hey hey marcus house with you here and welcome back to another week of space news kicking off
with spacex's starship development we are watching history in the making here and there have been
a lot of updates to discuss with the static fire completed we should be ready for a flight
early next week we had the attempted full duration hot fire with some problems to talk
about there for the space launch system it may not be quite as bad as many of us initially thought
a starlink launch breaking several new records for spacex virgin orbit blasted
into orbit with the launcher 1 demo 2 mission and to top all of that off rocket labs first
flight for 2021 with another successful launch of the electron rocket what a week this has been
today this video is kindly supported by surfsharkvpn more information later about
how you can get 83 off and three extra months for free on their awesome vpn jumping right now into
starship development news though sn9 was aiming to provide a streamlined pad flow when compared to
sn8 now after sn 9's historic day of three static fires observations were made concerning two of the
firings which appeared to show only two of the three engines were firing during the second and
third tests elon musk tweeted that the two engines need a slight repair so they will be switched out
now john krause tweeted here pictures of raptor sn44 which was the first raptor to be removed sn46
was the next raptor to be removed and then both of these were transported to the build site where
they were loaded on a truck to be taken elsewhere it was assumed that this would push sn9's launch
data back by weeks however these fears were at least partially dismissed with two new raptors
being transported to the launch pad for swap out processing elon mentioned that they were making
major improvements to ease the engine swap process and it needs to only take a few hours at most
so after another impatient week watching attempted static fires from many of us including myself we
finally saw a beautiful looking test on friday that should mean that the next milestone for sn9
is the flight itself which we are hoping will be happening early next week now something new
was recently spotted by mary at the old gas well site this we assume is an air separation unit that
separates air into liquid oxygen argon and liquid nitrogen now this liquid oxygen can then be used
to replenish the tank farm down the road to be used for starship testing
the liquid nitrogen on the other hand can be used in a separate heat exchanger to liquefy natural
gas from the original gas wells this natural gas can then be purified on site into liquid methane
now these commodities including liquid oxygen liquid methane and liquid nitrogen can be
either directly pumped through underground pipes to the tank farm or delivered by truck
this process will be very beneficial in the long term when spacex needs vast amounts of propellant
if they want to end up doing multiple tests per day to news at the construction site two sn17
sections were spotted including the common dome section and the middle liquid oxygen tank section
furthermore there is some pretty big news for the week with the first section of super heavy boost
number two now being spotted this section is the forward dome and features some of the new
hardware on top of the dome that we never saw on bn1 on top of that we saw the introduction
of sn18 with a thrust puck also being spotted how crazy is that the new sn 7.2 test tank was rolled
to the pad on wednesday ahead of its own testing campaign where it's going to undergo a cryogenic
liquid nitrogen test and be tested to destruction just like its two predecessors sn7 and sn 7.1 this
is the very first tank to be built using the three millimeter stainless steel instead of
the current four millimeters that is a significant change that will drastically reduce the dry mass
of the vehicle it's going to be interesting to see how that test tank holds up with the pressure
tests we also had some interesting views after the old mach 1 vessel was cut apart now this we are
looking at here is the inside of the nose section of mark 1 with a bunch of copvs packed in around
the outer walls such a bizarre looking structure almost looks like some kind of mad jellyfish i
must admit i had no idea that they had packed all of this into the nose a little over a year ago now
looking at the quality of all of the welding it's quite funny looking back to think that this
version was actually intending to fly at least for a short amount of time that was well before the
problems to do with pressure testing were even determined to be a problem mark one of course
was the very first tank section to get some crazy attention from the public sometimes i think that
the enthusiasm behind spacex's starship project is a lot to do with seeing potential explosions along
the way i for one am hoping for a nice ordinary flight and successful landing of sn9 now we head
into some pretty important news for the future of starship there are two new members in the
spacex fleet called phobos and deimos named after the two mars moons six months after elon musk
revealed that spacex is building floating super heavy class spaceports for its next generation
starship rocket the company has already purchased and begun converting two retired oil rigs now jack
bayer here captured wonderful images of an oil rig in brownsville it was quickly determined that this
oil rig and a twin ship in nearby galveston were purchased by an undisclosed buyer for around seven
million dollars in july of 2020. michael baylor here determined that the shell company lone star
mineral development purchased the rigs now in the tweet replies another user discovered that
this company was directly connected to spacex's cfo brett johnson indisputably confirming that
spacex was the new owner of both of these oil rigs just terrific insight there and make sure
you're following both jack and michael there on twitter and supporting there where you can
now as it turns out the renaming of the ships to the names of mars moons also subtly confirms
