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hey hey marcus house with you here and wow has this been an incredible week for starship news
there has been a load of frustration of course waiting for static fires that never came then
a bunch of them all at once we had as well the return there of the crs 21 mission with the cargo
dragon splashing down late this week another successful flight of blue origin's new shepard
and we also have some quite interesting news with spacex's starlink network and some quite
intriguing plans for the international space station solar panels to top all that off
spacex had originally only planned to conduct one static fire on starship serial number nine before
its flight however the first test that occurred last week was cut short for unknown reasons with
it only lasting for two seconds two days later spacex tried to redo the staticfire test but they
seemingly only made it to 10 to 20 minutes into the usual 40 to 60 minute static fire test window
scrubbing the attempt for that day due to an agreement with cameron county where they can't
close the road or the beach on the weekend the next opportunity was delayed three days
to monday january the 11th now monday's static fire attempt was scrubbed before the window had
even opened due to high winds and unfavorable weather in the area on tuesday the 12th starship
sn9 perhaps just two or so minutes from ignition aborted its static fire attempt late into the test
window once again scrubbing that opportunity for the night now here's where it gets really crazy on
wednesday the 13th sn9 completed its second static fire test at 12 30 pm elon musk then tweeted that
the team is practicing starship engine starts where the ship is held down by massive pins while
engines are fired two starts completed about to try a third that third test came just two hours
after the previous test at 2 22 p.m which was also nominal what blew our minds even more was
that once again just one hour later this time at 3 37 pm spacex fired up the raptor engines
to complete their fourth static fire overall with sn9 now this marks a huge achievement for spacex
by completing three static fires in a single day all within three hours from the first at 12 30 pm
and the last there at 3 37 p.m all three of these tests were extremely brief lasting around
one to two seconds although this time it was apparently intentional with elon tweeting that
all three static fires completed and no rapid unscheduled disassembly more importantly this
is the first time ever that spacex has completed or even attempted two starship static fires in
a single day let alone three in the span of three hours now elon summed up this milestone by saying
that spacex would detanking following up with inspections and that is very good progress towards
the goal of being able to simply hop in and go to mars obviously they're referring very far
into the future saying all this though it seems that there were some issues with two
of the raptor engines sadly this is going to require repairs and for those raptor engines
to be switched out for different ones that is going to mean more static fires for those as well
until this point we were all geared up for a flight on friday or even today i suspect
we are going to be waiting a few weeks before we are going to see that flight we are also hearing
rumors that the flight altitude target has been lowered to 10 kilometers instead of 12 and a half
so we're awaiting more official confirmation on that as well of course work continued over at the
construction site amongst all of the excitement at the pad this week the build continued with the
new test tank called sn 7.2 with its forward dome being mated with its aft dome this is
the first test tank to be built using the three millimeter stainless steel instead of the current
four millimeters although this may seem like a minor change this will result in a mass reduction
of 10 to 20 tonnes in a fully assembled starship this in turn of course increases the payload mass
capable by 10 to 20 tonnes as well sn 7.2 should be rolled to the pad soon ahead of its own testing
campaign where it's going to undergo a cryogenic liquid nitrogen test and be presumably tested to
destruction like its two predecessors sn7 and sn 7.1 we had progress with sn12 with its aft section
being rolled out of one of the tents equipped with its thrust dome and skirt another forward
dome stack was also rolled out of the tent but it's unknown at this time what starship prototype
that is destined for sn10 is still in the high bay and has only just had its flaps installed ahead of
being rolled to the pad once sn9's flight campaign is complete and we have sn11 nearing the end of
its assembly the tank section is fully complete now in the mid bay however work on the nose cone
is off to a rough start on tuesday the nose cone was rolled back inside of the tent and then on
wednesday the header tank portion was just cut off now it's unknown whether a new one will be
attached on top or if the whole nose cone now will be scrapped all together over the weekend starship
sn6 the prototype that of course completed the third ever 150 meter hop after sn5 and starhopper
finally met its demise with spacex deciding to scrap this prototype firstly the forward
dome section was cut off and lowered to the ground and lastly the common dome leaving just the thrust
section and skirt which may not last long either in this shot by mary here we have a unique view
that we have never seen before this is the liquid methane down comer with a portion of the header
tank still attached now just look closely at this device here this to me looks like some kind of
solution to stop the liquid methane from forming a vortex when fuel is rapidly draining out we can
see what looks like baffles here which could be there to help stop some of the angular velocity of
the liquid from getting into that state a buildup of the vortex can add a lot of extra forces to
the structure in uneven ways that can cause all sorts of issues like gases getting sucked down
into the vortex or just uneven pressure drops in the overall flow now that is all pure speculation
