SpaceX hinted next launch might be at Sea musk acknowledged that his main worry was that a
fireball incident May melt the launch pad if one of the engines failed during a Twitter spaces
session on Sunday according to Elon Musk such An Occurrence would melt the steel and demolish the
place where the rocket launched it would be a very bad day he predicted if Starship blew up
it melted the launch pad musk claimed it would take SpaceX several months to reconstruct it and
indeed during the launch day a powerful Blast from spacex's Starship damaged the launch pad
is that maybe the reason why SpaceX hinted that the next launch might be at sea but how could
SpaceX make this happen well let's find out in today's episode hello everyone and welcome back
to Elon Musk Evolution where we bring you the most recent news about Elon Musk and his multi-billion
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this rocket which is made up of booster 7 and Chip 24 were to explode musk had previously stated in
an interview at a Morgan Stanley conference in March that other Starships might be standing by
he noted that any additional issue that doesn't result in Launchpad damage is viewed as a success
I want to have minimal expectations he remarked just don't blow up the launch pad I think I would
consider that a success if we get far enough away from the launch pad before something goes wrong it
took incredible engineering to launch the massive Starship the billionaire claimed that Starship
which would travel to the Moon and Mars is the biggest spacecraft ever created and is a very
complicated gigantic rocket before reaching orbiti said it might take us a few kicks of the can here
the end of Starship is not guaranteed in the event of a disastrous launch let's keep in mind
that this is just one test out of hundreds and if anything SpaceX has shown us that they learn
a lot from mistakes said Aeronautics expert Olivier devweck in a February interview with
Insider muscus previously expressed skepticism about the first successful launch of Starship
musk stated that Starship had a 50 chance of reaching orbit in an interview at the Morgan
Stanley conference in March but added that he was guaranteeing excitement and it wouldn't be dull
likewise musk stated in March that even if ship 24 didn't make it there was a much higher chance of
another Starship successfully launching within the year at about 80 percent and eventually after the
success of its first launch early video from the scene in Boca Chica Texas indicates that there was
actually significant damage to the neighborhood including an unfortunate minivan that was struck
by a large Rock why did the SpaceX Starships first launch damage the pad so badly on its first test
flight the 394 foot tall or about 120 meter rocket spacecraft combination performed pretty
well reaching a maximum altitude of 24 miles or 39 kilometers before SpaceX was compelled
to order the Craft's destruction High over the Gulf of Mexico due to a range of issues however
things seemed a little worse from the ground up the Starships 33 first stage Raptor engines
punched out a crater beneath the orbital launch platform pummeling neighboring infrastructure
with flying chunks of cement and other debris when the dust at Star base cleared after the liftoff a
scene of the wreck showed up the device known as a flame trench which is intended to divert
exhaust plumes away from the launch pad during takeoff is absent from the orbital launch Mount of
Starbase powerful rocket launches frequently take place from pads with flame trenches for instance
NASA recently constructed a new one at Kennedy Space Center's pad 39b to enable the launch of
the agency's enormous space launch system or SLS Mega rocket from the site SLS made its inaugural
flight in November of last year lifting off from pad 39b to begin NASA's Artemis 1 lunar Mission
while some of the hardware on the pad was damaged for the most part it was able to withstand the 8.8
million pounds of thrust produced by the SLS at liftoff SLS became the most powerful rocket to
ever fly successfully thanks to Artemis one Starship however has Superior strength when
firing at maximum capacity its first stage Raptors can generate around 16.5 million pounds of thrust
thrust levels on the first flights were lower than that maximum level on Thursday because a number
of raptors failed to fire as intended star base which is close to bokuchika beach was the site
where SpaceX explored Excavating a flame trench however they finally decided against it Elon Musk
the founder and CEO stated through Twitter in October 2020 that the company aspires to have
no flame diverter in Boca but this could turn out to be a mistake this does not not indicate though
that musk is suddenly regretting his choice he does appear to believe that there is still a
flame trench-free path for the company to take its star Base According to a tweet from Elon Musk on
Friday April 21st SpaceX began construction on a massive water-cooled steel plate to go under the
launch Mount three months ago the orbital mounts underlying concrete a special heat resistant
variety called Fun dog wasn't available in time for the first Starship launch however SpaceX
still went ahead with it because they believed it could withstand one liftoff data from starship's
First full force static fire in February during which the 33 First Day Chapters were instructed
to fire for a brief period of time while the vehicle was still anchored to the ground served
as the basis for the company's conclusion of the 33 Raptor engines 31 did so two did not ignite
musker marked in a tweet on Saturday April 22nd that the static fire in February however did
not provide the full force of a real Starship launch the engines were only at half thrust
for the static fire test he said adding that it was still early in the investigation although
the force of the engines as they cranked up on April 20th may have shattered the concrete
rather than simply eroding it the concept of ocean-based spaceports has been proposed by musk
before they would be 20 miles offshore he said in November 2019 in June 2020 he posted a job ad for
