this video is sponsored by skillshare hey hey marcus house with you here happy new year to
you all and welcome to the first episode of 2021 we are jumping straight in with
this week's starship developments and sn9 poised for its first flight test over the upcoming week
a bizarre announcement by elon musk on the super heavy two so stick around for that one
we take a look at another successful launch for ariane space with the cs02 mission
and we also have some progress updates on the latest sls green run test of the core stage
starship sn9 is currently tracking an early 2021 launch for what will be a similar flight to sn8
with the main goal of aiming for a smoother landing with the vehicle already on the
launch mount the first test on monday involved filling the tanks with gaseous nitrogen to test
for any leaks or anomalies in the vehicle then on tuesday it underwent a full cryo proof test where
all four tanks were filled and pressurized with super cold liquid nitrogen also seen during its
testing window were rcs tests firing one at a time these tests verified that the vehicle was sound
paving the way for the three engine static fire test that should occur over the next few days if
that test is successful this will prove that the trio of raptors performs as expected at this stage
we have no reason to believe further tests will be needed until the 12.5 kilometer test flight
and that should soon follow if this plan holds this is a highly expedited test schedule compared
to sn8 which underwent five static fire tests and sat on the pad for two and a half months ahead of
its launch looking back to that flight of sn8 i'm sure many of you like myself spent a great deal of
time trying to guess how the historic flight would go i'm sure by now most of you know the basics we
had liftoff rise to the 12.5 kilometers belly flop controlled descent flip and land but there were
many aspects of the flight that were a surprise to us the three raptor engines that took sn8 into the
sky can produce up to 6500 kilonewtons of thrust over 80 percent of an entire falcon 9 rocket that
was more than enough for us to get starship serial number 8 to that 12.5 kilometer altitude extremely
quickly however that is not what spacex did if you remember the ascent was extremely slow compared to
a normal rocket launch as the vehicle continued to climb engines were intentionally shut off to
further reduce thrust this was done to reduce the thrust weight ratio as the tanks emptied
further reducing the overall velocity and stresses on the vehicle as the flight of sn9 creeps up on
us we are back to the speculation how will the flight of sn9 differ from sn8 remember sn9 is
the first starship to be constructed entirely using 304l stainless steel alloy sn8 had some
but it also contained an older alloy as well since this newer 304l steel is theoretically stronger
spacex might be more comfortable putting more stress on the sn9 vehicle this could mean a lot
of differences from a faster takeoff and ascent to possibly cutting off the individual engines
earlier in the flight all of these changes would also affect the amount of fuel left in the tanks
and how much fuel they would need for the launch in the first place granted all of this is simply
speculation at this point the flight of sn9 may look perfectly identical to sn8 with hopefully a
slightly smoother landing either way it is going to be exciting will the flight look the same or
will it be changed in some way let me know what your thoughts are in the comments below
now i've just got to shout out this brand new video here by corey2 i'm only showing here a
few lower resolution snapshots of the predicted starship flight based on what we've seen with sn8
there is a link in the description to check out the full video with all of the amazing audio as
well so make sure you're following corey there there is a lot more coming now in the past i
haven't done a lot of live streaming as i've had significant trouble with internet connectivity
interestingly though we've just had some repairs done here which will hopefully make it a lot more
stable so yes i'm hoping to live stream at that event here here on youtube with you all so that
we can watch and talk about the flight together just keep an eye on the channel here as that is
where we'll announce the stream time if you want more frequent updates on that you can follow me on
twitter with the link in the description as well now another exciting little piece of information
recently dropped with elon musk providing a quick update on the expected schedule for the bn1 super
heavy here he said that the hop will take place in a few months elon previously noted that the super
heavy booster will initially conduct a 150 meter hop and that the booster will fly with two raptors
it's unknown whether or not this holds true as he tweeted this a couple of months ago now however we
haven't received any new information so we still believe this to be the plan for super heavy bn1
talking about that first super heavy booster prototype it is believed that the stacking
will soon start up again now that sn9 has been moved to the pad numerous sections are
ready for stacking now perhaps even all of the core sections are ready furthermore rgv
aerial photography managed to capture a very clear view inside of the high bay showing
