This video is sponsored by Surfshark VPN. Hey, Hey Marcus House with you here and today,
really exciting updates around the construction site at SpaceX’s Starbase in Boca Chica
including a lot of new launch tower infrastructure to dive right into. The Hubble space telescope's
1980's era computer system is finally showing signs of wear and tear. Hardly surprising
for the harsh environment it operates in. With Hubble still offline, what does this
mean for its future? We have some early analysis of the samples from asteroid Ryugu which has
shown some interesting results. We take a look at what they found and why this is important
data. Boeing Starliner is all ready for a second attempt at an orbital flight test.
When will this be and what has transpired to reach this critical milestone? Big action
also this week on the International Space Station while installing new Solar Arrays.
There was a "MacGyver" moment for one NASA astronaut. Running to a tight time schedule,
how did teamwork save Spacewalk 75? It really has been quite astounding watching Starbase
evolve since the last flight occurred with Starship 15 on May the 6th. Since then major
flight action may have been non-existent in Boca Chica, but don’t let that fool you
into thinking that we are seeing a slow down in activity. That couldn’t be further from
the truth. Right after that successful flight the decision was made to hold further launches
and push straight to the orbital test flight, surprising everyone. Starship 16 may still
see a hypersonic flight, but we don’t know how certain that is, or when it may happen.
In just a little over 7 weeks, the drive to prepare for the flight of Starship 20 and
the first flight-worthy super heavy booster has been relentless with action occurring
every day. In just weeks now we could be seeing a launch facility resembling something like
this. Here we see the completed Super Heavy launch tower which is getting closer every
day. Beside it, the orbital launch pad with a full-stack starship running through final
tests prior to flight. How many weeks could this be? We really don’t
know. Gwen Shotwell did just days ago mention SpaceX was targeting July. Given that Elon
Musk surprised us the other day by saying that the booster we have been watching all
this time is now NOT the one that is flying to orbit, we need to wait until the next is
fully constructed. This booster is actually instead going to be moved to test stand A
and I guess be tested as some kind of pathfinder vehicle. It will actually be the next booster
that will fly to orbit which will be an incredible thing to witness.
The 29 Raptor engines will blast exhaust through the center of the stand here with forces NEVER
before seen. Each Raptor is capable of around 2.2 MegaNewtons of thrust, totaling around
64MegaNewtons. Let me just convert that once again to terms that are a little more common.
That is a thrust with about 6,500 metric tons of force behind it. The full rocket itself
weighs in at around 5,000 metric tons, so more than enough thrust to easily lift this
colossal booster off the pad and hurl it out of the atmosphere in just a few minutes. Terrific
new animation here by Alex Svan this week too, check that out from the link in the description
when you have a second. I can tell you, the noise that this will make will be something
out of this world. And with any luck, it will indeed leave the world briefly in the first
mission that is pushing all the way to orbital velocity, minus just a little bit of speed.
This is because the plan is for Starship to re-enter the atmosphere on the opposite side
of the orbit for a splashdown close by Hawaii. Let’s not blindly assume this is guaranteed
either. There are forces here never seen. Just the engine vibration and overall acoustics
could cause issues never witnessed. Will it launch and clear the tower? What will happen
if any one of a million issues occur on launch? Can the new launch tower and pad take the
punishment of a full-stack exploding? Remember the super energetic explosion made by Starship
prototype 4? There wasn’t a lot of fuel in that at all. A full stack will contain
a staggering amount of propellant. How do SpaceX plan to reduce that risk? Some of these
questions could be answered very soon. Last week of course we saw the launch tower’s
rapid progress with both the fourth and fifth steel sections being stacked on top, followed
by the 6th Tower Section being rolled down to the site late in the week. That 6th section
was there at the launch site, waiting patiently for much of the week while the 7th section
has been completed at the Sanchez site and is ready for rollout. What we were really
waiting to see though, was the 8th section. The first pillar for section 8 was lifted
onto the jig on Monday with more pillars added throughout the week. This we expect is the
final section of the launch integration tower and it is different from the previous sections.
This section is shorter with a slight design change on top to cap it off. Also over at
the Sanchez site, the 2nd cryo shell is now complete and has moved closer to the road,
ready for transport to the orbital tank farm. The 3rd cryo shell has begun stacking now
as well. Over here close by at the village, we see these interesting sphere devices that
have appeared just over the last few weeks. These are actually Starlink communications
systems that are being incorporated at the ground station. With the flight of Starship
15, we had a lot of signal dropout. The hope here is that new infrastructure helps provide
faster and more reliable data transmission at the base so that we can all see more of
that terrific future flight detail without interruption. As a side note with Starlink.
