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SpaceX has revealed their plan for an orbital Starship flight and we’re going to go through it step by step.
We’re also taking a look at SpaceX’s progress towards Starship SN15’s second flight!
When will it happen? Let’s find out!
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
SpaceX is progressing fast as always.
What begun as an extremely exciting dream is slowly turning into reality in form of more and more complex Starship prototypes.
Do you remember this? Was a good week, right?
On May 5th so not even 2 weeks ago, SpaceX launched Starship SN15 into the Boca Chica sky.
Now they have released their 4k flight recap.
What looked like a less optimal day for a Starship flight with lots of wind and rain turned out to be yet another historic moment at SpaceX’s
Starship headquarters in south Texas.
For the first time we can now see the flip under a clear blue sky and how SN15 continued its flight back down as during the live stream the camera feed got interrupted a lot.
We still can’t see the down selection process of the engines right before the flip maneuver but there’s awesome footage from a ground-based camera
showing the final moments before the landing.
Two engines fired and did the trick.
SpaceX must be mighty proud of all this.
Here’s the reaction from the SpaceX workers close to the launch site.
Wait for the reaction after the smoke clears!
This tells us a lot. They’re excited.
They’re relieved and they’re motivated to go on.
SN15 was just what SpaceX needed and keep in mind that it was only the 5th launch of a fully built Starship ever.
So, in the very meaning of the words, SpaceX is on track.
Having started serious development at the site less than 2 years ago, they’re already landing prototypes and planning their next steps.
What are those next steps? What comes after SN15’s landing and what can we expect to happen here in the next few weeks?
SpaceX is getting ready for big things to come.
Starbase. That’s what these large letters spell out in the Boca Chica Sunset.
Neon lights that tell a story of things to come.
Starship number 15’s landing was so successful that SpaceX now might have big plans for the first Starship to stick a landing.
On May 7th so only 2 days after the successful hop, Elon Musk tweeted, that SpaceX was looking into re-flying SN15.
So, that would mean getting it from the landing pad to the suborbital launch pad again…
Lifting it onto the pad again very carefully and then getting it ready for some more flight action.
More work needs to be done on the prototype, before it can take to the skies again, but as you can see from Mary’s wonderful footage here,
SpaceX is on track to put a check mark on the next milestone.
Flying one Starship prototype for a second time.
It’s not clear yet, when the launch is set to happen, but preparation work has been going on for almost a week now.
To my knowledge no new engines have been installed under the skirt yet.
It’ll be interesting to see, if SpaceX can re-fly the engines form the previous flight
as after the landing we could observe some serious detonations under the skirt which suggests at least some level of damage could have been done to the engines.
We’ll have to wait and see, what SpaceX does next, but right now it looks like SN15 might need more work than initially estimated by SpaceX.
No flight date has been set. No road closures are in effect for Boca Chica and SN15 is still sitting on the pad.
SpaceX has moved the Nosecone test rig from the launch site to the construction site and by now they’ve also disassembled it.
We roughly know what it was for.
To stress test a nosecone that’s strapped inside of it to simulate loads that could occur during max-q and during re-entry.
We don’t know at all what the results were.
No official news from SpaceX or Elon Musk.
It was just assembled, moved to the launch site, tested, moved back and disassembled.
Sometime we don’t find out more and can just watch while SpaceX continues on their path.
Next to it we have Starship number 16 inside the high bay.
It’s been stacked for quite a few days now and if it’s following a similar plan as the other prototypes,
it should be moved to the launch site soon.
This is a picture of Starship SN9 and SN10 side by side at the launch site taken by Mauricio from RGV aerial.
Wonderful picture! Take a look at his Patreon page in the description to support him on future flights if you can!
The double Starships. A lovely view and we might be seeing it again soon with SN15 and 16.
Another possible scenario could also be that SN16 flies before SN15.
It very much looks ready for the launch and it needs to make room soon as the next Starship as always is already waiting in line as well.
This for example is SN17’s mid lox section.
It’s ready to be stacked and it has loads of heat tiles readily attached as well.
It’s likely just waiting for some decision making at SpaceX right now.
Do we need SN17 or are 15 and 16 enough?
When will SpaceX start assembling SN20?
Besides a constant supply of prototypes, SpaceX of course also needs the infrastructure to do the launches.
For an orbital launch for example SpaceX is still missing quite a few components.
The tank farm is far from being finished even though it made lots of progress.
Two of the GSE tanks are in position now and more and more details are becoming visible.
From RGV’s aerial view point we can make out even more details of the current progress.
As stated, two of the GSE tanks are I place by now.
We can also see that there are slight differences between the tank foundations and we know that SpaceX needs 4 different commodities on site.
Liquid Nitrogen, liquid Methane, Liquid oxygen and water.
Fun fact, the water will also be liquid.
In the GSE tank setup the three foundations on the right are receiving a higher foundation,
4 look like they’re receiving the lower concrete foundation and one looks like it’s getting a slightly wider foundation.
By looking at those different foundations we can narrow down, what kinds of tanks we can expect here.