the sections that have already been assembled while the remaining sections are located outside
in the production area in this capture here we can see a stack of eight rings on the left believed to
be the forward dome and part of the methane tank on the right is an unknown four ring stack could
spacex be stacking the upper and lower sections separately with the final assembly of these two
at the end to complete the booster let me know what you think in the comments as well now we
have seen as well new beams being hoisted into the high bay roof area which is likely i think related
to the gantry crane that elon mentioned while replying to a tweet earlier by brendan this gantry
crane will be utilized to complete the stacking of the super heavy booster inside the high bay
of course that could have been very useful to stop the sn9 tilting over and smashing into the
high bay walls so that can't come soon enough on tuesday sn10's nose cone sporting those fins was
moved from the low bay and into the high bay ahead of stacking operations with the main tank section
furthermore sn11's aft section was rolled into the mid bay with the forward section being stacked on
top just days later completing sn11's entire tank section this completed nose cone inside one of the
tents is believed to be for sn11 so it shouldn't be too long until we see that prototype fully
complete as well i mean how crazy is this progress that we're seeing right now perhaps elon musk's
tweets last week about multiple starships coming soon to pad a and pad b was really
referring to sn 10 and 11. i must admit i didn't think for a second that sn9 could be ready to fly
so soon it's going to be very fun to see how all of this evolves over the next few weeks
now what could be the start of a brand new test tank was seen around the facility as well
mary aka bogachika gal with nasa spaceflight as always out there on site diligently shooting away
capturing all of this wonderful detail we can see here the four dome was sleeved with only one ring
and an aft dome was sleeved with a stack of two rings in the past this has been a pretty
good indication of the beginnings of a test tank again time will tell so here we are at the end
of another week with brendan's diagram updated from the last one here is what it looked like on
december 19th and this is what it looks like now you can scrub back and forth here to compare the
many changes that have occurred here in that short time but i've highlighted a few of these here in
blue thanks brendan for keeping us up to date there make sure you're following his feed there
on twitter if you want to have these diagrams even earlier now elon musk late this week tweeted some
quite extraordinary information about the super heavy and at this point the 3d artists out there
are going bananas trying to figure out how the heck this will work we'll talk about that more in
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membership just follow the link in the description below so yes the super heavy booster now just take
a look at this tweet here this is yet another beautiful animation by eric showing a potential
super heavy descent profile the question here to elon was asked how accurate this may be to which
elon replied saying that spacex are going to catch this massive booster with the launch tower arm
now just wait on a minute here i think this had most of us doing a double take there because this
sounds like some futuristic sci-fi stuff spacex however do have quite the habit of making sci-fi
a reality previously of course it was proposed that the booster could at some point land directly
on the launch mount which seemed bizarre enough but catching it right out of the air under the
grid fins there with those taking the load that just sounds nuts and how far down the track
are we talking here we really have no idea but let's just think about this for a moment provided
that the super heavy booster can land with the near pinpoint accuracy that we see with falcon
9. we can imagine that the booster decelerating to near zero velocity just as it's within the reach
of the tower arms however they're going to work now these arms would then clamp in from both sides
somewhere underneath those massive grid fins and then close off this example from cory here is a
potential option that we think would work really well two arms come in from the side with huge
shock absorbers built in at this point perhaps the arms fully take the load as the engines shut
off and the launch tower simply lowers it back onto the launch pad i mean the rough dry mass
of the super heavy from long ago was estimated at around 180 metric tons and there would be a tiny
percentage of propellant left on touchdown perhaps it is all a little lighter with the improvements
made so far and without the legs but this is not a small load that we are talking about the bigger
question in my mind is what happens in case of a failure what if wind gusts or engine failures
cause it to come down too hard or off center as elon later said this could involve a few hiccups
along the way so yes although legs would work perfectly well the best part is no part reducing
the mass of the booster allows greater payload to orbit so yes i want to know what all of you think