here on my part that is just what it looks like to me i'd love to know what you think let me know
your thoughts in the comments below the header tanks are extremely important and i've had a
lot of questions recently about these tanks with people really misunderstanding what they are for
so we made this animation showing why this is so critical after the flight to maximum altitude the
main tanks are going to be largely empty perhaps even emptier than we are showing here now with
all of the gas in the main tanks it is impossible to fire up the engines from a belly down position
like this because the liquid oxygen and methane header tanks are full and contain no gases
the raptors ignite with this fuel which flips the vessel and begins the vertical landing burn the
fuel in the header tanks is burned as the vehicle touches down now the reason for sn8 failure was
because the methane header tank here lost pressure causing the fuel mixture to suffer possibly
turning it oxygen rich with sn9 helium is going to be used at least as a temporary solution to help
fix that pressure problem big thanks goes to boca chicago with nasa space flight just look at some
of these incredible shots there with sn9 getting ready for its test flight and of course for all of
the huge amount of time spent live streaming many static fire attempts just beautiful stuff likewise
rgv aerial photography picking up so many shots with detail like this there is no way we can get
this perspective without these shots from above so yes that brings the build progress all up to date
as we can see here from brendan's latest diagram that breaks all this down for you in one single
snapshot these wireframes are always incredibly useful and raphael's most recent design here
lays out a lot of these measurements over the top in that blueprint style that so many of us love
speaking of that design you can actually pick that up directly from his store which all helps
to support what he does there the link to that is in the description mine just arrived the other day
how cool is that love it raph what all these creators are doing allows so many
of us here to share it all around the world of course without you here liking commenting and
subscribing there would be no one to share it with so thanks most of all to you guys
for the support of this channel and all of the other channels that we follow so closely
this week of course also had the very first ever return of the cargo dragon version 2
from the international space station there were a few shifts in the plan as the story played out
this week due to weather-related issues at the splashdown location the cargo dragon instead
undocked after a single day delay to that original plan that undocking occurred at exactly 805 am
central time over the south atlantic ocean now dragon then fired its thrusters to move
a safe distance from the space station backing away from the pma3 port of the harmony module
now after exiting out to the safe zone it was of course free to begin its return to earth around 36
hours later that time flew by and before we knew it on wednesday dragon initiated that deorbit burn
to begin its re-entry sequence into the earth's atmosphere followed by making a parachute assisted
splashdown that evening at around 7 27 pm central time as mentioned by nasa in the live stream this
new version of the cargo dragon contains double the powered locker availability of the previous
capsules allowing for a significant increase in the research that can be carried back to earth
now this is extremely useful of course as many of the experiments require power to keep those
experiments active in the needed state on top of that this version of the cargo dragon is capable
of holding around twenty percent more cargo and experiments than the version one cargo dragon that
didn't have near the same capabilities remember that dragon capsule was used for the first 20
commercial resupply missions for nasa minus of course the failed crs-7 mission that vessel was
not designed to autonomously dock with the station it was instead needing to be birthed
with the canada manually now there are a lot more changes in this design as well which we've talked
about in the previous episode but needless to say the increased cargo capacity is extremely useful
allowing for increased science from each mission now interestingly elon tweeted this week saying
that one day spacex are going to get a camera up here which will have the capability to show the
star field in the background the problem of course with taking starfield shots while also trying
to take a photo of the dragon or international space station in sunlight is that the exposure
settings on the camera can only be adjusted for one or the other if you have something bright
such as the iss in direct light without even the earth's atmosphere to scatter the light around
you need an extremely fast shutter speed to let in just the small amount of light needed
to capture the detail of the vessels without them being a watted out mess now that is the problem
with taking a shot of both of the station and the comparatively super dim stars in the background
this whole issue of not being able to see stars in the background is one of the more well-known
conspiracy theories mentioned by people who really have no idea what they're talking about all you
need to do is understand how shutter speed and exposure works and it's obvious why you can't
have a single camera capture both bright and dim objects in the same shot so yes let's do
hope that spacex's plans to put up some mega cameras with amazing capabilities
will provide us with some high definition photos and video in the future i just love it if spacex
opened up a brand new channel for lots of raw footage and perhaps even live streamed footage
up on the station now on monday boeing announced its new deal with nasa to provide six more solar
arrays for the international space station this deal of course has been in the making for quite
a while now so it wasn't exactly unexpected but it's interesting all the same for some context
here boeing has been the primary contractor for nearly all of the united states iss modules and
truss segments they helped build the pressure vessels and supplied all of the common berthing
