Kind Thanks go to Brilliant for Sponsoring today’s Episode.
Today I’ll explain to you,
what was so important about the recent SpaceX Starship Serial Number 9 static fires and how Elon Musk might be able to turn one of his craziest
ideas into reality. How to catch a roughly 200 ton Super Heavy booster out of midair.
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
Oh my gosh! Did you see that? I am so stocked about the upcoming SpaceX Starship flight!
We’re on day 15 of the new year now and SpaceX is piling up milestones as if it was nothing.
If I was in an important position of any other big launch provider, I’d raise both eyebrows right now.
I was asked on Twitter, what I thought was be the best part of the Starship program and I do read what you write to me on Twitter.
My answer is simple. It’s true innovation and Elon Musk’s will to actually pull through with it, take the risk and try something new.
Most of Elon Musk’s companies share this aspect.
Many of us keep scratching our heads, wondering why some things are never tried.
Why many big industries keep on perfecting the old instead of trying out new ideas.
All this normally is justified with economics or regulations.
It’s not possible to just do something new, right?
Well, here you go. It is. And SpaceX is the perfect example for doing so.
At first people laughed. Now, SpaceX is simply advancing so fast that no one can keep up anymore.
Soon Starships will service existing space infrastructure and after that they’ll help replace it.
If everything works out, they will get us to the Moon for the second time and then even further.
Mars is the goal and every day it looks more likely that something all the established big players would have called impossible only a few years
ago may actually happen. A self-sustained human colony on another planet.
Thank you, Louis and the whole LabPadre team for enabling us to watch this every day.
You Rock! Now, here’s why I am so stocked right now.
On Wednesday, SpaceX did something extremely exciting.
They performed three static fires in quick succession, showing the world once more that Starships are progressing quickly.
Doubts from the early days are gone by now.
This is a mature project. A viable solution for the most capable rocket ever actually beginning construction.
Pictures again provided by LabPadre.
Everyone was around, but LabPadre’s view is just out of this world.
As if you’re sitting right next to it.
Well done! Let’s listen in on the first static fire.
Did you hear that screeching howl in the end?
That’s something new. Here it is again on another camera.
And once more in slow motion.
It’s still unknown, what causes the Raptor engines to produce these sounds and Elon Musk has never shed light on it.
One explanation for SpaceX’s secrecy could be that these sounds are created by something new.
Some sort of tech that is unique to Raptor engines.
What’s clear though, if you’ve heard these sounds before is that this time it sounded different than usual.
Here is LabPadre’s view of the SN8 static fire number 3 from mid-November last year.
Listen to the sound at the end.
That’s what we’re used to. That characteristic honk.
On Starship SN9 though it sounds higher pitched and longer.
Almost like something from Jurassic Park.
Yes, I know. The name comes from a raptor bird.
But dinosaurs… come on!
Here we are right before the second static fire for the day.
As mentioned before, SpaceX performed three static fires in short succession on one day.
Let’s listen in again. The sound just doesn’t get old.
And again, in the end this strange sound.
Singing Rocket engines. Who would have thought?
Static fire number 2 and no problem at all.
SpaceX arranged quite the display for the audience.
Starship Serial Number 9 lit up again and again as if it was nothing.
Beautiful to watch! I had both Tim Dodd’s and LabPadre’s stream open on separate monitors.
Then came static fire number 3.
Perfect ignition and that characteristic howl.
Almost like a melody. The Raptor pack in action.
Always the same procedure. First, we see some venting from the lowest point of the raceway.
Tank pressure is raised likely with helium.
Then right before the ignition the venting gets stronger.
Turbo pumps spinning up. And right after that 600 tons of thrust come out of three Raptor engines.
And right after the engines shut down, we hear the howl.
Some sort of pressure relief would be my guess.
Musk tweeted about the static fires and it reveals the reason for three ignitions in a single day.
SpaceX was practicing engine startups.
While tests are going on, the Starship is held down by massive pins to prevent it from moving.
This indicates that there was a lot of thrust involved.
You want to practice engine starts at actual lift-off settings.
And shortly after the third static fire was done, Musk tweeted that everything went well.
