes pretty awesome stuff that dragon resilience capsule is set to depart with crew 1
in late april and then interestingly in june a cargo dragon capsule is going to arrive with
the first set of new solar panels as such the robotic arm is going to be needed to reach the
trunk of that capsule something that needs to be done within reach of the zenith port
so yes with soyuz crew dragon and cargo dragon activities it looks like boeing's starliner's
second uncrew test flight is just going to have to join the queue having been delayed now
from april the 2nd so with all of this excitement the mars rover perseverance dropped its special
little visitor to the martian surface this week we'll talk more about that in a second but first
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so yes the mars rover perseverance dropped its little visitor to the martian surface this week of
course here i am referring to ingenuity the tiny lightweight helicopter that was hoping to make the
first powered flight on another planet it's quite surreal to think how far humanity has come with
flight since the wright brothers aircraft flyer took its flight in 1903. interestingly a small
piece of fabric from a wing of the flyer has been attached to the underside of ingenuity's solar
panel that is a super cool reference right there after several days of methodical system checks we
witnessed this little wonder begin its transition to feet down before finally seeing ingenuity
sitting in its designated airfield testing ground not long now to wait until the moment of truth
can this technology demonstrator achieve its objective and complete its test flight campaign
what an amazing moment this is going to be the first historical flight quite literally
a world away a few quick updates as well on the space launch system and orion nasa performed
the drop test of an exact duplicate of the orion command module on tuesday the fourteen thousand
pound test replica was dropped into the water from a distance of seven feet this was essentially done
to confirm that all data for the splashdown sequence is as expected this is critical of
course as just the slightest error could lead to an astronaut being injured on the same day
nasa performed a test of an rs25 engine for the sls which was streamed live just on facebook the
rs25 engine fired up at 2 20 pm central time on the test stand at stennis space center that
test there lasted the full duration of 500 seconds the main objective here was to gather data on how
well the components work and reduce risk in the new rs25e variant so yes it was nice to see some
more progress there as we conclude the updates for the week remember as well that we are huge
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