that they are owned by spacex phobos and deimos are very fitting names for these future starship
launch or landing platforms given spacex's intense focus on building a sustainable city on mars while
spacex is currently building a land-based launch platform at boko chica vast floating launch and
landing platforms have also featured in spacex's official artist concepts of the rocket for
several years now this will enable airline style starship flights to and from coastal cities where
sea-based platforms would be a necessity to avoid domestic regulations and extreme noise pollution
elon musk has also positioned sea launch as a viable alternative or complement to
land-based starship launch operations so yes we really appreciate the incredible community that
dives deep into finding out more detail on this information big thank you to nasa space flight
and bokeh chicago especially for also capturing so many of these new parts being delivered to the
construction site it gives brendan here creating these diagram updates along with all of us
a lot of information to determine where many of these segments fit into the construction process
we can see there the new bn2 already added and thanks brendan for keeping us all up to date here
now last week we talked a little about the header tanks and why they are so important and i got a
huge number of comments about this with arguments that the fuel would actually be floating in almost
a zero gravity situation while the vessel was in free fall before the flip thanks everyone for the
debates and comments on this it's great to see so many interested in the topic but here is the thing
though the fuel is not floating in zero gravity remember that the whole point of the belly flop
is to increase drag and lower terminal velocity as much as possible therefore the vessel is slowing
down a lot due to the thick atmosphere inside the ship there is no such air resistance so
for that reason the fuel is indeed being pulled downwards to slosh around the belly of the beast
for extra points though if anyone would like to tell me in the comments how much gravity the fuel
is roughly experiencing inside the ship relative to the starship body itself throughout the skydive
section of the flight i'd love to see what you think huge thank you as well for all of your
wonderful comments and likes around that area of the video that means a whole lot we put out these
videos every weekend so thanks for all of the subscriptions and interactivity from you all you
guys are just amazing another exciting starlink launch this week and it looks like 2021 is going
to be quite a busy one for spacex with even more starlink launches planned on wednesday the 20th we
saw yet another starlink liftoff with the falcon 9 from pad 39a here at kennedy space center in
florida some interesting records here have been broken with this mission there we see it launching
there off the pad a beautiful clear morning as we witness the falcon 9 screaming through the lower
atmosphere pushing right through max q around 70 seconds into the flight shortly after we saw the
main engine cutoff and stage separation with the first stage heading back to land on the autonomous
drone ship just read the instructions this was an incredible landing achieved in high winds
and rough seas spacex really pushed the boundaries with this one and even mentioned in the live
stream that this was going to be a risky landing attempt spacex are making it look too easy at this
point as they hit the bullseye there perfectly an incredible new achievement with the first
successful eighth recovery of the same falcon 9 booster and the 70 second recovery in total
yep this is the record breaker people and another terrific reuse is coming up here with this booster
very soon its first ever flight was for the crew dragon demo 1 mission and it's now also
shot up five separate starlink missions with the other two launches for both a radarsat mission
and the sirius xm mission what an incredible set of launches this booster has experienced
the turnaround between successive launches was impressive as well given that this booster flew
just last month on december 13th for the sirius xm mission this makes it the fastest booster
turnaround to date at just 38 days the previous fastest i believe was just over 50 days so
quite a big jump there spacex also mentioned that they have expanded their beta program which is now
being rolled out into areas of the united kingdom so exciting news there as well when can we see
that in australia spacex just asking for a friend you know now i think it's worth touching on the
beautiful segment spacex shared before the fight talking about the impact starlink is having in
some of these first communities that have suffered with poor internet connectivity for so long fast
reliable internet isn't just a luxury these days it is a real need for these communities it doesn't
matter if it's health education police services you name it spacex is super proud to be involved
in helping out these communities and it just goes to show how starlink really is going to change
the world for these regions i highly recommend going and watching this segment if you missed it
from spacex's live stream now california's mojave desert and spaceport this week was a hive
of activity with ground crews attending a pre-flight and launch for launcher 1's demo 2 on
january the 17th this was an exciting mission and we'll dive into that shortly but first this video
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so yes this second demonstration mission for virgin orbit was aiming to not only attain
orbit but also release 10 cubesats this type of launch system is more tailored to precise orbital
placement for these small satellites as opposed to ride share scenarios such as the falcon 9 where
the orbit is targeted for the bigger payloads themselves the 70 foot long or 21 meter two-stage
launch vehicle was fastened to the left wing of cosmic girl which is the boeing 747 that would
help write a new chapter in history for virgin orbit rolling down the runway just before 2 pm and