Elon tweeted a response to Tory Bruno here mid-week approving the chart here on Space
Debris. This is core reason we have seen SpaceX request to move the originally proposed for
around 1100km orbit down much further to the 550km altitude. Eleven in the extent that
space debris is created, the atmosphere at this altitude will automatically clear it
out within a few years. Along with tower expansion, we now have a
brand new beast that has arrived to talk about. Meet the ADS 30Q, a heavy-duty chain drive
winch that was salvaged from one of SpaceX oil rigs. It has since been installed to the
side of the orbital launch tower right here. These colossal beasts are normally used for
Ocean drilling platforms and winching loads over 1000 tonnes. It appears this will be
used either for the Tower's crane or the booster catch system. Perhaps even both simultaneously.
The incredibly powerful drum brake system incorporated in this hoist could I think be
capable of great things. We will be keeping a close eye on the development of the lift
systems to see how this may fit the bigger picture.
These mysterious yellow pipes have been spotted over the past few weeks and workers have now
started connecting more and more pipes together into what is speculated to be a structure
related to the stacking and catching mechanism for the tower. Thanks to RGV’s photos, we
know for sure that these aren't pipes for the ground support equipment as it certainly
wouldn’t have sharp corners like this. The kinds of pointed angles that are displayed
make no sense for running liquids through, especially with some of the angles being less
than 90 degrees. Furthermore, these pipes look to be made out of a solid metal wall
which should result in a very sturdy structure. Could it be strong enough to lift the superheavy
booster onto the stand as well as catching the booster at landing? Let me know in the
comments what you think. The only official word we've heard about such a system that
seems related is from a tweet from Elon Musk himself in April of this year saying that
the launch tower that catches the booster is basically Mechazilla.
We’ve also been keeping a close eye on the development of the Super Heavy Booster. I
was surprised this week to see a second forward dome section appear for Super heavy with the
same cutouts for grid fins and overall layout to the one spotted last week right here. This
new booster forward section was then sleeved over a booster forward dome and the dome itself
is visible through the grid fin cutout to the right and one of a newly installed set
of hot gas thrusters and we can see a close up shot of one here can be seen on the left
near the edge of
the doorway. So that is interesting to see. This new version that has arrived looks to
be proceeding more with new components. So yes, thanks to the always incredible work
by NASASpaceFlight and in particular this week, the incredible Brady Kenniston known
as TheFavoritist on Twitter, we’ve spotted the very first hot gas thrusters which have
been installed onto this booster's forward dome sleeve. Note here that there are three
separate thrust outlets here, the two facing sideways opposing each other, and one “facing”
directly outward. With multiple sets of these around the booster, they can control the booster
orientation quickly similar to what we witness with Falcon 9. The difference with these hot
gas thrusters, however, is that they will be much more powerful. I’m wondering if
this technology or similar will be used in the top of the Human Landing System Starship
for landing on the moon. I’ve been assuming they would use powerful hot gas thrusters
for that purpose all autogenously fueled from the main methane and oxygen tanks, however
that is all speculative until we know more. Speaking of the Human Landing System Starship,
I actually have a mid-week video coming that I think you are really going to love that
dives right into how this will work. We’ve run a lot of numbers and I think you could
be very surprised about what this solution could be capable of. Look out for that on
Tuesday or Wednesday this coming week. It is so thrilling to watch everything evolve
every week with and dive deeper into the topics. Thanks for subscribing here to stay up to
date. We launch these weekly videos at the same time every Saturday and that is all because
of your support. Just liking and sharing these videos makes such a huge difference to what
I do, and it has really helped turn this channel into this dream job! That is all because of
you right there. Now on Monday we finally got to see a little action toward the next
flight test of Boeing's Starliner. We’ll jump right into that in just a moment but
first, a big thank you to our sponsor for todays video... Surfshark VPN who have been
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Check it out from the link below. So yes, on Monday we finally got to see some action
in regard to Starliner’s next flight test. (pause)
That of course being Orbital Flight Test 2. Greg Scott made the trip to catch up with
the AtlasV booster and the upper stage being unloaded from United Launch Alliance's massive
transport ship. Always great watching Rocket Ships being unloaded, and confusingly this
is actually named Rocketship which seems cute but has people scratching their heads whenever
it is written in articles. Astronauts Butch & Mike were in attendance as well which was
a nice surprise. If all goes to plan these two amazing individuals will be joined by
Nicole Mann for the very first crewed mission. That is of course all dependent on the success
of Orbital Flight Test 2, which is what we are seeing being unloaded right here. Boeing
has finally completed all the steps that were required by their independent review and based
on that, this vehicle is now scheduled to fly again no earlier than late July. The review
itself of course uncovers a large number of recommended updates for the vehicle, software,
and processes which has obviously caused extensive delays. At one point, it was believed that
Starliner would beat the Crew Dragon to the ISS, but as it turned out there was no shortage
of issues with the first attempt. So yes this mission is going to reattempt the same process
that was intended for the initial flight including hopefully this time docking with the international
space station. It should then spend somewhere between 5 and 10 days orbiting the Earth before
it returns to land. NASA did state that if everything goes to plan with this second test
mission that a flight with the crew could still be on the cards late this year. Thanks
there Greg for capturing this magic! Make sure you are following on Twitter if you want
to keep up to date with all these events going on here at the cape.
