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When will Starship SN15 fly and how can we predict these launches as best as possible?
What sort of progress did SpaceX make at the orbital launch site and how did the Crew Dragon Crew 2 launch play out?
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 taking over the world of spaceflight.
With the vastly successful Falcon rocket family SpaceX managed to lift more than 285 tons of payload mass into orbit in 2020 alone.
The last failure? Almost 5 years ago despite having launched 88 times since then.
Amos 6 never reached its destination, but the problem was identified, corrected, and has not occurred since then.
285 tons in a single year with 26 launches.
A new record for SpaceX topping the previous one of 21 launches in one year in 2018.
This year they might be able to beat it yet again.
30 launches are predicted. That’s more than one every other week.
Still though, all this is just the beginning.
All this seems small compared to the future of SpaceX.
Welcome to Mauricios airplane.
These are the latest pictures taken by RGV aerial photography on April 20th.
Elon Musk day! And they show, what he’s accomplished in the last 2 years in Boca Chica Texas.
285 tons to low Earth orbit? Three flights with a Starship and not 26.
26 launches in one year? With a single Starship and according to Musk doable in roughly two weeks.
Those are numbers that are hard to work with.
They’re so blown out of proportion, that I can’t blame those saying that this can never work out.
It’s just never happened before.
And yet, SpaceX is working on it.
Developing the beast that might actually be able to pull it off.
The Starship.
Here you can see SpaceX’s Starship Stress tester.
SpaceX workers have been constructing it for a while now and the nose cone strapped in is completely encapsuled by now.
More and more pieces are added.
Cosmic Perspective was on site as well for WAI and took some close-up pictures.
The purpose of the contraption is still not officially confirmed but it’s getting more and more complex.
If it didn’t have large clamps attached to the forward flap hinges, it might be for lunar Starship testing,
but since lunar starships won’t have flaps that’s not likely either.
So, in the end, this might just be to stress test a Starship nose section.
Load forces from aerodynamic pressure and reentry scenarios might be tested to see, how the construction can withstand these extreme situations.
Further down the road at the launch site Starship number 15 is still continuing with its test campaign.
Pressure tests are done but as of recording the episode, no static fire has happened yet.
This might change either today or early next week though.
Last week SpaceX delivered three brand-new second-generation Raptor engines to the launch site.
Say hi to engines 54, 61 and 66.
The most advanced raptor engines ever used at the construction site.
Fitting for the most advanced Starship ever used.
And while doing all this. While building the most advanced Rocket ever and handling rocket engine prototypes that are ahead of anything else in
the industry, SpaceX also is just incredibly cool.
No trespassing. Raptors loose.
I mean, who else does this kind of stuff.
Since then, these next generation Raptor engines have been installed on Serial Number 15’s thrust puck and are waiting for that static fire.
Something seems to be holding SpaceX up though.
No static fire has occurred as of recording the episode and the waiting game continues.
So, how long will we have to wait then?
This question can at least be narrowed down with a little help from BocaCharts who kindly donated the latest diagram for the show!
What you are looking at here are Starships SN9 to SN15 and how long it took them to accomplish certain goals.
We can for example see, that not a single test was done on a weekend visible by the hatched areas,
so it is very unlikely that we’ll see a test on SN15 on a weekend.
Also quite significant is the fact that with each succeeding Starship the time from Rollout to launch decreased significantly in an almost linear
fashion. So, in theory a launch should be next week, but at the latest within the next one and a half weeks.
SN15 has seen an ambient pressure test, two cryogenic tests, one with a thrust simulator and now all three Raptor engines have been installed.
All is ready for the static fire without any issues so far.
Looking at a panoramic shot of the entire Starbase Launch Site, we can see the effort put in lately.
Especially the eastern side facing the beach is changing rapidly.
Ground support equipment tank number 2 has been lifted into position!
Likely one of seven tanks in total, it shows the scale of this new Tank farm.
Where the old Suborbital tank farm always looked a bit chaotic and built in a rush, this tank farm here might see several Lunar and Mars launches.
It’s being built to last. It’s being built large to be able to deliver more capacity than needed.
Starbase is taking shape.
Next up we’ll take a look at the constantly growing Super Heavy & Starship orbital launch support Tower!
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Right in the middle between the landing pad and the new orbital tank farm SpaceX is erecting a huge dirt ramp.
This might be the biggest blast berm we have ever seen at the site or it’s for something we haven’t figured out yet.
On one side rebar reinforcement can be seen which might be a sign for SpaceX wanting to improve it with a concrete layer later.
