SpaceX Starship and Super Heavy Development Continues, SXM8 Launch, Terran R Reveal
This video is sponsored by Skillshare! Hey hey marcus house with you here. SpaceX at Boca Chica is screaming forward with loads of updates preparing the site for the most powerful rocket ever created to lift off for the first time so much to cover there just this week SpaceX also successfully launched the sxm8 digital radio satellite which is the sister satellite to the ill-fated sxm7 some surprise announcements as well from relativity space unveiling the Terran R fully reusable launch vehicle design Jeff Bezos is going to be among the first to fly on New Shepard next month that's a gutsy move right there, and although we've seen a delay in the scheduled united launch alliance's STP-3 mission there are some interesting reasons why that has occurred. So there is a very good reason that each week we typically start off running over the latest updates on spacex's starship and super heavy rocket but why does the space community follow this so closely it's because of the unusual nature of the development itself most space agencies keep their development process under cover and stick with the standard disposable systems built on platforms using decades of existing technology it is expensive and slow for these agencies to change direction well the speed and production by spacex is something that almost seems alien in comparison they currently at least allow us enthusiasts to peer inside and diagnose what is going on each week spacex is developing the most powerful rocket ever created the sheer size of the super heavy is absolutely monstrous but not only that it will have an incredible engine thrust which is estimated at more than 7500 metric tons as the design evolves to have 32 engines in the near future that is enough by the way to lift just over two fully loaded saturn v rockets the saturn 5 weighed in at around 2.8 million kilograms so yeah two of those just let that sink in for a minute the big question of course is can spacex get this baby to lift off and stay intact it sure is going to be exciting to find out of course every step of the way towards achieving this accomplishment involves a great deal of design iteration and in the case of spacex rapid prototyping with exciting and sometimes destructive tests along the way if the development of this starship and super heavy vehicle is successful and spacex so far have a very good track record at achieving the impossible this new rocket will change the world quite literally no longer will the cost of launching payloads be out of reach from all but the largest of companies and governments this will allow humans to shoot over 100 metric tons of payload into orbit at a time for a very low cost compared to what we currently see now as soon as that cost is lowered considerably commercial options for space tourism exploration and even asteroid mining missions will become much more feasible then the ultimate longer-term goal of course being the colonisation of the moon and mars because of all this it is not hard to see why this amazing story has amassed the following that it has you and many others like you have changed our world here tuning in every saturday subscribing liking and sharing these videos and also helping us run this channel in a variety of ways thank you so much for your support we are thrilled to explore these topics with you each and every week spacex is currently targeting this first orbital starship launch this summer utilizing booster number 2 and starship 20 or as we typically refer to them bn2 and sn20 bn2 is currently being stacked in the high bay and is now 20 rings high over half of its full 70 meter height this here that we see is bn2's downcomer which will feed all of the liquid methane down through the liquid oxygen tank and into the manifold that divides the fuel into the 29 raptor engines this huge downcomer was transported to the high bay where it was then lifted and presumably placed through its common dome and through the liquid oxygen tank this is an absolute monster and we can at least roughly tell a few things about it just from the imagery that we can see here spacex 3d creation eccentric has roughly measured and built this 3d model to give us a better perspective you've just got to appreciate the massive volume of liquid methane that will flow from the top tank in only a few minutes of flight i've had many people ask me over the last week why there are these circular joints all the way up these i believe are stiffeners to aid in support from the top to the bottom and also help limit vibration as the pressures at the bottom of the tank are going to be greater you can see that the spacing between the stiffeners gets closer as we head downward these bulkier joints here we imagine are going to connect to the outer walls of the tank via some sort of support structure that is so far unseen as the tank empties out there is going to be a big pressure change around this downcomer as it transitions from liquid to gas these here are daily 3d updates available so make sure you're following oh there on twitter and youtube the links are in the description so while we are at the high bay here we observed some tests of the high bay disco bar lights via lab padres sentinel camera as we can see here they cycled through a few colors with the tests lasting about five minutes so as we've learned over the last few weeks bn2 is expected to have a set of 29 raptor engines installed for its flight in order to test this brand new engine configuration without risking a complete booster spacex built bn 2.1 which is a six ring tall test tank containing the aft dome with this super heavy engine mount and an ordinary forward dome here we see it mounted on a stand already equipped with nine thrust rams to simulate the forces of the inner engines against that new mount this test tank was rolled down to the launch site ahead of its first test on tuesday this week where the tank was filled and pressurized with liquid nitrogen all seemed to go well however it is unknown at this stage at least whether or not the thrust ramps were utilized in this test sn20 the starship that will fly the first orbital flight is also progressing well its after dome has also been spotted sporting three mounts for vacuum raptors indicating that sn20 may be the first starship to fly with both sea level and vacuum optimized engines the orbital launch site is once again going full speed ahead the launch tower which currently has the three steel sections is going to get much higher shortly tuesday the fourth section was rolled to the launch site then a fifth was rolled down on friday so both of