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extra months for free hey hey marcus house with you here another very interesting week
this week with a bunch of launches to talk about starship progress has been
super interesting as well in the aftermath of sn9 falling over into the high bay wall
last week rapid progress never stops at boca chica we of course have a load of launch activity from
falcon 9 angara 5 rocket lab and astra but also some interesting news on the international space
station with some more gremlins on board the team have been battling to keep all things well
kicking right off with starship development news less than 48 hours after starship snh's flight
the metal stand that was holding up starship sn9 collapsed causing the rocket to rapidly
tilt sideways and smash into the side of the high bay now it is fair to assume i think that starship
prototypes are not designed to survive the kind of structural loads that sn9 was put through
during the fall and impact weighing 110 tonnes and falling roughly 10 degrees in a few seconds
it is likely that starship sn9 has been damaged quite extensively however inspections are still
in progress this has affected the schedule quite a bit as sn9 was days away from a scheduled
transport to the launch pad and a few weeks away potentially from another 12.5 kilometer flight
all things considered though this was the best possible outcome in this particular scenario had
starship fallen to the left instead the result could have been catastrophic for the super heavy
prototype being built there on the left hand side of the high bay worse still would have been if it
had fallen right out of the door without a wall to stop it the first fear is always of course for
the brilliant workers on site and thank goodness that there has been no outcome here that caused
any harm to anyone we just need to remember the massive scale of these ships one mistake
or slip in safety protocol is all that's needed for disaster to occur less than a day prior of
course a number of vips spacex executives investors and elon musk and gwen shotwell
were touring the company's starship factory and standing feet away from sn9 itself interestingly
also in one of steve's pictures it can be seen that sn9 already has raptor engines installed as
sn9 waited in the high bay for a roll to the pad and being ready for what seemed like quite a few
weeks sn8 was going through its testing as well as many delays of its own spacex seemingly took
this opportunity and started to install its raptor engines at the build site pretty cool
stuff this resulted in a nearly flight ready sn9 while greatly reducing the amount of time that
the starship would have spent at the pad itself if sn9 can be recovered it will be moved to the pad
with the first test being a wet dress rehearsal or static fire it's even possible that if everything
goes according to plan that sn9 will only spend at least two weeks on the pad before undergoing
another 12.5 kilometer flight we'll just need to see how all of the news evolves with sn9
now the recovery was promptly underway of course with the rocket being picked up by a large crane
on saturday night bringing it back vertical sn9 was then lifted out of the high bay prior
to returning and being remounted and secured for repair work from photos we can see that the vessel
here appears to be unscathed bearing no obvious hull damage however the fore and aft flaps were
clearly crumpled the force of this impact could have easily caused internal damage such as warping
to the starship prototype it could have damaged these structural hinges and attachment points
themselves we won't know until we hear more official news on that now the current road
closures are interesting as i would have thought repairs on sn9 would happen before rolling to the
pad the 21st here seems too close for that and these of course can change but i can't think of
anything else that they would be needing to close the roads for at this point could they be wanting
to pressure test sn9 before making the repairs to the fins let me know what you think to news
at the launch site a new crane was just erected at the orbital launch pad presumably to resume work
on the new orbital mount it'll be exciting to see work start back up on that this will provide
a lot more support for the future as well the massive concrete pillars here will support the
super heavy vehicle as it is prepared for testing compared to the test stand used for sn8 and future
starship prototypes this launch mount will be much more capable now speaking of sn8 i just wanted to
share with you a little teaser of the beautiful video released this week by cosmic perspective
on starship sn8 flight this mini documentary just blew me away the quality and associated emotion in
this is just breathtaking it's all output in super high resolution as well much higher than you are
seeing right here do yourself a favor and check it out from the link in the description and be sure
to subscribe on that channel there will be a lot more incredible work coming soon with these views
that will continue here to blow your mind now heading back to the build site with a
future sn9 sitting there ready to fly we can see the real distance between the launch and
construction sites a sneaky sn10 sitting there in the future being built in the high bay as well
at the construction site starship components are still progressing sn 13's forward dome was
sleeved with a four ring stack sn 10's nose cone sporting those aero covers was moved into the low
bay earlier this week and has now received a nose cone flap now just look at that right there this