No RUD. Starship SN9 has proven that it can relight its engines over and over again.
Looking back at Starship Serial Number 8 and it’s landing attempt after the historic 12.5-kilometer flight shows where SpaceX still has to improve
for a perfect flight. On December 9th of 2020, so a little over a months ago two of the three engines were supposed to manage the landing burn.
Both lit up but one shut down quickly again and the other one started burning its internals.
An engine rich exhaust and a failed landing were the result.
The cause of the problem? Fuel header tank pressure was low during the landing burn, causing touchdown velocity to be high.
Let’s cut open our beloved virtual Starship again and see, what Musk was talking about.
This normally is hidden from the eye but with a little trick and help from Nick Henning we can take a look.
These are the two header tanks inside a Starship in its current form.
The one in the Nose cone is for liquid oxygen and the one right between the two main tanks is for liquid methane.
CH4 of course means methane. These two tanks are needed for a Starship while in a horizontal position and to be able to swing around and stick
a landing. Now, on Starship serial number 8’s flight the liquid methane header tank had low pressure.
It was not able to provide enough fuel for the Raptor engines, causing them to burn oxygen rich.
An Oxygen rich propellant mixture in return causes the combustion to get hot.
And if the mixture is oxygen rich enough it starts to damage the engines.
Just a little too much oxygen, a low-pressure methane header tank and boom.
Even though the flight was a huge success, traditional media of course just reported about the exploding Mars rocket.
SpaceX wants to get it right this time.
No more RUD’s if possible. There’s no official information, but that’s likely the reason, why they did these three static fires in quick succession.
SpaceX might be testing a different way of pressurizing the methane header tank.
It didn’t take Musk long to come up with a solution to the problem.
No 6 months review. No long reorientation.
Three weeks after the Starship Serial Number 8 flight, Musk tweeted, that Serial Number 9 would use Helium to pressurize the CH4 header tank.
It’s a short-term solution and the permanent solution is under debate, but tests can continue.
The last burning question remaining of course is when we can see Starship Serial Number 9 fly together?
When does the hype train continue and when do we get a chance to see the first successful landing of a full-size Starship?
Now, this is where it get’s a bit wonky.
Everyone, who’s seen the lead up to the Serial Number 8 12.5 kilometer hop knows, that this can take some time.
It seems to be the same with Starship Serial Number 9.
Here are the current test dates.
Monday, January 18th and the two following days.
Being asked,
if he was still aiming for a flight this week Elon replied saying that two of the engines needed slight repairs after the three static fires and would be switched out.
And being asked, if this would mean more static fires with the replacement engines, he replied that it would probably be wise to do so.
So, unfortunately a flight might still be a bit out.
Maybe even more than a week or two.
As always, I’ll keep you up to date!
Anyways
I can’t wait to watch it together with the WAI family again so watch out for a stream notification.
We are lqaunching again! Hype!
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How to catch a Superheavy Booster the What about it way!
Now the next topic was sparked by one single Tweet done by Elon Musk.
Anyone who follows SpaceX and Elon Musk closely knows that they’re known for unconventional ideas.
It’s part of their success and it’s what makes their story so unique.
From the early days on SpaceX managed to startle everyone.
Falcon 1 reaching space, showing the world that they mean business.
To landing an orbital rocket booster only 6 years later.
No one thought, this could happen.
Today it’s routine. So much so that all the other non-reusable rockets start to feel strangely wrong.
Why wouldn’t you save the booster?
It’s so easy, right? In fact, it isn’t.
Only because SpaceX is doing it on a regular basis without any problems anymore doesn’t mean that it’s easy at all.
So the point is that no matter how crazy the idea might seem in the beginning,
there always is a good chance that SpaceX actually tries it and has success with it.
Keep that in mind for the second topic of today’s episode.
So, as said, it all started with one Tweet by Elon Musk.
Erik or ErcXSpace as he might be known to you on Twitter, also a member of the WAI family, made another one of his awesome renders,
showing a Super Heavy land in Boca Chica.
As usual he posted it on Twitter, asking Elon, if this was close to the real thing to get some info before finishing up the render.
And as he holds his 3D artists close to his heart, Elon responded.
And the response was quite the surprise to say the least.