an offshore operations engineer in Brownsville Texas where SpaceX is building Starship later
on in the same year a subsidiary of SpaceX bought two decommissioned Deepwater oil rigs dubbed them
Phobos and Deimos after morse's moons and starting transforming them onto offshore launch platforms
later musk anticipates sending people to Mars aboard Starship musk responded to the news that
Russia intended to renovate its floating sea launch cosmodrome in its most recent remarks
since its Inception in 1995 the project has supported launches up until 2014. the
rehabilitation expense was estimated to be over 35 billion rubles or 470 million dollars by Russian
Deputy Prime Minister Yuri borazov Deimos arrived in the port of Pascagoula Mississippi in March
2022 while Phobos had been there since January 2021. both were supposed to be refurbished as
launch platforms however neither vessel has seen much significant activity in months both
are expected to leave the ports within the next month according to recent shipping manifests that
the port is published their destinations are not listed in the Manifest unfortunately SpaceX gave
up on attempts to turn two oil rigs into launch pads for its Starship vehicle earlier this year
however the company still thinks that offshore launch platforms will be a part of its long-term
plans and after starship's first flight musk hinted again at launching at Sea Gwen Shotwell
the president of SpaceX told reporters during a presentation on February 8th at the Federal
Aviation Administration commercial space Transportation conference that the business
had sold the rigs because it had decided they were unsuitable for useless launch platforms
we acquired them they were purchased by us she claimed that they were not the appropriate forum
she didn't say when or to whom SpaceX sold the rigs before developing offshore launch
platforms according to Shotwell the business must first begin launching Starship and have a
deeper understanding of that vehicle we really need to fly this vehicle to understand it to
get to know this machine and then we'll figure out how we're going to launch it the pilot said
she stated that she anticipated Offshore platforms would someday play a part in
supporting an extremely high launch Cadence she stated in the conference presentation that we have
designed Starship to be as much like aircraft operations as we possibly can get it we want
to talk about dozens if not hundreds of lunches a day in the presentation she didn't go into detail
about the locations of those launches the number of orbital launches the business can conduct from
its existing Starship launch pad at its Starbase facility in Boca Chica Texas is constrained by
an FAA environmental evaluation and state laws governing access to a nearby Beach despite the
fact that the company is constructing a second Starship launch site at Kennedy Space Center's
launch complex 39a it is unknown how many launches that site as well as an increasingly busy Eastern
range can support she later assured journalists that we'll have many pads to sustain that high
launch rate and she went on to say I believe we'll also have a lot of platforms based in the sea this
Egypt's performance must be monitored musk's original plans for Starship envisioned an array of
offshore launch and Landing facilities including those on Phobos and Daimos all around the Earth
meanwhile a startup is developing c-based launch pads building movable launch pads that function at
cs1 option that a firm is putting forth to address the growing congestion at important launch sites
four sounding rocket launches from a modified ship in the Gulf of Mexico are planned by the
spaceport's company as part of a demonstration of a sea-based launch platform in May in a panel
discussion on February 23rd at the spacecom conference Tom Morata the company's founder
and CEO said that will help us prove out our logistical operational and Regulatory procedures
those tests will serve as a building block for creating a full-scale c-based platform based on
the lift boat ship design that ship is capable of sailing to a location and lowering its legs
to Anchor itself to the ocean floor the boat can then self-elevate out of the water and act
as a launch platform the Spaceport company's idea has the advantage that it doesn't rely
on any fixed infrastructure on land all the equipment required for our launch is on the
ship and the rockets at lunch from it would use autonomous flight termination systems that don't
need Radars or other tracking assets he claimed that what they were actually doing was creating
a new kind of Spaceport in order to address the issue of Spaceport congestion we are developing
a high Cadence responsive Spaceport growing rocket activity at Cape Canaveral is likely
to pose issues for launch service providers as the rate of activity puts strain on the infrastructure
there small launch vehicle specific new spaceports have encountered difficulties after obtaining a
license from the Federal Aviation Administration for a proposed Spaceport in Camden County Georgia
it took years for County voters to reject the purchase of land for the site in a referendum last
year and the Georgia Supreme Court just upheld that decision Morata characterized the c-based
strategy as scalable it's a whole lot easier to build more ships to meet more launch demand than
it is to go find 100 acres on the coast somewhere the first sea-based platforms that the corporation
suggest would function several kilometers offshore and within U.S territorial Seas at depths of up to
60 meters based on any significant industrial Port he claimed we can operate up and down the entire
East Coast small launch Vehicles up to Firefly aerospace's Alpha which has an orbital Mass
capacity of around 1 ton would be accommodated there the Spaceport company sea based platforms
which would not need an FAA Spaceport license known as part 420 in contrast to commercial lot
sites that are built on land Pam Underwood head of the faa's office of spaceports stated on the panel