looks like we could be seeing some heat shield tiles here for testing it's a little curious
that we are seeing just the one flap here though could the other one that was intended for sn10 be
planned instead for sn9's replacement that would be interesting furthermore sn10's nose cone barrel
that connects the nose to the tank section is also sitting outside waiting for stacking
in another great shot posted by steve here we can see that tank section has also received its
aero covers and therefore we shouldn't be too far away from the attachment of the aft flaps as well
hopefully sn10 can be completed soon with all of the components that we are seeing here now
we've seen a new section of sn14's nose right here and even more exciting progress on the super heavy
booster with bn one's common dome sleeved late this week sn 17's after dome sleeve was also
spotted as well yep another starship prototype to add to brendan's diagram crazy fast progress
continues and here's brendan's weekly diagram once again to sum up all of the news at the build site
brendan has also created a new handy diagram here showing the decommissioned starships that have
been built this year he has included iconography with a lot of information on all of the different
tests that each vehicle underwent that'll be a good one to refer back to in the future thanks
brendan beautiful photos and videos captured by bokeh chicago with nasa space flight this week
on everything going on at the site the detail in these photos gives us all so much insight so
thank you mary the shots from rgv here have been just amazingly useful in diagnosing from that
perspective above the channels there are linked in the description to get the immediate information
direct from the source thank you so much for all of your support of what we're doing here every
like comment and subscription helps a great deal it really does amaze me so close now to hitting
a quarter of a million subscribers here and that is all because of you thank you thank you so much
now some interesting hiccups again recently on the international space station unity which is
one of the us segments of the international space station experienced power supply issues
this past week mission control advised the crew that battery discharged charging unit bdcu-1
on the p6 truss had been turned off with the power availability then reduced by 33
it was necessary to switch off selected systems to reduce power demand these included smoke detectors
high speed communications back to earth and even one of the four gyroscopes that works to keep
the space station oriented correctly the battery discharge charging unit one of 24 such units is
a two-way power conversion device that charges the batteries during solar collection periods
and provides conditional battery power to the main power buses while in eclipse with
all seven astronauts now living and working in the international space station right now
it is even more critical than ever to ensure the station remains in a top working order just last
month in mid-november we saw the crew trace the source of an ongoing leak using the contents of
a tea bag this crack was patched with some rubber and foil but the oxygen leak was not eliminated
with two new cracks being discovered soon after in the transition compartment of the spezda module
with metal fatigue suspected there was yet another oxygen production breakdown in the same module
which continues to be investigated we are now seeing increasing issues with this massive
orbital structure with russian participation in the iss program until 2025 their science academy
are now calling for efforts to be made now to concentrate on construction of a new national
space station which is currently under development and speculated to be deployed after 2024
this will be called the russian orbital service station with a crew of two to four cosmonauts and
three to seven replaceable modules the station would theoretically have an open-ended lifespan
what do you think are we starting to see the winding down of the international space station
operations with russia going their own way let me know in the comments as nasa opens the iss
to commercial partners the first axia module is potentially headed to the iss in late 2024
around the same time that russia would have already decided on whether to exit the iss program
once all of the axiom modules are in place it can eventually separate later from the old iss
which would then be decommissioned one thing is for sure there are certainly interesting times
ahead with the operational cost effectiveness of repairing the iss becoming more apparent on
a structure that has been in orbit now for over 20 years now spacex this week launched the first
of two next generation high power s-band broadcast satellites for sirius xm this followed a scrub of
that mission just days before with spacex standing down to perform additional ground system checkouts
we'll talk more about that in a moment but before that a huge thank you to my sponsor surfsharkvpn
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so yes sunday 13th of december we saw spacex launch the sirius xm7 satellite
atop a falcon 9 booster this particular first stage was on its seventh flight
for launch number 25 of 2020 from slick 40 at florida's cape canaveral space force station
yep you just heard that right this site has been renamed as of december 9 along with patrick space
force base the payload for this mission was for customer serious xm a satellite radio company
and wow this is a beast weighing in at 7 000 kilograms or just over 15 000 pounds sirius xm7 is
one of a pair of very high powered digital audio radio satellites with xm8 set to launch in 2021.