Now here goes nothing. We’re going to try to catch the Super Heavy Booster with the launch tower arm, using the grid fins to take the load.
Wait what? He even said “we’re going to try”.
That doesn’t sound like it’s up for debate to me.
Here we go again. Elon Musk and SpaceX and their crazy ideas, right?
Hold your horses. Remember this?
Yeah… crazy, right? Still, it happened and now it’s normal business.
Since this tweet happened, there have been many different ideas popping up all over the community.
SpaceX and Elon inspire and so 3D artists from all over the world started churning out their concepts.
It’s just incredible to see, how invigorating SpaceX is for all of us.
One team has not released their concept yet.
The WAI family. So,
get your popcorn out and don’t forget to debate the idea with us in the comments after finishing the episode because Nick and I have been busy for you!
Boca Chica Texas, sometime in the not-so-distant future.
A Super Heavy booster is on final approach from the launch only a few minutes ago.
The next Starship is already waiting, because today we’ll see three launches in quick succession.
Business as usual, right?
So here it comes! Get your popcorn ready!
We’re about to have another midair catch!
There we go. Gentle now. Just a little bit more.
Almost. And soft touch down! Safely brought back by another one of SpaceX’s seemingly crazy ideas.
Didn’t look so hard after all, did it?
Now here comes the magic and the whole reason, why Elon Musk wants to try it this way.
The stacking crane attached to the top of the launch tower can just pick the booster up right out of the catch mechanism.
No landing legs needed making the booster lighter and less complex.
Everything complex is contained in the launch tower.
It can be as beefy and sturdy as SpaceX wants and needs it to be.
No weight restrictions at all, as the Tower does not need to reach Space.
And super short turnaround times.
We’re talking hours until the whole system can be loaded or crewed again.
It’s a crazy idea but not so much, if you look at the benefits.
The Booster hull does not have to be so sturdy as it does not have to take the force of a rougher landing.
No legs mean less weight and more payload capacity.
And turning the launch tower into some sort of swiss knife with stacking crane,
crew and cargo arm and catch mechanism in one structure is a genius move.
And only a few hours after the booster has landed, the whole system is loaded and ready to go again for the next mission.
Blasting off into a future no one would have thought to be possible before SpaceX came up with their next seemingly crazy idea.
Now let’s get into the details.
What did Nick and I think, when we made this the way you just saw it?
Let’s give the catch mechanism another close look.
The booster is coming down almost straight with little horizontal movement.
As said, Musk’s initial tweet set off a whole wave of creativity amongst 3D artists.
Here’s Smallstar’s and Erik’s take on it only a day later.
Musk’s reply? Rocket motion is primarily vertical, so you want the top open.
So we took that into account.
Secondly, we followed Musk’s train of thought.
On November 8th of last year, Musk replied to Tim Dodd the Everyday Astronaut,
that SpaceX would plan to land their super heavy boosters directly on the launch mount to reduce turnaround time and get rid of the legs.
He added that this will require extreme precision.
Now, what’s the problem with extreme precision?
It has little wiggle room.
The reason for Musk changing this original plan only a few weeks later might be that extreme precision is too risky.
So, we constructed a catch mechanism that can cope with a certain amount of unprecise landing accuracy.
The catch mechanism is flexible enough to deal with it.
Next, we have the cable approach.
The booster in our concept touches down on Dyneema.
Dyneema is an extremely light but at the same time extremely strong polymer fiber used in all sorts of extreme scenarios.
You can stop a bullet with it,
climb the highest mountains and you can lift extremely heavy loads and at the same time it provides the benefit of being relatively cheap,
easy to handle and it bends. A simple pulley system integrated into the launch tower could make the landing as light as a feather with extremely
low stress on the booster’s hull structure.
Finally, we completely overengineered the catch arms.
Weight does not matter as long as it doesn’t have to be attached to the rocket,
so the catch mechanism can be made as strong as you want it to be.
The stronger the structure, the less maintenance is needed.
So, what do you think? Is this it?
Are we close to what SpaceX will actually attempt to build?
Tell us your thoughts in the comments and let’s get rid of problems you might see!
Can we solve Elon’s problem together?
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