these now needing stacking and at the sanchez gas site another section is already under construction in order to prepare to stack all of these the giant crane that has already been used for the first few sections has had extensions added right beside that the orbital launch mount has now got its six extensions installed the launch table is going to sit right on top of these extensions which is currently being prepared at the production site the ground support equipment tanks and cryo tank shells are also progressing quickly with a new tank being rolled to the pad on tuesday and another section is undergoing stacking at the sanchez site bokeh chicago with nasa spaceflight as always out there recording history confirmed that this particular shell rolling down this week was in fact the 12 meter wide water tank we can see this thanks to a label which also includes a diagram of the future external piping that it is going to receive so yes to sum up the build progress for the week here is the latest starship production diagram thanks to brandon lewis progress with sn20 and bn2 is coming along very nicely as spacex looks to get orbital as quickly as possible a brand new mst radar was spotted this week at starbase as well which is a new wind raider that will help spacex measure and predict upper-level winds for future launch attempts we also saw here eric ralph posting a couple of interesting tweets related to starship job postings the first here says that spacex is hiring a starship medical engineer to design integrate and implement a medical system for the future starship as well as providing medical support during flight operations as he also says here that sounds like future crew starships are going to have their own dedicated medical facilities it's hard for many of us sci-fi molded minds to not read between the lines of this post and see it as spacex attempting to develop a real-life starship medbay now we are going to take a step away from spacex's starbase to take a look at the mcgregor test facility also in texas this location handles all of the engine and falcon 9 booster testing it's especially notable for the five stands that are now online for the raptor engine we'll talk more about that in just a moment but first a big thank you to skillshare for sponsoring this video if you are like me you'll love learning new tricks that increase the appeal of your content along with the productivity of what you do skillshare offers a massive online learning experience that also allows you to connect with a community of thousands of other people with similar goals to yourself i've found so much value in areas that i didn't even know that i wanted to know more about only weeks ago i was running over content and spotted this great course that shares the process that marquez brownlee has gone through to set up his incredible channel on youtube which is of course mkbhd like any personality you see on the youtube platform everybody started from nothing and then grew their skills over time we here get to learn about where he started essentially creating videos on his single computer with a built-in camera and then slowly building up a following on youtube perhaps content you create whether on youtube or any other platform would benefit from some of this key advice if you want to share your passions and opinions with the world this great content is certainly going to help you skillshare is organized specifically for learning with no ads interrupting you and it's also incredibly affordable at less than ten dollars a month with an annual subscription if you'd like to help support me and you'd like to give it a try the first 1000 of my subscribers to click the link in the description will get 30 off the annual premium membership so you can explore your creativity even if you've already had a free trial of skillshare you can still take advantage of this offer to get a full year of unlimited learning and creative exploration just follow the link there in the description below so yes the mcgregor test facility with five testing stands for the raptor engine we see right here gary blair for nasa space flight often documents the happenings in mcgregor on his flights over the area on one of his recent flights he captured what looks to be just another wrapped engine on a horizontal test stand however it includes three separate letters and numbers after some steady image cleaning and hard reflection over that image we believe the letters could spell out rb1 this may be indicative of raptor boost 1 which could be the very first boost level engine for future orbital flights elon here previously mentioned our boost back in october of last year as the next generation of booster engines these would be capable of 300 metric tons of thrust all while keeping the exact same engine nozzle exit as the normal production sea level engines if that's the case this would be truly game changing when it comes to the overall thrust of super heavy elon once again reiterated the massive ambitions of the 7 500 tons of thrust for the booster just a few weeks ago as well with all that in mind our boost is a necessity to the overall thrust of super heavy so it's going to make sense that we begin to see these very first prototypes appearing right now keeping track of all these engines isn't an easy feat but artsias here has been doing that for a few months now here we can see most of the known engines which have appeared in mcgregor and at starbase these engines will soon be piling up for the very first orbital booster so be sure to keep an eye there on these diagrams to know when these engines show up and where they are so in some other news an interesting rocket designed by relativity space the terran r was announced this week which would make quite an astounding launch vehicle once created the design they presented just the other day features a fully reusable 3d printed rocket which they hope will be a vessel taking the stand by 2024. that is an unbelievable target considering that they are yet to have their first
