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SpaceX Super Heavy without legs and now the Starship too?
Is Elon Musk serious about this?
What’s next in Boca Chica and how do competitors keep up with the fast paced SpaceX innovation train?
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
Twice A week I report about what’s happening at SpaceX in Boca Chica, Texas, and twice a week there’s more noteworthy information surfacing.
SpaceX is moving at a speed never seen before in the Space industry.
Let’s start this one of with some beautiful footage from Mary for NASA Spaceflight.com showing the orbital launch site.
As seen on the last episode, there are quite a few things still missing here.
A second orbital launch mount, a second landing pad, a second fuel farm just to name a few.
The first orbital launch mount fuel farm is progressing nicely.
First tanks have already been placed on concrete foundations.
Operation panels are being installed.
A few more weeks and it will be ready to support launches.
The orbital launch mount itself is not seeing any love right now.
The white metal ring presumed to be the orbital launch table for the mount seems to be largely done though and is much more massive than the suborbital
test stands we’re used to. A railing has been attached on top and welding work seems to be done.
SpaceX workers dug a rather deep hole close to the orbital launch mount and lowered steel tubes into it.
A little later, Philip Bottin posted these pictures on Twitter.
Follow him @bottinphilip if you’re interested in more!
It’s kind of hard to say from this perspective, if they positioned them in a circle or in two lines.
Either way this is meant to hold a lot of weight up.
The site is getting ready to support very large flight hardware rather soon.
And that very large flight hardware is taking shape rapidly too.
This is Booster Number 1 inside the High Bay or actually one of two already completed half stacks.
To be able to test a super heavy booster SpaceX will need more Raptor engines.
Right now, the plan seems to be to have 4 engines on initial test flights,
ramp the number up to 20 in a second step and then go for 28 Raptor engines on the full build.
In the beginning the boosters will likely have legs on first test flights similar to what a Starship prototype has right now,
but eventually SpaceX wants to catch them with the launch tower.
This of course is just our idea of what it might look like and not SpaceX’s official plan.
And we have proof now that this is not just a wild idea put out there on Twitter by Elon Musk.
SpaceX is officially hiring a vehicle systems software engineer and one of the tasks listed is developing operations and associated automation
to support a Super Heavy launch/catch tower.
So, they’re really going to try to make it happen.
And it doesn’t just end there either.
Musk tweeted on Tuesday that they might just catch the Starship with the launch tower as well.
Same as the booster.
He elaborated further, saying that they talked about it internally.
Could just have it land on a big net or bouncy castle.
Lacks dignity but would work.
What? OK, so earth-based Starship variants could have no legs at all?
Again on the last Episode I showed you some renders from ErcXspace depicting how the landing legs seen on the recent dear Moon Starship renders
could work. This shows though, that SpaceX seems to really be struggling with leg design.
It must be a tough task to come up with a reliable landing leg for a Starship.
Of course, a lunar Starship or a Mars landing Starship would need proper legs.
There’s no Tower waiting on Mars, to catch the first colonists.
So at least for this scenario SpaceX will have to have a working leg concept to go with.
Catch towers won’t be on Mars for a long time.
That’s quite work intensive infrastructure to build and maintain.
None the less, SpaceX is progressing further.
Some puzzle pieces will come later than others and right now the small legs should in theory be enough for a soft Starship landing.
One aspect of the prototyping program SpaceX definitely seems to be getting better and better at is Raptor engine production.
This is Raptor engine 59 arriving on site.
Right now there are almost daily engine deliveries to the production site in Boca Chica Texas and this is very important for the development progress.
Here’s SN58 for your viewing pleasure.
Engines keep coming in day by day and so future test flights won’t have to suffer Raptor shortage any time soon.
Much Land Where Box?
And here’s the reason why the constant supply is needed.
This is what’s left when a Starship craters.
Of course, nothing here can be reused in any way besides data collection and analysis.
SpaceX is burning through engines fast.
Musk has also recently given an explanation for what went wrong with Starship number 10.
Engine was low on thrust due (probably) to partial helium ingestion from fuel header tank.
Impact of 10m/s crushed legs & part of skirt.
Multiple fixes in work for SN11.
So,
the helium pressurization system introduced with Starship number 9 to fix the header tank pressure problems Starship number 8 was suffering caused
the trouble on Starship 10. The irony.
That doesn’t keep SpaceX from celebrating though and rightfully so.
This is footage taken by Mary on March 2nd and it shows a big firework above the SpaceX Starship construction site.