Lots of great stuff to cover on the International Space Station as well. As you may be aware
already the last SpaceX Cargo Dragon, CRS22 had a special delivery in the unpressurized
trunk area. Some brand new solar panels! When fully implemented, these are special roll
out solar arrays, also known as iROSA, will deliver an additional 120 KW of daytime power.
Individually, the arrays are 15 feet wide and 60 feet long, providing 20 KW each. The
original arrays, some partially covered, will still produce about 95 KW for a total of approximately
215 KW of augmented daytime power. This upgrade will also future proof the station for commercial
and other agency use. The technology seen here will be the same used for the future
Artemis Gateway, which will establish humanity's permanent presence in lunar orbit and on the
surface. An earlier attempt to deploy the arrays was abandoned due to a lack of time,
issues with Shane's spacesuit and an alignment problem with the new array.
Thomas Pesquet and Shane Kimbrough conducted spacewalk 75 recently, once again heading
straight to the worksite the 2B power channel. Working to a tight timeline due to setbacks
in the previous EVA, these two very experienced operators worked tirelessly for over 6 and
a half hours. With a little over 33 minutes until orbital night time, an issue was again
detected with Shane's spacesuit. This time it was the lights and camera coming adrift
from his helmet. Thomas quickly made his way around to assess the issue and McGyvere'd
the situation with some wire he had with him. Orbital night, known as a working eclipse,
was soon upon them and station power generation quickly reached zero. The go ahead was then
given to begin decoupling existing connections then coupling the new Array, tying it into
the 2B power channel along with the existing old array. Sunrise again and the work pace
kept going. With systems checks completed it was time to release the 2 retaining bolts
and let the stored momentum in the rolled up panel assembly begin to slowly unfurl in
a process lasting approximately 6 minutes. Just beautiful to watch work like this being
carried out. At the beginning of May 2020 the Hubble space telescope celebrated its
30th anniversary in orbit. Initially, it’s mission was off to a rough start with the
primary mirror needing a repair mission. Subsequent servicing missions by space shuttle crews
in the past have kept the telescope operational with expectations high that it will continue
to provide valuable data and discoveries into late 2020, possibly even longer. Sadly, recently
on June 13th, one of it's ageing computer systems developed a fault resulting in the
main computer putting systems into a protective Safe mode. The cause is still under investigation
by NASA technicians with no ETA on when the problem will be corrected. However, it is
thought the issue is possibly with a computer that commands the science instruments. Degraded
memory is highly likely, given that space is such a harsh environment. Thankfully the
design of Hubble is such that there are backup modules and several options available to try,
which will hopefully resolve this issue and we will once again continue to witness amazing
images such as these well into the future. A quick update as well on JAXA’s Asteroid
sample return mission. The Hayabusa 2 spacecraft returned 5.4 grams of regolith from the asteroid
Ryugu in December of 2020. Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency, kindly distributed samples
to 14 countries soon after. Early analysis of the samples has now confirmed the presence
of organic matter including Nitrogen and carbon as well as other elements such as an abundance
of Hydrogen. Along with this it appears that the boulders on asteroids can be over 70%
hollow based on a recent discovery that could help provide new data on how planets form.
It also seems clear base on the research conducted that there was plenty of water on the asteroid.
It is hoped these types of science missions will shed light on how water and organic matter
came to exist during the formation of the earth. Remember as well that we are huge supporters
of the transition to electric vehicles here on the channel, and our partner EVEE…
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