Today we’ll talk Starship 2.0.
SpaceX’s latest design changes that will be present on the orbital flight.
We’ll also talk about the lead theory for the mystery structure and we’ll talk about the Super High Bay.
SpaceX’s even larger Starship high bay to begin construction soon!
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
SpaceX’s highest priority right now is the orbital launch.
As already predicted in the last episode, SpaceX is speed-building Booster 4 right now.
My current prediction for a finished booster right now is one to two weeks.
There have been some exciting events unfolding in the last two days that I want to talk about first today.
Remember how on the previous episode,
I already predicted that booster 4 would be done relatively quick now as we saw the same stacking behavior on the current booster 3?
First, it seemed to take SpaceX forever to assemble it, and then, it was done in a matter of days.
The same thing is now happening with booster 4, and there's a good reason for it.
SpaceX and Elon Musk are incredibly focused.
They're focused on Booster 4, Starship 20, and the orbital flight.
While many projects are going on at Starbase right now, the orbital flight seems to be the one task to matter.
This video was recorded by Ocean Cam on July 22nd.
So, the day I worked on the last episode.
It shows Raptor engine 59 being transported away from the launch site and towards Starbase.
It was, of course, previously taken out of Booster 3, still sitting on suborbital Pad A.
They did this with all the Raptor engines used for the Booster 3 static fire.
They were all taken out from under Booster 3, brought to the construction site, and then shipped to McGregor, Texas, for examination.
That's it.
So, what’s next for booster 3?
Are there any more tests conducted on it?
Unlikely. Booster 3 seems to already be at the end of its short life, and the next big thing seems to be… well… the big thing.
Booster 4 and Starship 20 are being readied at full speed.
Maybe even quicker than expected, though.
Sources at Starbase have told me that SpaceX is stocking up on employees.
There seems to be a new internal goal as to when Booster 4 and Starship 20 are supposed to be ready for the big day.
This is Elon Musk’s private jet.
A Gulfstream G650. It’s occasionally been used as an air taxi for SpaceX employees before.
If you need a quick ride to Starbase, this is it.
Top class.
But what you’re looking at here is just one of many flights that have recently happened.
And not all of these flights had Elon as a passenger on board.
In fact, most likely, all of the recent flights to Titusville only had SpaceX employees transiting to Brownsville and Starbase.
And the same is happening from Hawthorne right now.
Many SpaceX employees are traveling down to Brownsville.
And my sources have told me something genuinely incredible as to what the reason is.
SpaceX is shifting hundreds of employees from Florida and Hawthorne down to Starbase to accomplish a truly fantastic goal.
Hold on to your seatbelts. They want to have Starship 20 and Booster 4 ready on the orbital launch mount by August 5th.
That’s it. Counted from today on, this leaves us with another 9 days.
Nine more days to prepare a booster and a Starship for that first orbital flight.
Doable? I honestly don't know.
But it sure as heck looks like SpaceX is trying everything to make it happen!
This, for example, is Starship 20 currently in the mid-bay for assembly.
And there is no minute going by right now that doesn’t have workers busy on the first orbital Starship.
TPS tiles cover one entire side of the hull, and the SpaceX workforce is tirelessly moving the construction forward.
This picture taken by Mary for Nasa Spaceflight tells the current story pretty well.
There isn't more space for more man lifts and more workers to do tasks simultaneously.
Starship 20 is completely swarmed right now.
And the same currently goes for booster 4 inside the high bay.
Since the last episode, it's grown by 4 rings, is now at 16 rings tall, and more segments are already waiting in front of the high bay.
These are Booster aft sections 4 & 5 outside the high bay and ready for stacking.
More and more parts are being rolled out of the production tents, waiting to be stacked.
If all goes well, stacking could definitely be achieved by next week.
Jet another indicator for SpaceX wanting to proceed as fast as possible with the orbital launch is this video taken by Ocean Cam on July 25th.
This is the current older tank farm that's been used for every launch so far, and it's been busy, as you can see.
There was no test going on with Booster 3, though.
It's not confirmed, but this could be a GSE tank test.
The old suborbital tank farm is connected to the new orbital tank farm via plumbing halfway through the launch site.
