Has been waiting for this moment for a long time now.
And the Boca Chica crew worked very long to make this happen.
…what’s next can only be described as a world of fire.
…they never seem to be completely done with anything.
Incredible footage of the fairing separation, ...
…and I hope that you will never look at it the same way again, now that you know the story behind IXPE.
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
So, it’s happened. SpaceX has moved it’s Starship Super Heavy Booster 4 across the launch site and got it in position.
The Spaceflight community has been waiting for this moment for a long time now.
Booster 4 with 29 Raptor engines installed has been moved towards the orbital launch mount utilizing a self-propelled mobile transporter.
And the Boca Chica crew worked very long to make this happen.
It’s been 4 months since SpaceX rolled booster 4 to the launch site.
4 months of hard work, problem solving and rescheduling.
Everything surrounding the first orbital flight at SpaceX’s Starbase is connected with each other.
If the ship is not ready, there’s no launch.
If the orbital launch mount isn’t working as intended, there is no launch.
If the booster is not tested and working properly, there is no launch.
I could continue this list probably for half an hour.
There’s an immense number of things that must go right in order for everything to work out.
After all, this demo flight of having a Starship circle the planet once and then reenter and splash down is the first of its kind.
There are plenty of firsts and world records in the Starship program already.
And they never seem to be completely done with anything.
There are always new things being added or parts still missing to complete the puzzle.
These pictures were taken by Chief just before the final move towards the orbital launch mount was performed.
COPV covers for the tanks needed for center engine startup are still missing.
The quick disconnect plate doesn’t have a cover yet.
As a side not, there are cable attached to some of the ports on the QD plate.
Those should be the ports for gaseous feeds from the orbital launch mount.
It’s unclear, why SpaceX seems to have attached temporary sensors here.
A lot of work has been performed on the Orbital Launch mount and on Mechazilla as well.
No doubt in preparation for first tests with a booster on it.
SpaceX has also spent a lot of time on the launch mounts quick disconnect arm which will fuel booster 4 for static fires and for its orbital
Starship launch.
Here’s some footage from LabPadre’s live cams.
It was recorded in the night from Sunday to Monday and it shows the Quick disconnect arm slowly moving forward.
They did this several times that evening and besides it looking awesome it also shows that SpaceX seems to be ready for booster operations.
And this happened just yesterday.
Of course, Chief was on site again, documenting the last step before SpaceX can light some Raptor engines.
Booster 4 has been placed on the orbital launch mount and what’s next can only be described as a world of fire.
This has never been done before.
SpaceX will likely static fire the 29 Raptor engines in steps.
First only a few engines. Maybe 5 or six.
Then maybe all center engines and 6 or seven more and then in a final step they might try to set a new world record.
29 Raptor engines firing at the same time.
The final step before letting the Starship go.
This last static fire will likely also be performed with a Starship on top, so get ready for some firsts in rocket history!
When? Hard to say, but I expect it all to happen before the new year.
And while SpaceX is getting ready for Booster operations at the launch site,
they’re already busy tinkering on the next prototype at the production site.
Inside the Midbay SpaceX workers have performed another milestone.
Starship 22’s forward dome segment has been stacked.
Now only the engine section needs to be stacked and…
…and the nose cone is completely missing.
It’s a bit of a mystery right now, as the nosecone for ship 22 has not been spotted yet.
I do have a different theory though.
Ship 21 looks awfully quiet right now.
In fact the last stacking operation or work performed on it was around a month ago.
The only thing it’s missing is the nose cone, which is already far along.
Look at this beauty. It’s the new nose cone SpaceX is manufacturing right now and it shows a very well crafted heat shield!
Shout out to the heat tile technicians!
You made huge improvements over the past couple of weeks.
What’s a bit puzzling is the fact that there doesn’t seem to be a nose cone being worked on for Ship 22 and work on ship 21 is at a stand still
for a while now, even though the tank section doesn’t seem finished yet.
Are we seeing another scrap coming up here?
It would fit the switch to Raptor V2 which according to Musk is long overdue.
What do you think? As always, tell me in the comments!
Mega bay progress is steady as well.
In the past few weeks progress was quick and steady.
The two segment height has been reached and the next two levels are already sitting right next to the construction, just waiting to be stacked.
The highbay right next to it is 9 segments tall and it’s likely that this new mega bay will reach a similar height.
The reason, why SpaceX is building out more and more capacity is simple.
More Starships in production at the same time.
And that in return can only have one reason as well.
