This video is sponsored by Brilliant! Hey, Hey Marcus House with you here and Starship
testing has finally kicked off this week along with loads of super interesting updates both at
the launch and construction sites at Starbase in Boca Chica Texas. Loads to cover there as we watch
the largest rocket ever created get prepared for flight. We have the Lucy asteroid mission
preparing for launch, if you don’t know much about this missing I’ll show you why I think that is so
exciting. We also had an Atlas V launch for the first time in a while this week with NASAs Landsat
9 mission. And rumors floating around about William Shatner heading up on a flight with New
Shephard in October. Ok so we had some interesting action this week with tests finally kicking off.
The thrust puck tester for the 3 centre sea level engines was delivered to the launch site and was
later installed under Ship 20 on Suborbital Test Stand B. 3 vacuum raptor test rigs were then
also put into place there too. It has been a long time since we’ve seen actual ship testing action.
In fact, this here was the first test of a Ship in over two months and that occurred on
Monday evening. It was eventful too with action occurring right at the start of the test process.
Before the pad had even been cleared of the last few remaining workers, Ship 20 spat out
several heat shield tiles on its nose cone which we can see if you look fairly closely
right there. Focus on the side of the nose here. There we go. BAM! A bunch of tiles were ejected.
Elon Musk quickly confirmed that the ship had shed the tiles off its nose during a brief vent
of the liquid oxygen header tank in the nose cone. Although this may not have been something totally
unexpected in the early testing phase, SpaceX will certainly be trying to find a way to overcome that
problem. Starship’s heat shield tiles have proven to be very fragile up to this point, with dozens
routinely chipping, cracking, and shattering during and after they were installed on the ship.
After the original set was installed a month or so ago, many were damaged and had to be replaced.
As it was only the tiles on the nose cone that were damaged, this issue was believed to be
mainly due to the deformation of the nose cone as it was lifted up by the crane. Although this
seemed like a major issue at the time, once the mechazilla lifting and catching arms are complete
S20 will instead be lifted from below the forward flaps and as such the nose cone should not deform
and thus not as many tiles should crack the next time S20 is lifted. Moving past that issue, not
long after the tiles were blown off, SpaceX began to pressurize the ship for its first tests. At
around 8pm vapour started pouring out from under Ship 20’s skirt indicating that a cryo proof test
was beginning. Frost also started to form on the liquid oxygen tank for a short while as well. Just
an hour later the vehicle was depressurised, the road was reopened and workers returned to the pad.
Very good to finally see a little testing there. As far as we know that test was successful. Then
on Wednesday another test occurred which seemed to be a full cryo proof of S20. A frost line appeared
at 8pm indicating the filling of LN2 into the tanks with venting of the vehicle starting soon
after. That frost line grew and held over the next 3 and a half hours until the vehicle was
detanked at 11:40pm. Elon concluded the test on twitter saying that the proof was good.
Over at the orbital launch complex, it became apparent last week that Booster 4 was about
to be taken off the launch mount with the booster transport stand being moved to the launch complex.
This is to allow for the mechazilla carriage and arms to be installed without endangering the
booster. The load spreader was hooked up to the crane here and was then attached to the booster
ready for lifting. Early on Saturday afternoon Booster 4 was picked up off the mount and it later
touched down on the transport stand. Once there, the crane was unhooked and the booster began
rolling away, stopping on the landing pad. Here it will sit just temporarily as once the mechazilla
arms are installed, Booster 4 will be placed back on the mount for the 3rd and hopefully last time.
The orbital launch could be capable of launching sometime in November, however due to the process
going on with the Programmatic Environmental Assessment, it is likely to fall back quite a lot
further than that. In fact just a few days ago the FAA announced that they have extended the public
comment period for the Draft assessment to November 1. This is where local support is
really needed. If you are able to put in your say, please do. As we know, there will be positive and
negative opinions depending on points of view. We want to see those positive opinions to vastly
outweigh the negative. SpaceX need our support, so than you for helping where you can.
The hope is that SpaceX debuts the mechazilla arms this month in October with the installation of
Ship 20 onto Booster 4. I don’t know about you, but that I am very much looking forward to it.
Now I’ve seen a few people in the comments asking about the QD arm wondering how it could perform
both the tasks of the filling and quick disconnect system, as well as having the ability to hold the
booster as well. It doesn't seem to have the height to do that looking at it as it currently
sits does it? I think what we are actually missing here though is a new component that houses the
quick disconnect system that would be mounted on top to interface with the ships quick disconnect
panel. We could be wrong, but that seems logical based on the fact that the arm needs to both line
up the booster and starship with the claw and also attach to and fill the Starship. Just over
the past few days a platform has been added so I think that adds further evidence to support that.