So, SpaceX could currently be testing the new GSE tanks for readiness.
There are still a few GSE tanks missing at the orbital fuel farm.
Here, for example, you can see another one of Mary's pictures with GSE tanks 6, 3,
and 5 from left to right sitting at the construction site right now.
At least one or two of them might be ready and delivered before August 5th.
And in theory, even without a full orbital fuel farm, SpaceX might have enough capacity to fuel an orbital launch.
This is the South Texas Starship launch site as it currently stands.
All the way on the left, you can see the orbital fuel farm, and all the way on the right, there's the old fuel farm.
They're connected via an extended pipeline roughly like so.
And this, in theory, should give SpaceX the means to utilize both tank farms for a single orbital launch.
It's hard to say if this would be enough fuel storage to completely fuel a Starship and a Super Heavy booster, but it might just be.
And even if it's not, if SpaceX goes all in,
it might be enough time to finish the orbital fuel farm at least so much so that they can fuel an orbital launch by, let's say, mid-August.
SpaceX will have to do tests first anyway.
You can’t just put a freshly delivered Booster and Starship on an orbital mount, fuel them up and launch.
The risk of an RUD or rapid unscheduled disassembly come ignition would be very high.
Pressure tests, static fires, engine tests.
The list of things to do before a launch is long.
And a few things that might be needed for an orbital launch are not finished yet either.
This mystery structure, for example, that we've been talking about for a while now.
Last time I asked you the question, what all those hydraulic pistons might be needed for.
There are 20 of them.
The number 20 appears in one other spot that’s currently often part of my episodes.
Remember this render created by Tony Bela on the last episode?
It shows 20 outer Raptor engines to be installed on Super Heavy.
So, could this be it? Could those pistons be used as a thrust ram for Super Heavy?
Could this be a thrust simulator for the outer 20 Raptor engines or even for the full complement?
There still is some space left in the middle!
Looking at RGV aerial photography’s latest flyby again reveals more puzzle pieces.
There is a new concrete foundation being worked on right next to the mystery structure.
It fits the nelson studs inside of the mystery structure perfectly.
So, I'll lean out of the window, saying that it will be placed on top of this round ring foundation.
This instantly rules out any use at the launch site, of course.
There also is that black steel ring construction next to it.
Suppose the mystery structure is a Super Heavy thrust ram.
You place the black ring on top while testing and connecting it with the base simultaneously.
In that case, you could also test load distribution on the airframe of the booster at the same time.
What do you think? Are we on the right track?
Is this it? As always, tell me in the comments!
Next up, we'll talk SpaceX Super High Bay, Starship Payload bay, and updated Starship designs, so stay tuned!
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So, Elon has been spilling the beans again on Twitter on yet another Starship redesign and another super construction coming to Starbase soon.
These are some pictures taken by Mary for NASA Spaceflight, and they show something I have seen coming for a while now.
This is a Starship payload bay pathfinder.
SpaceX workers cut a massive hole into a Starship nose cone segment and tested how it needed to be sized and maybe even how it would change the
structure of the cone. Musk replied on Twitter, giving some more info on the project and dropping some numbers.
More of a pathfinder test. Actual payload bay door dimensions are still under debate.
Volume is roughly 1000 cubic meters.
Roomy.
"Look at all this more space. We put robots in here.
-So many activities!"
So, since this is a pathfinder, it shows one thing upfront.
SpaceX is not set on the design of the payload doors yet.
It's one of the critical design features to be solved before the first commercial missions can take place.
No payload bay equals no payload.
Eight months ago, ErcX Space and Smallstars released this animation.
It shows a full Starship flight, including a Starlink payload separation in orbit.
And it depicts the clamshell payload door design previously described by SpaceX in official Starship user guides and on their own website.
The clamshell design basically means that the Starship nose cone has a colossal mouth-like door that opens up like a clamshell to be able to release
a large payload into its designated orbit.
With the recent pathfinder test, though, this discussion is open again.
It clearly shows a different approach.
In this case, regular bay doors, as they were also used on the Spaceshuttle, would fit as well.
In this design approach, the nosecone itself is not opened up at all.