launch of the terran one which is currently in development and is a much much smaller and fully expendable vehicle the terran one of course aims to place around 1.25 metric tons into orbit at a time and last i heard that was planning the first launch late this year or early in 2022 so this terran r design aims to be able to place 20 metric tons into low earth orbit while fully reusing both the first and second stage the falcon 9 i believe can play somewhere between 15 and 16 metric tons into low earth orbit while also landing the booster on a drone ship so this suggests a further five tonnes or so on top of that that is quite the claim the tank width of a falcon 9 is 3.7 meters and the terran r is 5 proportionately it looks a little stockier so i suspect it will be just a little shorter than the falcon 9 but still a lot more massive due to the increased diameter now as this news was announced immediate comments to me were that this is very close looking to the earlier starship design which was at the time named bfr and i can see where they're coming from here certainly a lot of inspiration here it's also going to use liquid oxygen and liquid methane just like starship of course at the moment it is just a design concept there is a monstrous number of steps for relativity space to take this design and turn it into the real vehicle and i certainly do wish them all the best with that we typically see a lot of designs come and go without ever seeing the light of day but if relativity space can have huge success with the terran one over the next few years while this is in development that gives them a good start currently the website here is lacking a lot of detail about the vessel but hopefully we're going to learn a little more soon about the intended recovery process what do you think about the terran r concept let me know your thoughts in the comments below now we only just had the june 3rd launch of spacex's crs 22 cargo resupply mission to the space station but then just three days later on june 6th another flight proven falcon 9 booster lifted off this time from slick 40 at cape canaveral space force station this mission was to launch the sxm8 digital radio satellite for its u.s audio entertainment customer sirius xm yet another flawless liftoff for falcon 9 as it
hurtled its way out of the atmosphere we saw there the main engine cut off soon after followed by fairing separation and then the booster continued on to make a safe landing on the drone ship just read the instructions around the same time the second stage was placed into a parking orbit and from there it was a short coast phase before a second engine restart pushed the payload into the desired orbit prior to its deployment now you may recall back in december 2020 spacex successfully launched from the same pad and deployed the sirius xm sister satellite sxm7 unfortunately for the satellite manufacturer maxar the payload itself had some failures and attempts to fix the situation were not successful they do plan i believe to replace that lost satellite at some point in the future now another interesting story this week was jeff bezos announcing that both he and his brother are actually going to be flying on the new shepard in late july which is of course the vehicle designed and flown by blue origin although it wasn't surprising seeing the announcement of the passengers that would be aboard it did take us a little by surprise that jeff himself would be on the very first flight mission with human life on board that is a gutsy move and it certainly shows the trust that jeff bezos already has in their own technology that flight is going to occur just a little over two weeks after he steps down as chief executive of amazon now the new shepard for those of you that are unfamiliar has already performed 15 suborbital flights which have all been successful with the exception of the first flights booster not touching down due to some sort of hydraulic system issue on the descent all of the capsules have survived the trip quite fine and that first flight was actually way back in 2015. at the time of course this was super exciting as the flight almost crept up out of nowhere fast forward six years and we are still patiently waiting for the very first flight with humans on board now it's worth noting of course that this vessel just heads straight up past 100 kilometers in altitude and then falls back down that means that any crew in this vessel will only have a few minutes to experience that weightlessness that comes along with this flight it is going to be very nice to see some imagery of the passengers floating in the capsule after all this time years ago we had thought that this would be occurring very frequently by now and that new glenn would be sending payloads into low earth orbit very frequently and beyond but you know it seems to have taken blue origin quite some time to get to this stage regardless we love seeing progress on tourist-based vehicles to spread the enthusiasm for the industry around for the moment though it seems to be limited to just the super wealthy but hey we've got to start somewhere now the united launch alliance atlas 5 stp 3 mission originally set to launch on june 23rd has been postponed which was a little disappointing for us keen to watch this flight what was interesting was the reason for the delay though ceo tori bruno announced the reason was related to observations of the centaur upper stage rl10 engine on may the 18th launch looking at the video feed here you can clearly see the engine nozzle essentially ringing torrey said here on twitter that those watching the live feed may have observed some ringing of rl10's brand new carbon nozzle extension while it did its job well by boosting the eye watering performance higher we wanted to make sure we fully understand the behavior before flying this configuration again so yes even though that has caused a delay there's not going to be any implications for the boeing starliner orbital flight test 2 as the upper stage will not have the same rl10 configuration in fact the style lineup was meant to be the next launch in line after the stp-3 launch so perhaps it could now be moved up to take center stage time is going to tell meanwhile the new launch date for stp-3 and its varied payloads will be advised very soon now with that mission we have nasa's laser communication relay demonstration experiment essentially this is a method of optical space communications this new generation of hardware looks set to dramatically improve bandwidth security and reliability of transmissions as well as involving less mass and power requirements that has some serious applications for earth orbits lunar and deep space missions hopefully we get to cover that topic a little bit more when we get to see the future flight so yes it sure has been yet another interesting week of updates remember as well that we are huge supporters of the transition to electric vehicles here on the channel and our partner ev offers the ability to hire an electric vehicle in australia perhaps you have wanted to take an extended test drive you could be touring the country and want to drive around in a tesla if that sounds appealing to you you can use the link in the description for a 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2021-06-18 18:48