liftoff there was picture perfect with falcon 9's performance nominal all the way with miko there
soon after upon stage separation the payload continued on its way to a parking orbit with
awesome views there of earth meanwhile the booster headed for the drone ship just read
the instructions another successful landing followed making this the 69th booster recovery
the fairing halves for this mission included one brand new one and one second use with the recovery
operations conducted by go searcher and miss tree at approximately 26 minutes into the mission the
second stage engine fired back up for 45 seconds adding another 2000 meters per second to the
velocity with engine cut off the payload then reached the desired geostationary transfer orbit
at almost 32 minutes from launch we saw a successful payload deployment that of course
destined to place itself into a full geostationary orbit
so a little surprise this week as well with russia launching the angara 5 rocket out of the blue
there were stories of lengthy launch delays last week which we thought meant that we wouldn't see
this fly this year but then on monday at 8 50 a.m local time here we see the new rocket
take flight it was a demonstration mission of course to further test the launch vehicle
and it was carrying a dummy payload which in this case was placed into a geosynchronous orbit
or close to one at least now there has been quite a lengthy delay between the first test flight
of this rocket variant with the first flight six years ago in december of 2014. stories we've seen
drop over a number of years now inferring quality control issues has really caused huge delays in
this mission this second test flight was launched just days ago though on the 14th of december
so good news there now i had a bunch of questions this week asking about the capabilities of this
rocket it does look like quite a heavy lift vehicle doesn't it this angara 5 is the most
massive version of this particular rocket with it being capable of putting around 24.5 metric tons
of payload into low earth orbit it isn't quite as big as it appears to be though comparatively
the much smaller looking falcon 9 is a bit of an illusion angara 5 here is a little over 55 meters
tall i believe whereas falcon 9 is 70 meters tall so this puts it into perspective falcon 9 is
claimed to be able to put almost 22.8 metric tons into low earth orbit when expended so no booster
recovery very close to the payload capability of angara 5 here with just a few extra tons
regardless though it's great to see new launch vehicles being developed here public information
on launch costs are probably not reliable at this point but i guess the idea is that angara 5 costs
will fall as efficiencies are designed in at first glance though it looks to be more expensive than
an expendable falcon 9 launch if you've seen remotely accurate launch cost comparisons please
do share them in the comments currently angara testing is predicted to continue mid next year
with another one of these little beasts looking to launch in june that should be another test
mission carrying a similar mass simulator heading now all the way over to new zealand
this week we saw the final rocket lab launch of 2020 with the mission dubbed the owls night begins
it was just 25 days ago when the mission returned to sender lifted off with some pretty memorable
video moments easily my favorite rocket lab video of this year so why the mission name this time
well the customer named their satellite strix which is a type of owl as a very powerful and
accurate synthetic aperture radar geospatial data gathering satellite strix is invaluable
in its provision of data sets that for example aid the construction industry this satellite is one of
two demonstration satellites with the objective of verifying performance and data download the launch
win is planned it's always so great to watch these lifting off into the night electron and
its payload were up and away at main engine cutoff we briefly see the first stage rapidly left behind
then on to the kickstage and then a bit of a cruise for approximately 40 minutes before
sending the payload into its intended orbit sadly we didn't have video of the deployment there but
a nice visual representation of what to expect awesome work there by the team at rocket lab and
from all of us here at the channel wishing you all a great holiday season and a happy new year
now along with all of that astra this week has had some success after their previous flight failed at
around 12 seconds or so this time no success with the rockets climb everything seemed to be going
smoothly ascent looked good the main engine cut off a few minutes later followed by stage
separation no problems at all seemed visible with the continued climb of the second stage
after a second engine cut off a simulated deployment and there we go what an achievement
interestingly though it did reach an altitude of 390 kilometers which was the target however
as shared by ceo chris kemp it was just a half a kilometer per second short of the orbital velocity
of 7.68 kilometers per second so as he said there we are just a few short seconds from getting into
a complete orbit for a demonstration flight though a wonderful result congratulations there astra
now sadly we recently heard of the passing of general charles chuck jaeger i had intended to
cover this in my last video but just ran out of time last week it's just not possible to
condense all of his achievements from an amazing life into a small video segment but all the same
he has been such an inspiration to so many as a rookie in pilot training chuck initially suffered
from motion sickness making it unclear if being a pilot was even ever for him graduating and being
thrust into world war ii's theater of operations he excelled as a fighter pilot in a p-51 mustang
after the war he went on to be a test pilot and most notably became the first person
to break the sound barrier despite having two broken ribs at the time breaking mark 1 was an
event that he described as being underwhelming and that he anticipated a harsher experience
but it was more akin to flying into jello than becoming calm then went on to break multiple
attitude and speed records post-war was followed by more success also helping to train 26 germany
and apollo astronauts he described as spam in a can his passing announced by his wife
victoria paid tribute to what was certainly a stellar life of success he overcame so many
life challenges but above all he was a true patriot he passed away aged 97
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