Hello, we are TheSpaceXFans and welcome to TheSpaceXShow, the place where you can stay
up to date with everything SpaceX.
On Thursday, SpaceX launched the very delayed CRS-25 mission on a Falcon 9 rocket.
[SpaceX Commentator: “One.
Engine ignition.
And lift off.
Lift off of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, launching Dragon on the 25th mission to resupply the
International Space Station, with cool science and a new, advanced instrument to effectively
study our planet’s climate.”]
The Booster which launched this mission, B1067, then landed successfully for the 5th time
on the droneship A Shortfall Of Gravitas.
[SpaceX Commentator: “Key an eye out on the speed on the left hand side of your screen,
that’s the velocity of the first stage.
We’re going to see that come all the way down to zero.
On the right hand side of your screen is our droneship.
Also keep an eye out on the left hand side of your screen for landing leg deploy.
Stage 1 landing leg deploy.
People really excited behind me.
Right in the middle.
5th landing for this Falcon 9, 130th landing overall for an orbital class rocket.”]
By the time this video is up, there should have been the launch of another Starlink mission.
As you can see on TheSpaceXFans website, the launch of Starlink 4-22 is scheduled to lift
off today, Sunday 17th at 2:50pm UTC or 10:50am EDT.
There are also a couple of launches that we can hopefully expect this coming week.
Next, you see that we can hopefully expect Starlink 3-2 on Thursday 21st at 5:13pm UTC
or 1:13pm EDT.
As well as that, we might see the Starlink 4-25 mission lift off on Sunday 24th but there’s
no time specified.
There was an article posted saying “Georgia has become the latest country July 14 to approve
SpaceX’s Starlink broadband constellation.”
Eric Ralph posted an interesting Tweet related to the SpaceX launch cadence over the past
30 days.
He said “Barring delays, this will be SpaceX's 8th launch in 30 days.
This is actually not that far away from what I believe is the all-time 30-day cadence record,
which is likely 10 R--7 family launches from Sept 2 to Oct 1 1975.”
Eric Berger posted a Tweet saying “SpaceX is launching, on average, once every 6.47
days in 2022.”
Musk responded with “Cumulative tonnage to orbit this year is the right metric.”
Musk was asked “What do you think is the estimated timeframe for creating a self-sustaining
civilization on Mars?
20 years?
Self-sustaining meaning not relying/dependant on Earth for supplies.”
He responded with “20 to 30 years from first human landing if launch rate growth is exponential.
Assumes transferring ~100k each rendezvous and ~1M total people needed.
Heading to Boca Chica, here’s a view of the orbital launch site.
This new actuator was installed onto the chopstick catching arms.
The chopsticks were recently raised and wrapped around Booster 7.
The booster transport mount was moved to the orbital launch pad.
Work continues on the Starfactory production building in the yard.
In reference to an Everyday Astronaut video on Raptor 1 vs Raptor 2, Musk gave some Raptor
info.
He said “Most importantly, we need to delete or thermally protect remaining secondary structure,
so we can remove shrouds.”
Tim Dodd then posted “Well I’m sure glad we mentioned the shrouds in the video!
Would’ve been embarrassing if I left out ‘the most important thing’.”
Musk responded to that with “All mass necessitated by an engine design should count as engine
mass, eg shrouds, TVC hydraulic power and excess purge gas.
Raptors in production now have electric TVC, saving over a ton of hydraulics mass on booster.”
Musk responded to his response with “Enabling engines to take the heat without shrouds might
save over 10 tons, all things considered.
Shrouds are also a risk in that fuel leaks could be contained by the shroud, forming
a MOX bomb.
Booster is purging all 33 engine shrouds in flight to prevent this.”
There was then a Tweet posted saying “Removing shrouds will result in huge weight decrease.
However, Elon apart from the heat do you think that the engines & the secondary structure
needs some sort of protection?
Let's say from dust, debris, or unwanted objects?”
Musk responded to that with “Some small tubes & wiring need to be nested in a bigger
tube for thermal protection, kinda like conduit in a house.
Engines themselves & booster base are extremely robust.
High strength stainless steel is bulletproof to a handgun at ~2.5mm thickness.
Booster dome is 4mm.”
Scott Manley posted a Tweet saying “So is the electrical power for that coming from
batteries?
Have you done the trades on a generator on the turbo pump shaft vs battery?”
Then Musk responded to Scott with “Electric power for booster & ship is needed even when
engines aren’t running & incremental power draw of TVC isn’t too bad.
We have local supercaps on each engine to deal with power spikes.”
Raptor SN99 and SN76 were delivered to Starbase.
Work has been continuing on the Starship 24 prototype to get it ready for a static fire.
More tiles have been added to the Ship 24 vehicle.
At some point, this drone was seen inspecting Ship 24.
Taking a look at the road and beach closures on the Cameron County website, they’re definitely
not for Booster 7 but possibly Ship 24 static fire.
There are dates for possible closures currently tomorrow, Monday 18th, Tuesday 19th, Wednesday
20th and Thursday 21st.
Crews have continued to work on Booster 7 and inspect the engines.
A Raptor engine was seen moved to the launch site and installed under B7.
Booster 7 was then lifted onto the transport mount at some point.
It was then rolled back to the production site for Raptor inspection.
It’s been moved into the Mega Bay for the inspection.
Here’s a view of the Super Heavy Booster 9 upper bulkhead stack.
Here’s a booster aft dome which should be for the Booster 10 prototype.
To finish up today’s video, we once again have a Starbase production diagram to take
a look at thanks to Brendan Lewis.
As always, I have to say thank you to both Mary, also known as BocaChicaGal and Nic Ansuini
for being out there filming the Boca Chica content.
Also, thank you to the NASASpaceflight team working behind the scenes on their videos,
livestreams and other space content.
That’s it for this episode of TheSpaceXShow, I hope you enjoyed the video, if you did,
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Thanks for watching and have a great day!