So, this very much looks like another permanent structure.
Looking at an overview shot of the orbital launch mount we can see that the large Liebherr Crane supposed to assemble the Support tower still is under construction here.
Shortly after these pictures were taken, Mary from Nasaspaceflight took these pictures on the ground.
SpaceX transported the large crane to the crane shed not far from the Starship Construction site for storage.
Right now it’s just not needed yet, this saves it from damage and as soon as the launch support tower grows larger,
SpaceX will transport it back to the launch site for construction work.
Meanwhile the tower itself is already growing though.
Parts are delivered on a daily basis and in this picture the first of many corner beams is already in place and cross beam segments can be seen
laying directly in front of the construction.
Two, maybe three more months and the construction should already be at the desired height.
With a worker in comparison the size of the base and the beams becomes apparent.
It’ll be a joy to see SpaceX finish the construction!
Owe aka Blender 3D Creation Eccentric has made a very nice short animation showing what it will likely look like,
when SpaceX has at least built a bit more of the tower.
An incredibly beefy structure, capable of lifting Super Heavy Boosters and Starships, and catching super heavy boosters at the same time.
Much more than a simple crew access tower.
The 6 white pillars of the orbital launch mount itself also got topped off with heavy steel mounts.
Those very likely are the final preparation before SpaceX installs the orbital launch table on top.
So, that’s something we can likely look forward to in the next few days now.
All of what you just saw was only possible due to a collaboration of all sorts of different people from the Space community.
I want to thank RGV Aerial Photography, Cosmic Perspective, Nasa Spaceflight, Blendr 3D Creation Eccentric and BocaCharts for their help.
If you want to pay back some of the love, a link to their channels, Twitter and Patreon accounts can be found in the description!
SpaceX is working hard to usher in a new era of spaceflight,
but at the same time they’re also ahead of everyone else when it comes to current spaceflight efforts.
Crew 2 Launch Report
This morning we finally saw the next crew dragon take flight towards the ISS.
Crew 2 is heading to space and SpaceX delivers yet another 4 Astronauts to LEO.
Megan McArthur Pilot, Aki Hoshide Mission specialist, Thomas Pesquet mission specialist and Shane Kimbrough, commander of the mission.
Those are the four lucky Astronauts chosen to ride the Dragon once again.
Launch America is going into round number 3 as if it was nothing and once again it’s SpaceX making it all possible in the first place.
They’re riding Endeavour, as the capsule was named by Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken on the Demo
2 flight on May 30th of 2020. So, It’s a reused capsule.
Of course it is.
And the spacecraft now launched on top of Booster B1061.
A reused booster of course which previously propelled Crew 1 into orbit on November 16th of 2020.
Typical SpaceX business.
And today on April 23rd of 2021, not even a year after Demo 2 which marked the first crewed SpaceX flight to the ISS,
the second crew of 4 Astronauts already did it again.
A picture-perfect launch at Kennedy Space Center marked the starting point of the Crew 2 journey.
All systems nominal and onwards to Space.
At roughly 80 kilomters altitude booster separation occurred and after a good second stage engine ignition Endeavour continued the journey and the booster headed back down.
And again, business as usual. SpaceX managed to land B1061 once again and it’s already heading back to port Canaveral as you watch this episode. Well done, SpaceX.
After a short coast phase of the second stage the deployment of the Crew Dragon Spacecraft occurred,
and Endeavour started the chase maneuver, which of course will end in the spacecraft docking with the space station.
Docking is now set to occur tomorrow on April 24th at around 9:10 am UTC which would be past midnight for the US viewers.
The Crew 2 Astronauts of course are making the trip up to the ISS to continue the long journey of human research and science on board the International
Space Station. Rumor has it right now,
that the ISS might already see an end of life by 2024 due to Roscosmos pulling out of the station and the station also getting older and older
and there still is no other Station in sight at least for the western world.
This shows, how important something like the ISS can be.
A place, where 15 nations work together in harmony.
Where we do research for all mankind and where we try to actively broaden our horizon beyond our planet and also for future exploration.
Biology, material science, fluid mechanics.
Of course,
space walks are planned as well and so the Crew 2 Astronauts will get some time to stretch their legs and get the most incredible view there is.
Crew 2 is planned to stay docked with the ISS Harmony forward docking port for the next 30 days after which it will be relocated to the Harmony
Zenith docking port and it will stay there until October,
when Crew 2 is set to land again on Earth after a little more than 6 month of mission duration.
Great times to be alive! Thank you, NASA and SpaceX.
You Rock!
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