Even though Starship 10 didn’t survive the explosion after landing, the Boca Chica crew has all the reasons for a celebration.
They celebrated another year of great work!
As said in the beginning. The amount of progress being made here is stunning to say the least.
SpaceX is building our future in Space and if successful the Starship will change a lot of things forever.
At this point the question can be raised what the other launch providers are doing to keep up with SpaceX’s incredible speed.
Let’s see, what they’re up to!
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Honestly, I wouldn’t want to have to compete with SpaceX at this point, but it’s in the human nature to always try and improve,
keep up and challenge the state of the art.
This is Launch Complex 36 at Kennedy Space Center.
Blue Origin, has been working here for 6 years now preparing it for their next big thing.
New Glenn. On September 15th of 2015 they announced they’d repurpose the historic launch site for future heavy lift vehicle launches.
That’s about the same time that SpaceX started working on their South Texas Launch site.
And by repurpose, I mean tear down the old launch complex and build a completely new one.
Literally everything here is being changed in the process.
A completely new Pad. New Launch support structures, lightning protection.
A vehicle access tower that supports human spaceflight and the world’s tallest water tower.
At slightly above 100-meters of height and with the capability of releasing 3.4 million liters of water in just 22 seconds this is something special for team water tower!
The cryo storage area is almost done as well, ready to support New Glenn launches with 7 BE-4 engines firing at full thrust.
New Glenns first stage will be powered by liquid methane and liquid oxygen and the upper stage engines will run on liquid hydrogen.
The pad needs a complex fuel farm to support the rocket.
Blue origin also gave a first look inside the integration facility.
Roughly 165 meters long it is capable of housing up to three New Glenn rockets at the same time.
Inside those yellow boxes on the floor the vehicle erectors will be sitting with the rocket on top.
This is where it all begins and then the rocket is off on the road to space leading up the ramp directly to the pad.
Blue Origin has recently announced that a first New Glenn launch is delayed and will now take place one year later than initially planned in Q4
of 2022. According to an official statement this is due to the fact that Blue Origin was not picked for Department of Defense launch contracts
which in return gives them more time to work on their first prototypes.
Next up we have Rocket Lab and their Neutron Rocket!
The team from New Zealand. Always managing to surprise everyone.
Just a few days ago they did it again after Peter Beck stood to his words and ate that hat.
We’re building a bigger Rocket.
To be precise an 8-ton class launch vehicle which puts it into the medium lift category.
Much larger than a the Electron, Rocket Lab’s current launch vehicle.
And now a few days after the announcement, more and more solid information is surfacing.
This small animation released by Rocket Lab only a few days ago shows the engine configuration.
It will have 4 larger engines.
Not 5 or 7 as depicted earlier.
And it’s now explicitly stating 1.5 tons of payload capacity to Venus.
I had an interview with Peter Beck last spring.
Let’s listen in for a second as to what he had to say back then.
You know, there is lot of stuff planning at Rocket Lab.
In generally we don't talk about that until we have done it.
Oh, you can make an exception now!
There is a lot of stuff planning.
One of my personal objective is to get to Venus.
There is a lot of attraction at Mars, and I understand why there is a lot of attraction to Mars.
Mars is cool. But fundamentally Mars is cool, because a human can leave a footprint on the surface of Mars.
I guess, I got bigger questions.
I've got bigger questions about the origin of the Universe, and you know, Venus always had a soft place (in my heart) for a number of reasons.
He’s got bigger questions and now he’s building a bigger rocket.
What a coincidence, right?
Isn’t it a nice position to be in to have a personal goal of finding life on Venus?
Peter Beck, you Rock. Venus is now thought to have been very Earth like in its beginnings.
Life that could have formed there might have retreated into the upper atmosphere, where conditions would be suitable for life until today.
Originally the plan for Peter’s private mission to Venus was to equip a Rocket Lab Photon satellite with several small probes and carry it into
orbit with an Electron rocket.
Then send it to Venus and release the probes into the atmosphere.
With Neutron now explicitly stating the payload mass to Venus the plans might have changed.
1.5 Tons would give Rocket Lab a lot more weight to play with for the mission.
Built as a spacecraft platform, Photon is another of those genius moves by Rocket Lab.
It’s basically an empty satellite bringing everything needed to function like propulsion, power and data connectivity, but no payload.
Companies can tell Rocket Lab what their satellite is supposed to do and Rocket Lab builds the rest.
Photon is rather small though and so it would limit the Venus mission.
Is Neutron the new ticket for Beck’s Venus exploration?
Let’s hope so. Neutron would be a huge step up!
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