Anyway, we are missing parts to that puzzle, so keep your eye out for hints on that as they
come to light. Thanks very much to Owe there for putting in all that time and effort into
the visuals. Included in this is a great explanation of the trolleys that mount to
each of the columns for the catch arms as we believe that to work. Nice work Owe! Make sure
you are following there on Twitter and Youtube. Some updates with the Ground Support Equipment
or GSE tanks we have for you as well. At the launch site, early in the week cryo shell #5
was lifted up and sleeved over GSE-1, one of the two Liquid Nitrogen tanks at the Orbital launch
tank farm. This leaves only GSE8 as well as shell 7 and 8 remaining to be put in
place before all 8 completed tanks sit in the tank farm and ready for the orbital flight.
Heading all the way over to the build site, this week began with the stacking of Ship 21.
On Saturday the thrust dome assembly was stacked onto the leg skirt in the nose yard. Its nose cone
and barrel section has started being tiled along with its common dome being flipped to its correct
orientation as well. The forward fins spotted at the end of last week were mounted there as well,
so this is a good indication that rapid build progress is going to appear here next week,
as typically most parts are prepared before stacking starts.
Along with the ship, parts for Booster 5, the booster that should be partnering up with Ship 21,
has continued to appear. It’s forward section number 4 was spotted which is a 4 ring stack
that will sit above the common dome. That will be a part of the upper methane tank section.
Along with that is some very interesting news regarding this booster. Early in the
week we saw a large cylindrical tank-like structure being rolled into the highbay, and
that was later lifted upright beside Booster 5. A few days later booster 5 was then lifted
up in the highbay, moved over to the left, and lowered presumably over that new tank structure.
Back in August Elon Musk tweeted a list of higher structural margins that are needed for reuse.
One of these indicated that a boostback & landing propellant tank would be required for the booster.
Essentially this serves a similar purpose to the header tanks we see on Starship. By containing the
liquid oxygen needed for the booster landing in this smaller central tank, SpaceX can ensure that
the now mostly empty booster has all the required oxygen just for the central engines to do their
job. Likewise the massive downcomer needed for the liquid methane already serves this purpose.
So yes, lots going on there and we are expecting a lot more next week. We create these videos to
release every Saturday and you might be surprised what has happened by this time next week.
Thanks also for helping to build the SpaceX community and supporting NASASpaceFlight,
RGV Aerial Photography, Starship Gazer and the amazing 3D artists out there. By subscribing to
them, liking their content and sharing it around that helps equally as much as subscribing here.
That means the world to them and it helps all of TeamSpace do what we do. SpaceX’s Cargo Dragon
was returned just yesterday being released from the International Space Station on Thursday.
Yet another successful delivery completed and of course cargo returned back to Earth. The
fact that this barely makes any headlines these days is I guess a good thing. It is becoming more
mainstream and routine I guess. All the same, it would still be nice to see some footage of
that splashdown occurring. The Dragon made the usual parachute-assisted splashdown off
the coast of Florida. NASA Television didn’t even really bother to broadcast the splashdown live so
again. All seeming quite routine. The great thing about Dragon is that it delivers science back to
researchers just hours after splashdown. Due to the speed of this, researchers can collect that
data with minimal loss of microgravity effects. That was the 23rd Cargo resupply mission all
wrapped up with SpaceX at this point making it look too easy when it is anything but.
Now one mission I’ve been really looking forward to is NASA’s Lucy Mission, and this is
being prepared right now for its launch to the Trojan Asteroids. Seven of them in total. This
is a mission unlike anything else I’m aware of and there has been a fair amount of luck
finding an arrangement of asteroids that are in the correct positions to make this mission work.
If the schedule holds as planned, Lucy will launch on the 16th of October just two weeks
away on United Launch Alliances Atlas V with the 401 variant. The exact same rocket configuration
used on the Landsat 9 mission that launched this week which we’ll cover shortly. This mission to me
is just so interesting. Lucy is going to explore a record-breaking number of asteroids, flying by one
asteroid in the solar system’s main asteroid belt, and then another seven Trojan asteroids. What is
even more mind blowing is the intricate mission profile invented to accomplish this. Now if you
are not familiar with lagrange points, I highly recommend checking out some material explaining
how these work. Essentially a Lagrange point is an area of space where the combined gravitational
force created by two large celestial bodies like, in this case, Jupiter and the sun come together.
These regions create a stable position for smaller bodies such as asteroids to park themselves. From
here they can exist without deviating essentially forever. The Lucy Mission is named after the Lucy
fossil discovered in the 1970’s which turned out to be around 3.2 million years old. A super
ancient fossil. And just as that has helped form our understanding of our own evolution, the Lucy
Mission will hopefully do the same but focussing on the evolution of the entire solar system.
If we can look in on leftover bodies from the formation of planets that would be incredible.
These we call Trojan asteroids and they sit either ahead of Jupiter's orbit, or behind roughly 60
degrees at the lagrange points. So, as a result these objects are the same as those that build up
to form and grow Jupiter and Saturn, now trapped for us lucky human explorers to snoop in on.