Payload launches. SpaceX wants Starships to make profit.
Starlink v2 is already being produced and the only launcher in the world capable of getting those babies into orbit is a Starship.
Even if a Starship doesn’t make it back, it will still be profitable this way as it delivers a payload.
So, 2022 will likely se many Starships being made here.
Next would be to get rid of the tents.
The simple question we have to ask here is “are these tents capable of feeding a mega bay with prototypes?”.
And the answer likely is maybe.
I do expect SpaceX to start replacing these sooner or later.
Larger buildings. Something more permanent.
It’ll be very interesting to see, how they will do this without stopping the whole production for a long time.
Maybe build the houses over the tents?
We’ll have to wait and see, but the rebuilding at Starbase is not nearly done yet, if it’ll ever be at all.
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SpaceX IXPE Launch Update
Next I want to take a moment to explain the letters IXPE to you.
Many likely heard that SpaceX has launched the IXPE mission for NASA, but what do these letters actually stand for?
On December 9th at 1 am eastern time Falcon 9 booster 1061 had the honor of sending IXPE on its way to a low Earth orbit of around 540 kilometers
in height. And as so often, when it comes to SpaceX, the Falcon 9 rocket performed flawless.
"5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, ignition, liftoff!
Go Falcon, Go IXPE!"
Incredible footage of the fairing separation, exposing IXPE to space for the first time.
Somewhat pixelated but still epic footage of the boosters landing!
And, of course, a good orbit and payload separation of IXPE.
See you later, buddy!
Let’s just appreciate for a moment here, that Falcon 9 rockets had 131 flights so far.
Two of them were mission failures and the last failure was in 2016 with Amos 6. Since then, Falcon 9 rockets have not had a single mission failure.
103 successful missions in a row.
A testament for how well SpaceX is manufacturing these boosters.
By the way it, of course, was b1061’s fifth launch and not its first.
So, SpaceX achieved 103 successful launches in a row with boosters that got reused up to 10 times.
How much crazier does this milestone seem taking the reusability into account?
But today’s update is not about the rocket.
It’s about the payload. So, what is IXPE?
What did SpaceX shoot up into LEO?
IXPE is an Xray observatory.
Now some of you might say, wait a second, we had those before, and you’re right.
Chandra for example,
released by Shuttle Columbia on July 23rd in 1999 has been in business for more than two decades by now and is nothing but a legend.
Still making incredible discoveries.
In 2020 for example, it reportedly made an observation of an exoplanet in the Whirlpool Galaxy.
That’s right. It saw a planet in another Galaxy.
A first in science.
But IXPE will do a few things differently.
IXPE will see polarized X-Ray’s.
IXPE basically is a set of three identical imaging x-ray polarimetry systems.
It will take IXPE about a month to get ready for its first observations.
Solar arrays need to be deployed and after that the long center boom will extend and position mirror module in its final resting position.
Deployed it will have a total length of 5 point 2 meters.
Impressive.
Then IXPE will unveil its trick to see things differently.
Polarized X-Rays. You might have heard the word polarized light from sunglasses.
They only let light through which is polarized horizontally.
This means that all the light waves that are not aligned horizontally are blocked out.
On sunglasses this helps to remove reflection glare form water or windows.
Polarized X-Rays, though, give scientists new information about the origin of the radiation.
They add information to the observations in a unique way.
For example,
IXPE will be able to look at the centers of galaxies and determine the geometry and the emission mechanism just by analyzing the different polarities
of the x-rays reaching its detectors.
Its polarization sensitivity will be two orders of magnitude better than the best we had so far.
By analyzing the polarity, it will also be able to analyze the field polarity of magnetars, quasars and pulsars.
In short, it will look at some of the most energetic objects in the Universe and chart their hidden secrets for the first time in human history.
Those are questions the astronomy community has had for decades now.
And that’s not even the end of the list of things to be explored.
Black Holes and Neutron Stars, all those extremely interesting objects are just waiting for us to take a peek and look at them, like never before.
IXPE is the first satellite dedicated to measuring the polarization of X-Rays.
Hugging the equator IXPE will start it’s observations in January and the mission has a first duration period of 2 years and is likely to be extended
after that. A huge shout out goes to the whole international team which created such a marvelous new observatory in under 5 years,
and I hope that you will never look at it the same way again, now that you know the story behind IXPE.
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Today’s team shout out goes to Kevin Randolph aka Chief.
You’ve been with us for one and a half months now and just to put some numbers out there,
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Chief, you rock!