it comes down to how we Define a Spaceport which is a fixed location on earth and its moves but she
and Morata agree that the separate launch license for the vehicle taking off from that platform
would include Provisions for safety concerns we still fulfill the same safety requirements as a
location with a part 420 license simply put it's all documented on the vehicle license he stated
the safety and sustainability of our operations are equal launching from the sea is not a novel
concept prior to being abandoned by financial and geopolitical issues the multinational sea
launch company carried out dozens of launches of the Zenit 3sl rocket using a converted oil
rig Chinese Engineers have lately shown how to use ships that have been modified as launch pads
for tiny vehicles in the near future the Spaceport company will announce deepening Partnerships with
launch service providers according to Morata it has a memorandum of understanding with Virginia
space which runs the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island to investigate
how its platforms may be utilized to supplement the spaceport's current launch infrastructure
the platforms might be ready to go into surface as early as 2025 according to him and he said he
expects that these agreements coupled with the demonstration launches in May a wheel Aid in
raising money for their construction about the funding his company is seeking he said it's a
non-trivial amount of money but he did not provide any further details Elon Musk presents a thorough
analysis of the first launch of Starship and what comes next Elon Musk discussed a broad spectrum of
topics in a speech on Saturday night he reviewed the Starship Rocket's first launch which took
place on April 20th overall he claimed that the vehicle's performance barely met his standards
and that only minor damage to the launch site was sustained Starship should resume flight in
as little as two or three months according to him according to him basically the outcome was
roughly sort of what I expected and maybe slightly exceeded my expectations then he added I'm glad
to report that the pad damage is actually quite small and it looks like it can be repaired quite
quickly it was actually just good to get this vehicle off the ground because we've made so
many improvements in booster 9 and Beyond during a Twitter spaces event musk spoke for roughly an
hour while answering queries from a number of journalists in space space enthusiasts what
follows is a summary of what musk stated for those who are unable to listen about the flight three
engines were not able to reach maximum thrust because the flight software did not judge them
healthy enough to ignite when the rocket lifted off this left 30 of the 33 engines in the super
heavy first stage which is the bare minimum needed for liftoff in good condition musk asserted that
he did not think the three engines were harmed by the concrete and gravel that the Rocket's powerful
thrust caused to be kicked up as it slowly took off from the launch site weirdly we did not see
evidence of the rock tornado actually damaging engines or heat shields in a material way he
stated it may have been but we have not yet seen evidence of that engine 19 lost contacts roughly
27 seconds into the flight coupled with some sort of energetic event according to musk this also
allowed the four adjacent engines exterior heat shields to be released Engineers from SpaceX are
currently determining precisely what this intense event was so something bad happened at t plus 27
seconds because engine 19 lost all Communications and some kind of explosion happened to knock out
the heat shields of engine 17 18 19 and 20 musk claimed there were visible fire seen from the AFT
end of the vehicle for the remainder of the flight but the rocket kept going at t plus 62 seconds we
see additional aft heat shield damage near engine 30. however the engine continues to run and then t
plus 85 seconds is where things really hit the fan the rocket then started to lose its capacity to
direct itself or thrust vector control the flight termination system was started as a result of this
the Rocket's flight termination system or FTS was started just before a minute and a half into
its mission to annihilate the craft before it's strayed too far from its intended path in essence
the Rocket's ordinance explodes to blow a hole in its fuel tanks which causes it to disintegrate in
this instance though there was a delay of around 40 seconds between the system startup and the
rockets to send integration the rocket was safely offshore when this time lag occurred so there were
no safety concerns but it is still unacceptable for a device that is designed to inflight nearly
instantly a longer detonation cord to ensure that the propellant tanks are quickly fully unzipped
could according to musk alleviate the issue he did admit that it might take some time to
resolve this matter with the Federal Aviation Administration re-qualification of the flight
termination system is probably the item with the longest lead time according to musk before moving
forward with the next flight we obviously want to confirm that musk also addressed the damage
that was seen at the launch site which included a sizable hole that had been created by the thrust
of the rocket one of the heaviest Duty concretes in the world Fawn bag was ripped through by the
damage from what he called the world's biggest cutting torch must describe the area below
the rocket space is a mega steel pancake and stated we are going to be putting down a lot
of Steel this would give the rocket stability underneath it and serve as a regenerative
cooling system by sending water upward to reduce exhaust from the Rockets 33 engines
musk explained that the structure was essentially a water jacketed sandwich made of two layers of
plate steel that were perforated on the top so in essence what you're seeing at there is a gigantic
incredibly sturdy steel shower head pointing up and that ends today's episode please subscribe and
don't forget to like today's video and we'll see you in the next one thanks for watching