First, the Lucy spacecraft will head to an asteroid in the main asteroid belt named
DonaldJohanson, the name of the researcher who found the Lucy fossil. Next, she heads to the
leading set of asteroids to encounter these four targets. All of them different in size,
color and composition. That is going to be a busy time for NASA as Lucy will do two asteroid flybys
in only 30 days as she explores the L4 asteroid swarm. Another flyby of Earth will follow sending
her out next to the L5 swarm to catch up with the final two objects. These however are both
orbiting each other and are pretty much identical in size as far as we can tell. That will all
happen over a 12 year period all set to kick off in just weeks, so keep an eye out for that
early October. It is going to be an exciting one. These asteroids are almost totally unknown like
so many others. All we’ve seen are small points of light seen by the Hubble Space Telescope.
The only way to see more detail, is to explore them directly, and that is what Lucy aims to do.
We also had an Atlas V launch for the first time in a while this week with NASAs Landsat 9 mission.
On Monday the 27th United Launch Alliance sent up this brand new satellite from Space Launch
Complex 3 at Vandenberg Space Force Base. This was riding on the 401 variant of the Atlas V
just like that which will launch Lucy. That tells us that it is a 4 meter payload fairing
which is the smallest available, zero solid rocket boosters, and only 1 engine on the Centaur stage.
The launch all went smoothly with the Atlas V slowly lifting off from the fog with this
satellite destined for a near polar orbit. Booster engine cut off and stage separation
there at just under 4 minutes and the Centaur stage was on its way powered by the single
incredible RL-10 engine which efficiently delivered the satellite into orbit.
Its final destination at 705 kilometers or 438 miles is a Sun-synchronous orbit.
This one joins its partner satellite Landsat 8 which was launched waaay back in 2013. This
landsat 9 mission actually was supposed to launch in December of 2020 but due
to the pandemic along with shortages of liquid oxygen, the launch date was pushed to September.
I always love talking a little about these satellites as they provide such terrific data.
It is all a huge effort to monitor the health of Earth, and most importantly, helping people manage
essential resources for crop growth, irrigation and forests. What I always appreciate is that this
research gets added to free and publicly available datasets as it has done for the past half a
century or so. It is actually the longest data record of Earth’s landscapes taken from space!
Congratulations to United Launch Alliance and NASA for yet another textbook mission.
Now you’ve probably been seeing rumors floating around about William Shatner heading up on a
flight with New Shephard. Its certainly a question I’ve been getting for the last few
days. We haven’t heard a lot from Blue Origin since their last flight for NS-17, but NS-18
should be coming up in the first half of October. [AD START] We’ll talk more about that in a moment
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understanding the elements and chemical reactions at least at a basic level is hugely rewarding.
Just last week I sat down with my eldest son who was asking me all about how a universe that
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us, the world around us, and the universe that branches out farther than we could ever measure.
I read through the very first Chemical Reaction section with him, and WOW the questions and
discussions we had while going through it was a great way to learn and bond together. And that led
us to other videos and topics for that broader understanding. If it’s been a long time since
you’ve learned anything to do with Chemistry, do yourself a favor and revisit it. Especially
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So yes, we haven’t heard a lot from Blue Origin recently. Considering the last few months of
negative publicity covering the various lawsuits in progress, public opinion has been a little low
in that regard. The upcoming flight with SN18 should be interesting though. A few months ago,
we witnessed the launch of NS16, where Jeff Bezos flew straight up to the edge
of space with his brother Mark, Wally Funk, a highly experienced aviator, and Oliver Daemon.
That was the first crewed flight of New Shepard which was certainly interesting,
and this next mission should be similar. Although NS17 was an uncrewed mission for
NASA experiments but NS18 will be launching humans for the second time. That is scheduled currently
on the 12th of October. Just a few weeks away. Now there are rumours that William Shatner will be one
of the passengers but there’s no official comment from Blue Origin on this. More than likely we
would see that announced a little closer to build up public enthusiasm right before the flight.
I for one would love to see Captain Kirk in zero G, even if just for a few minutes. Of course,
all that could just turn out to be a rumor. The reason people are talking about this is because
feeds such as this from TMZ have suggested this to be the case. Time will tell I guess. There is
an official comment on 2 passengers though. One is Glen here, the founder of a medical data company,
and the other Chris, who is the co-founder of a satellite business. While the capsule can carry
6 passengers, NS18 will only fly with a total of 4. The two remaining are unknown. At least as this
video was being recorded. Regardless, looking forward to watching that and we’ll keep you
updated on further info coming on this flight! So there we go, another week of space updates.
Thanks so much for making it all the way to the end. That helps more than anything. We’ve been
so busy getting the midweek video ready that I haven’t been skimming the comments or Twitter
quite as much as usual. If you missed that by the way, remember to go and check it out. A card to
that is popping up right here. You amazing viewers seemed to get a bit of a kick out of that one.
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