about this it is a nuts idea and i'm sure there is much more to work out so let me know your thoughts
now a few recent updates on the most recent green run test for the artemis ones core stage the last
test was conducted in late december and it was mostly successful in its goals this test number
seven of eight was meant to verify that the article could fill up maintain and drain the
cryogenic liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen which would allow sls and nasa's engineers
to move forward with the eighth and final green run test this would be a full duration hot fire
however this success didn't come without a few hurdles sls has gone through many challenges this
past year ever since it was placed on the b2 test stand at nasa's stennis space center the seventh
test continued on that trend when it attempted to complete its wet dress rehearsal december 7th
was the first shot at it but at the beginning of liquid oxygen loading sls engineers encountered
a problem while trying to chill and fill the first stage that caused them to abruptly scrub
that attempt now just to add a little background the sequence for loading up the tanks begins
with liquid oxygen first then once that tank is almost filled the liquid hydrogen tank would then
be loaded this is due to liquid oxygen storing point being very cold at negative 183 degrees
celsius however liquid hydrogen is even colder at negative 253 degrees celsius to prevent thermal
shock to the tanks liquid oxygen is first run through the pipes to chill them and then that is
followed by a complete fill together this can take a couple of hours to fully complete the sequence
in preparation for a full hot fire in that process all four rs-25 engines fire up and will drain the
entire core stage in only eight minutes now a few days after the failed attempt information emerged
that the liquid oxygen temperature stored in the facility was warmer than the accepted tolerance
for the propellant tanks in the vehicle this therefore shut down the entire loading process
moving on from that the second attempt was mostly successful with a few issues that were
later considered within tolerance this attempt was on december 20th and it went through all of the
loading processes correctly with the liquid oxygen temperature issue now being fixed and within
the sls's tanks tolerance loading was completed and the sls rocket was for the first time ever
completely laden with cryogenic propellant weighing nearly 974 metric tons that test did
however end slightly early at t minus 4 minutes and 40 seconds as a hydrogen top off valve didn't
close properly in the terminal countdown nearing t minus 33 seconds a hold was issued and after
review the engineers deemed the test would end and saving then began with all of the liquid oxygen
and liquid hydrogen being unloaded it does seem though that sls and nasa engineers seem
to be content with the results of this wet dress rehearsal with an official press release being
posted the day after with this test completed we will surely be on the lookout for the final
hot fire and once again be able to see the rs-25 engines raw to life the last time we witnessed
multiple engines firing together was back in 2011 with the final flight of atlantis sts-135
it's going to be exciting watching these beasts roar together in unison once again
now another successful launch on the soyuz with a mission by ariane space launching a new military
reconnaissance satellite on tuesday december 29th during the week this was flight vs25 and the cs02
satellite on board is the next generation of satellite created to conduct earth imaging
over time these will replace france's existing helios satellites this was of course the last
launch of the year for ariane space and this cs02 satellite is the second out of three satellites
that are going to be placed within a polar orbit the first cs01 mission was launched two years ago
in december of 2018 and these satellites are quite massive too they are built by airbus and they
weigh in at around three and a half metric tons or 7 800 pounds interestingly the first of the three
was set up in an orbit roughly 800 kilometers in altitude whereas this latest one will sit a little
over half that altitude at 480 kilometers cs01 has a very respectable resolution of 35 centimeters
from 800 kilometers in altitude and they claim that cs02 manages an incredible 20 centimeter
resolution from around 500 kilometers in altitude capturing both visible light and infrared that is
a pretty impressive amount of detail in addition to that these satellites have excellent capability
to autonomously control their orbit and they're also highly maneuverable so yes that mission as
far as we know has gone to plan so far nice work there everyone involved in that final
launch for the year now i just wanted to say a huge thank you to my amazing patrons here along
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the tile in the bottom left today we have my video last week talking about spacex's final mission for
2020 which was of course the nrol108 mission along with of course starship updates as well in the top
right is my latest video and in the bottom right content that youtube has selected from
my channel just for you thank you everyone for watching and we'll see you all in the next video