A logical setup would be three liquid nitrogen tanks, three liquid methane tanks, one liquid nitrogen tank and one water tank.
The water tank might very well be placed on the wider foundation in this case.
To the left and right we can also see, that SpaceX seems to be adding more smaller tanks as well.
The pump station above the GSE tanks is far along too.
Railings have been put in place on the roof and the main room itself is in the final stage of equipment assembly by now.
The orbital launch mount and the integration tower are taking shape as well.
I am still looking for a good name for the tower as I do think that integration tower doesn’t really fit it.
It has many more task than that.
It’s even supposed to catch boosters at some point.
Right next to the six large pillars of the orbital launch mount we can see smaller straight segments of the same diameter on the ground.
Owe from Blender 3D Creation eccentric has made an animation for how they might be assembled.
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Since those smaller pillar segments have exactly the same look and diameter as the already existing pillars,
it’s very likely that SpaceX will attach them to the top, which then would look like this.
After that SpaceX might add the orbital launch table which can still be found at the construction site and that’s what it would look like in the
end. Is this really a possible scenario?
Let me know in the comments what your idea is and make sure to follow owe on twitter @Bl3D_Eccentric for more awesome updates!
The integration tower itself is progressing fast.
The foundation including the first level seem to be largely done by now.
With a strong internal mesh of supports in place to spread the load of the entire tower plus flight hardware this is going to be one beefy structure in the end.
SpaceX is assembling the tower in segments and will then transport those from the refinery site a little up the highway down to the launch site
as soon as they’re ready for stacking.
And to be able to lift those segments, SpaceX will need the largest crane on site yet.
The Liebherr 11350 has begun assembly at the launch site and it will come with some impressive stats.
Maximum hoist height of 220 meters.
And if you take a closer look at what SpaceX is doing there,
you’ll see that they seem to attach two separate main booms and it’s got a good reason too.
SpaceX is assembling a so-called Power Boom configuration.
It’s not just a LR 11350. It’s a LR11350 P1800.
It’s basically two main booms connected as one, almost doubling the maximum lift capacity.
We’re talking weights of more than 400 tons now.
It’s going to be beautiful to see it work at the site.
Now, SpaceX does all of this of course for their upcoming orbital flight.
The first one to send a Starship into space and SpaceX has said multiple times that this is not that far way.
Documents have surfaced showing everything in detail.
What will SpaceX’s first orbital launch look like?
Let’s find out!
This is it. SpaceX’s filing at the FCC for their first Starship orbital flight.
ErcXspace and Smallstars have made a fantastic animation to illustrate the flightpath!
SpaceX’s request for authority from the FCC to operate communications equipment on an orbital Starship test flight suggests the company expects
the demonstration mission to occur sometime between June 20 and December 20.
The rocket’s Super Heavy booster will fire its cluster of 28 Raptor engines for around 2 minute, 49 seconds,
on a track toward the east heading out to the Gulf of Mexico.
About two seconds later, the 230-foot-tall (70-meter)
Super Heavy booster will jettison to begin a descent to a landing in the Gulf of Mexico around 8 minutes, 15 seconds, after launch.
The giant booster will aim to land about 12 miles, (20 kilometers) from shore, according to SpaceX and do a soft landing in the water.
This for example is a Falcon 9 booster doing a soft landing in the water after something went wrong on the CRS-18 launch.
The capsule got sent to the ISS just fine but the booster decided to make a safe landing in the water instead.
This is what we can expect for that first super heavy landing as well… just slightly very much bigger.
Meanwhile,
the Starship orbital stage will ignite its Raptor engines at T plus 3 minutes and 56 seconds for the first time and continue into orbit,
heading east over the Gulf of Mexico and following a track passing between South Florida and Cuba to never be above populated land while still
ascending towards orbit. Cutoff of the Raptor engines is expected about 8 minutes and 41 seconds into the mission.
Once orbital velocity is reached at roughly 28000 kilometers per hour.
SpaceX intends to collect as much data as possible during flight to quantify entry dynamics and better understand what the vehicle experiences
in a flight regime that is extremely difficult to accurately predict or replicate computationally.
Aiming for a landing spot approximately 100 kilometers off the northwest coast of Hawaiian island of Kauai,
SN20 will then attempt a soft ocean landing similar to what the booster did in the Gulf of Mexico 90 minutes before.
Eventually, SpaceX wants to use catcher arms on the launch tower to capture the descending first stage or Super Heavy Booster,
making it easier to configure and refuel for the next flight.
So, that’s the whole thing. The flight plan for the first orbital Starship flight and what to expect in possibly around a month at the earliest.
It’s tough to say, when exactly it will happen,
but even before the end of the year would be extremely fast and I personally expect them to do it much earlier than that.
Huge letters saying Starbase have been attached to the perimeter wall at the SpaceX construction site recently.
SpaceX is keen on showing the world that they mean business.
If all this works out, Starships are here to stay for the long run.
It’s impossible to say what kind of projects and ideas it will create in its wake but it’s safe to say that it will change the world of Spaceflight more than anything before.
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