heading to the launch altitude of approximately 35 000 feet or 10 700 meters we saw cosmic girl
commence her pitch up and bank hard to the right timed beautifully with the launcher 1 release
the newton 3 engine came to life and launcher 1 was on its way thanks to the swift three minute
burn time this first milestone passed the previous demo 1 flight which unfortunately saw a propellant
line rupture and the loss of that launch vehicle with stage separation also successful the upper
stage newton 4 engine lifted launcher 1 and its payload into its orbit now there was around a
45-minute coast and another burn of the second stage engine prior to release of the 10 cubesats
from a mix of university groups as well as nasa's ames research center with jubilant scenes back
on the ground with the arrival of the launch crew and pilots here we can now look forward to virgin
orbit moving to commercial operations in the near future and competing with other small satellite
launch providers such as rocket lab but let's not forget we also have coming astra relativity space
and firefly aerospace all hot on the heels of virgin orbit as well as they all seek to make
their mark on the small satellite launch market i think it's useful to do a few comparisons
here the maximum payload for launcher one is approximately 300 kilograms into a 500 kilometer
sun synchronous orbit to compare that with rocket labs electron the maximum payload shown on the
rocket lab website is also 300 kilograms for the exact same type of orbit fairly evenly matched
there but of course launcher one here has the benefit of being able to fly around bad weather
at different locations it's worth noting as well that rocket lab are trying to reuse its electron
booster which would still likely make it a more cost effective flight it is so great to see that
the small satellite launch market is rapidly growing we are really witnessing the future here
speaking of rocket lab they have just this week had their very first launch of 2021 lifting off on
january the 20th from new zealand the mission name chosen for this one was pretty fun with it being
named another one leaves the crust this dedicated mission for ohb group saw the communications micro
satellite put into a polar low earth orbit on this the 18th mission for rocket lab this
will hopefully be the start of more rapid launch frequency for this year for rocket lab in keeping
with the vision of rocket lab to produce a rapid launch service it's worth highlighting that it
was just six months ago that ohb group signed the launch contract with rocket lab in the first place
the launch countdown went into a hold for a short duration due to excessive ground winds giving
time to take in the nice sunset but finally the timer resumed and we saw the liftoff of the very
first of many electron launches for 2021 after successful first stage separation and fairing
deployment the payload was eventually delivered to orbit by the kickstage as planned but this event
was sadly not shown a wonderful start to the year there for rocket lab now last week on saturday the
16th we saw four rs-25 space shuttle main engines raw to life on the space launch system artemis
one core stage sadly with a premature shutdown at around t plus 67 seconds this final test did
come with a few challenges but to start off with a good note all the hardware for the core stage is
in excellent condition with no major issues noted that sure is a relief for the entire program now
looking back to the test it was prematurely shut down due to conservative parameters for the stage
in order to ensure the safety of the vehicle above or else for context each engine has one hydraulic
system associated to it in order to perform thrust vectoring and gimbal control now each of
these hydraulic systems has a capu or core stage auxiliary power unit to power it up now engine
2 or its official name e2056 shut off in unison with the other engines directly after identifying
the issue that being that the tolerances set for the hydraulic system through the capu were being
exceeded now in flight this wouldn't have made much of a difference as the hydraulic systems
on the gimbal mounts are cross-linked and could have compensated for the loss of one of the engine
capus without any problems however since the core stage is being tested on the ground at stannis
tighter tolerances are put in place in order to stress the system as much as possible and identify
all points where it could fail in flight now allowing for these extra levels of safety checks
and higher levels of tolerances only benefits the program when it comes to human safety overall
nasa officially have said that they have gotten much of the needed data points filled however
another test is becoming more and more likely this test would probably happen in mid to late february
and would repeat the entire hot fire countdown but this time for a full eight minutes it's definitely
great to see that the core stage is in one piece with no required refurbishment needed before the
next hot fire so what do you think was it great to see those rs-25s fire up together once again
i tell you it is just such a nostalgic feeling watching these engines come back to life knowing
that they are going to take flight once again it's a little sad at the same time knowing that
we'll be seeing them getting thrown into the ocean but at least they will have had the opportunity to
show off their might a few more times now remember we also have an incredible spacex mission coming
up shortly with transporter one that could very well mean a new record for the most satellites
ever launched in a single flight including a unique deployment of 10 starling satellites
into a polar orbit this time for the very first time we'll cover that one in more detail in the
next video this is an exciting one so yes what an action-packed week of space news we've had
right there we'll be back for another week next weekend as always a big thank you to the amazing
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