Since it's a pathfinder through the clamshell design could still be in the race,
and this could just be a test to see if another strategy could work as well.
1000 cubic meters of payload space indeed is very roomy.
Thus it's not an easy task to design the right payload doors to efficiently utilize all the space.
Another redesign has recently taken place as well.
Starship is changing shape.
One of Mauricio’s recent pictures has stirred some uprising amongst the Starship fan base.
What you’re looking at here is SpaceX’s current stash of Starship flaps.
The white ones are flaps without TPS tiles, and the black ones in between are those with.
They're meant for Starship number 20 and for the orbital flight.
If you compare the size of the flaps second to the bottom with the one on the bottom, for example,
you'll notice a slight size difference that can not fully be accounted for by perspective.
It’s not as long and slightly narrower.
Musk has now confirmed this rumor on Twitter.
Flight tests showed that we could make the body flaps narrower and lighter.
And he replied to this render done by Alexander Svan and Neopork.
Comparing the two designs side by side, the change becomes apparent.
The current Starship design on the left and Starship 2.0 for orbital flights on the right.
This is a perfect example of SpaceX's iterative design approach again.
Design, test, and improve for the next test candidate.
SpaceX has tested several Starships by now.
The flight data has shown them that less flap area would also be enough to control the freefall descend.
Saving flap area means saving weight, and saving weight is the most critical aspect of refining a rocket design.
If you can accomplish the same with a lighter rocket, it means that the rocket can carry more Payload or use less fuel for the same amount.
I am already curious to see how Starships will change once the first few orbital launches have been done.
Last but certainly not least, we'll talk about yet another mega construction to come at Starbase Texas.
Do you still remember this? It's one of Mary's beautiful videos.
It shows SpaceX performing its very first steps at constructing the current high bay.
Back then, celebrated by the Starship community for its size,
it now is the key infrastructure for SpaceX to assemble Starships and Super Heavy boosters.
Now, do not expect anything like this.
This is a render done by Alex Rex, aka Race to Orbit,
just to illustrate the size of the NASA Vehicle Assembly building if it was sitting at SpaceX's Starbase.
NASA had good reasons to build such a monster of a building.
They expected the Apollo program to last longer, and they needed to fit a full-stack Saturn V rocket in it.
SpaceX does not need to do this as the Starship si composed of two interchangeable and reusable components.
Starship and Super Heavy. They do not need to be delivered to the launch site as a full-stack and very likely never will be either.
Even though it's such a large building though, it only has room for two constructions.
Tow prototypes can be stacked in here.
Or as it is right now, one GSE tank and one Super Heavy booster.
Even though it's such a vast building, it's crowded in there.
Now, Musk has spilled the beans on what’s to be the super high bay, so to speak.
First, he tweeted this. Construction starts soon on a much larger high bay just north of the construction site.
That’s good on its own, right.
But wait. There’s more!
Now, that's big. Much bigger than the current high bay,
it does make a lot of sense considering the size of the rockets SpaceX is building here and the speed at which they'll build them in the future.
So, Musk said that it's not going to be much taller but that it will have a much larger base.
Two gantry cranes running the entire span and just north of the current high bay.
Now, in this picture taken by Mauricio from RGV Aerial Photography, north is roughly down.
So, there really is only one spot where SpaceX can build that Super High Bay.
Here. And if SpaceX intends to run two gantry cranes through the entire span of the building, it at least has to be two current high bays deep.
Otherwise, that won’t fit. So, it will roughly be as large as 4 current high bays.
Owe and I have been speculating together, and this is what we came up with.
Thank you, Owe, for being awesome!
This definitely does fit the description of a Super High Bay.
In theory, it should give SpaceX the room to construct 8 prototypes simultaneously,
which brings them much closer to what would be needed later down the line anyway.
This is SpaceX, and this is Starbase.
It's been two days since my last episode.
We have Starship design changes, Super High Bays, and orbital launch capability, maybe even by August 5th.
SpaceX rocks so much right now.
Tune in next time to see double-decker starships, a first base on the Moon, alien Astronauts, double size Raptor engines, reusable fuel,
SpaceX’s anti-gravity research, the first drink served at the Mars bar, Doge on the Moon...
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