Elon Musk just confirmed spacex's first orbital Starship launch according to CEO Elon Musk
SpaceX will likely be prepared to undertake its Maiden orbital Starship launch in November 2022
potentially as early as late October however there are still a lot of significant obstacles
in response to a discussion regarding a recent test of the engines on booster 7 musk post the
update on Twitter by that time musk predicted we will have two boosters and spacecraft ready for
orbital flight with full stack manufacturing at roughly one per two months on Twitter
hello everyone welcome back to Elon Musk Evolution where we bring you the most recent news about Elon
Musk and his multi-billion dollar companies but before we begin make sure you subscribe to
our Channel and click the Bell icon so you don't miss out on any of our amazing videos the SpaceX
system which consists of the Starship spaceship and the super heavy booster is a fully reusable
extremely super heavy lift launch vehicle intended to travel to earth orbit the Moon and maybe even
Beyond to planets like Mars as part of the space agency's Artemis 3 mission SpaceX is required by
a contract with NASA to demonstrate the Starship can land people on the Moon by late 2025.
musk took to Twitter on September 21st to add to a much appreciated burst of information
about spacex's Starship rocket development and to give some more precise information after an
unexpectedly successful and record-breaking static fire test on September 18th the CEO of
SpaceX announced on September 19th at the Starship booster B7 currently tasked with that debut would
be rolled back to the factory for unexplained robustness upgrades this announcement came just
hours before the scheduled launch date the thrust component of super heavy booster 7 may need to be
strengthened to make it more resilient to Raptor engine failures according to musk's
latest statements made two days later even though the answer deviates slightly from spacex's usual
course the concern is understandable given that it is powered by 33 Raptor V2 engines and that there
is ample evidence that these engines are far from being 100 reliable before starting the procedures
for starship's first orbital launch SpaceX rushed through the creation of the rocket as
if it wanted to obliterate as many other Rockets as it could which it sort of did SpaceX produced
starships and test articles on a regular basis and vigorously tested them as opposed to spending six
to 12 months working on the same few prototypes Without Really Ever trying to launch them while
there were a few instances where SpaceX pushed a bit too far and made mistakes that should
have been avoided the majority of the failures generated a lot of data that was subsequently
used to enhance subsequent Vehicles the High Altitude Starship flight testing phase of the
project which saw SpaceX complete test and launch a new starship five times in six months was the
Project's Pinnacle in May 2021 the first totally successful high altitude Starship launch and
Landing took place the preparation for spacex's orbital flight tests have been so drastically
different although there's been substantial advancement in the 16 months since sn15 safe
launch and touchdown it's obvious that SpaceX has chosen to avoid taking major risks super
heavy booster 4 and Starship 20 the first orbital class payer were completed and tested over the
course of more than six months but SpaceX never even conducted a single static bird on booster
4 and promptly retired both prototypes without even trying to launch either we may never know
why SpaceX shut down B4 and s20 or why the company appears to have changed its development strategy
to be a little more cautious after blatantly proving the effectiveness of moving quickly and
taking significant risks this is because mosque and SpaceX have not provided any information
it's likely that receiving a three billion dollar contract that puts Starship at the Forefront of
NASA's mission to send astronauts back to the moon has prompted a more cautious approach an
April 2021 SpaceX was awarded that contract and even in its third and more conservative
phase Starship and development is still incredibly Hardware intensive moving swiftly and discovering
many issues on the ground instead of learning from flight tests but that doesn't change the fact that
the third phase of Starship development which began in H2 2021 and is currently underway is
moving along with more caution than the first and second phases which took place in Q4 2018
to Q4 2019 and q1 2020 to Q2 2021 respectively however it seems as though SpaceX is finally
coming closer to launching Starship into space musk believes a SpaceX will have two pairs of
orbital class starships and super heavy boosters BS s24 and B8 s25 ready for orbital flight by
then potentially enabling a quick return to flight after the first attempt he claims that the company
could be prepared for the first launch attempt as early as late October but a November attempt
is highly likely musk is especially enthusiastic about a super heavy booster 9 which has several
design modifications and a Thrust section that will completely isolate each of the 33 Raptors
from one another which is essential for preventing the failure of one engine from affecting others
super heavy booster 8 arrived at the launch pad on September 19th as predicted by musk and
will probably undergo a proof testing soon while booster 7 is being improved back at the factory
even though that is encouraging history has proven that reality May often diverge significantly from
Elon musk's descriptions especially when it comes to starship's orbital launch date
debut for instance musk stated that SpaceX would launch its first super heavy static fire from Star
base's orbital launch pad later that month this prediction was made in September 2021. the actual
date of the key test was August 9 2022 11 months later and a completely different booster was used
this means that even if tremendous progress has been achieved over the past several months SpaceX
still has a lot of work to do practically all of which is in unexport territory Starship 24
which earlier this month completed its Maiden six engine static fire as presently undergoing odd
adjustments that appear to indicate that the upper stage is not meeting spacex's expectations it's
unclear if more testing will be necessary after a successful seven Raptor static fire super heavy
b7s returning to the plant for more development SpaceX will need to execute the First full super
heavy wet dress rehearsal completely fueling the booster with thousands of tons of combustible
propellants and the First full 33 Raptor static burn after it returns to the pad while the exact
sequences on unknown it's unclear if SpaceX will stick with its cautious strategy testing 1 3 and
7 engines over the course of six weeks or move right onto 33 engine testing furthermore it's not
clear how ship 24 fits into that picture in order to properly test the rocket under the conditions
it would launch under SpaceX will eventually need to or should perform a full wet dress rehearsal
of the fully stacked Starship and may even try a 33 inch and static fire with the fully fueled
two-stage vehicle well SpaceX fully stacked V7 and s24 as soon as the booster reaches the launch pad
risking a Starship that could be fit for flight while conducting the most dangerous super heavy
test to date the company will exercise prudence and perform 33 engine static Burns before and
after stacking wet dress rehearsals before and after increasing the amount of testing that may
be necessary as evidenced by spacex's most recent year of operations all booster 7 activity to date
implies that SpaceX will choose to progressively build up to 33 engines so one or more additional
tests will be be necessary if that's the course of action chosen having a fully loaded Starship
ready to launch by the end of November will be a significant task for SpaceX in either
case musk's estimated time frame is likely to be unattainable if any substantial issues are
encountered during any of the several unheard of tests mentioned above the FAA is yet to provide
SpaceX a license or experimental authorization for orbital Starship flights both of which are
dependent upon a plethora of mitigation so that is a potential Hazard this is not to imply that a
Starship launch attempted to orbit couldn't happen in November but it seems more unlikely that SpaceX
will be able to launch the duo before the end of 2022 especially in light of the numerous problems
booster 7 and ship 24 have had during relatively simpler tests and that ends today's episode we
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