mechanisms on each module boeing at first glance doesn't look like a solar array manufacturer right
however in the year 2000 they acquired a company called spectralab which later helped to develop
these solar cells on the cst 100 starliner crew vehicle these same solar cells developed
for starliner will be put to use to power these new arrays it is really awesome to see the cross
utilization of technology between different use cases so yes with this technology already
in hand and being a dependable contractor for the iss boeing will deliver these cells and
continue its role as the primary provider for the international space station's growth and expansion
looking at their transport these arrays will get into space through being stowed in the trunk
of a cargo dragon vehicle this means it will take up to three flights to install all six arrays onto
the main truss segment of the iss by ride sharing on a cargo dragon this allows the solar arrays to
go up without the major concern for crew if a problem were to arise on a crew dragon vehicle
these new arrays will be positioned right above some of the older ones taking up space between
them and even overlapping them in places they will however be producing nearly 20 to 30 percent more
power overall it's not normally what you would expect it kind of looks quite weird how these
are going to sit right no information has been given for the price of the contract however it
is clear that with the possible expansion on the russian side of the space station and continuing
expansion of the us segment it will be necessary to provide more power for the future and current
infrastructure so new components for the station like this certainly raise frequent discussion
about what the longer term plan is for the space station itself it's been thought for quite some
time that nasa may well decide to retire and decommission the space station late this decade by
deorbiting it over the pacific ocean leaving most of it to burn up in the atmosphere perhaps with a
newly growing space tourism industry we may see an extension of that plan we'll need to wait and see
now blue origin successfully completed its 14th mission on a sub-orbital hop just above
the karman line with the new shepard on thursday now this mission ns14 featured a crew capsule
outfitted with astronaut experience upgrades for upcoming potential flights with passengers
on board to be honest there wasn't really a lot to say about this live stream that we haven't
seen in past missions i think what blue origin are doing here is exciting but i do wish they
would show us a little more in their live streams they don't have to do that of course but it would
be excellent to be able to see cameras showing a view from the booster looking down or the capsule
separation even a view inside the capsule itself would be great yes blue origin did share some of
that on twitter at a later stage but it sure would add a lot more excitement if there were some more
live view cameras the mission went to plan with the booster returning to land on the pad and there
we see the capsule parachuting down with the retro thrust firing right on touchdown as designed and
there we go another successful mission down this flight was yet more evidence that the vehicle is
stable and robust the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen powered booster there using the b3 engine
looking nice and stable as always the touchdown on this one was quite a way off the pad this time
which indicates to me that the level of descent control that they have here is certainly not
on par with the accuracy that we could see with something like grid fins we see there the booster
slow to a stop to hover and then redirect itself just over the side of the pad there i wonder if
at some point in the future they will add some new control systems to help with that issue now
over to some interesting starling news spacex this week were granted permission by the federal
communication commission to launch 10 stalling satellites into a polar orbit this time aboard
the upcoming transporter 1 rideshare mission we'll talk more about that in a moment but before that a
huge thank you to our sponsor brilliant for being such amazing supporters of our channel here it is
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so yes spacex being granted permission by the fcc to launch 10 styling satellites into a polar orbit
is quite interesting on november 17th last year spacex originally requested permission to launch
58 styling satellites into a polar orbit with the aim being to better serve remote communities in
alaska but this was met with opposition from viasat over the concerns of reliability of
the styling satellites and orbital debris now this objection was filed despite resolution of
a potential issue with amazon's plan for their satellites with a 20 kilometer or 12 mile buffer
in altitude between them this partial agreement to launch 10 starling satellites instead of 58
was determined to be in the public's best interest especially given limitations placed on people
due to the pandemic as it stands currently an unspecified timeline now exists for a decision
to be made on the license modification spacex are seeking in order to place styling satellites into
a lower orbital altitude so yes there's more to come on this no doubt as the starling satellite
constellation continues to grow now i just wanted to say a huge thank you to my amazing patrons and
youtube members here we super appreciate each and every one of you here supporting everything that
we are doing being able to create content at this frequency and length is only possible because of
the added support as we watch the evolution of starship progress it is just so awesome to have
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the tile in the bottom left today we have my video last week talking about starship progress spacex's
turksat 5a launch as well as some segments on eric and casper stanley's amazing 3d work in the
top right is my latest video and in the bottom right content that youtube has selected from
my channel just for you thank you everyone for watching and we'll see you all in the next video