SpaceX Starbase Ground Support Systems Near Complete, Movies being made from Space, JWST Update
This video is supported by CuriosityStream - Hey, Hey Marcus House with you here. This week we bring you all up to speed with the latest Starship developments over at starbase and share with you some new, incredible 3D art/work from the space community created to help us all become more familiar with some of Starship’s more intricate parts. We’ll check out Soyuz MS-19 as it sends a Russian film crew to the International Space Station just shortly after Thomas Pesquet took command up there. Touching base with the Ingenuity helicopter, it failed to take off the other week
and we wonder if it is struggling to cope with the lowering temperatures at Jezero crater or if it will be back in the martian skies sometime soon. Captain Kirk is officially going to space and a brief mention of the James Webb Space Telescope: Coming to a LaGrange halo orbit near you soon! SpaceX have been busy over the last couple of months preparing Starbase at boca chica for the first orbital test flight of booster 4 and Ship 20. It’s been very exciting watching every step of the construction of both Starship and the launch facility itself which is all being built in tandem. We’ve been privileged with a comprehensive bird’s eye view of the goings on as they’ve happened, thanks to Mauricio from RGV Aerial Photography, and this has proved invaluable for the space community in regards to diagnosing what SpaceX’s plans are. Thanks to folks on
the ground like Starship Gazer there are lots of terrific shots from multi angles for us to compare and well, just drool over in general. Not only is SpaceX providing a route to get mass to orbit but also doing it in a way which is bringing the space community closer together. This week at the launch site the thrust rams were removed from suborbital pad B after Ship 20’s successful cryo proof last week. Those rams later left the launch site at 7pm with hopefully a static fire up next for Ship 20. It is yet unknown if the RVacs will be included in that test. Given their current rather low
expansion ratio design, they are able to fire within the atmosphere quite well, as shown in previous tests. Also, a minor yet integral test was performed with Ship 20's aft flaps being opened for the first time. Over at the orbital tank farm, on Saturday morning, shell 3 was lifted off its temporary spot where it was sitting for several weeks and instead placed over GSE-6. Then on midday Thursday, GSE8 was on the road, rolling out of the production facility to the launch site. Only around 2 hours later GSE8 was hooked up to the crane and lifted off into the
air. Soon after GSE8 touched down on the final concrete pedestal, marking the last GSE tank to be lifted into place. This marks the end of an era after several months of construction of the GSE tanks starting in February this year when the first section of GSE1 was spotted.The only major work left of the orbital tank farm now is just the two final cryo shells to be moved from the Sanchez site and placed over GSE2 and the new GSE8. After being lowered earlier this week, the Liebherr LR11350 crane was raised up again, without the luffing jib that was fitted on it before, ready to start the installation of the mechazilla system on the launch tower. It’s coming! On Tuesday evening, the carriage for the catching and stacking arms started moving towards the launch tower until it stopped for several hours. On Wednesday morning, the carriage was
moved once again but this time parking right next to the crane. It was then lifted up and flipped vertically where it was moved over to the taller of the red beams set up near the launch tower. The carriage was placed down with the bottom claws sitting on the ground and the top claws resting on top of the red beam. We expect this is where the two arms will be integrated with the carriage. The Quick Disconnect Arm went through movement tests just yesterday and just check this timelapse footage by Cosmic Perspective. The full quality version of this is linked in the description. I just can’t wait to see it moving around alongside the catch arms very soon.
Over at the construction site, little progress was made on Ship 21 but all 3 of Ship 22's domes were spotted this week with its common dome on the sleeving stand ready to be sleeved. The B2.1 tank intended to test the stage separation system was fully stacked. This mating involved a booster forward section being stacked on top of a hybrid section made of a Booster Sleeve and Ship Aft Dome. On Tuesday night Booster 5’s forward dome section was lifted
up by the bridge crane and stacked on top of the second forward section. Grid fins for Booster 5 were also spotted waiting for installation along with its 4th forward section. The next vehicle in line, Booster 6, had two sections spotted at the production site. These include the 2nd forward section, and 5th aft section. Thanks to Nic spotting a 13-engine booster aft cap being delivered to Starbase. Just check this out. Previous boosters have had 9 engine thrust pucks with 20 additional Raptors mounted on the tank perimeter for a total of 29 Raptors.
The 13 engine thrust puck will enable 33 total Raptors on the booster and I think could possibly be assigned to Booster 8. Using the current first-generation Raptor 1 engine thrust data, a booster with 33 engines could produce up to 6,100 tons of thrust at liftoff. However it seems that booster 8 will utilise the new generation of Raptor 2 engines, which could jump the thrust of the booster up to almost 7,600 tons. This is more than twice that of the Saturn V. This is really quite an astounding difference from the booster being prepared for flight right now. A static fire already with 29 Raptor 1 engines producing about 5,400 metric tonnes of thrust will be impressive and we’re eagerly awaiting indication how and when SpaceX is planning to conduct those firings. Speaking of Raptor engines. I want you to take a little journey with me here. What you are looking
at is a 3D render by Izan Ramos. You may have seen some previous work in progress renders, but not quite like this. These are now complete. The detail here is truly astounding. Izan’s goal was to create the most accurate model of the Raptor engine, which in this case is Raptor Engine 50. This needed to be super realistic, just as if having a near identical digital version of the real one. It’s breathtaking. It really is. The time and effort to 3D model and texture each piece of this is an effort that is… well… kind of beyond comprehension. It took around 8 months to create what you are seeing. From the modeling itself, to UV mapping and texturing. This
is truly astounding!. But that wasn’t the most time consuming part though. Most of the time was actually spent trying to understand what was going on under that spaghetti mess as we see from the real images here. With a collection of over 200 images for reference, this is made possible. Izan and the space community digesting this incredible work of art owe so much to Mary AKA BocaChicaGal, Jack and the entire team from NasaSpaceFlight for all their hard work. Without that reference material, this wouldn’t have been possible. I mean just look at all the parts required here. Every piece is as accurate as possible. All the tiny pipes, sensors, lock wires, even stickers on some
of the components. It must be a monstrous task for any computer to render this beast. It has around 2.8 million polygons and nearly 1900 objects. And that is enhanced with 44 different textures at 4K resolution to keep all the sharp detail. Thanks very much Izan for chatting with me and allowing us to show off this incredible set of renders. There is more to see too and this 1080p video that is all compressed for youtube certainly does not do it justice. Go and check them out directly on Twitter and follow Izan Ramos while you are there. There is a lot more to see and just guess
what is coming next? Yep! Raptor Version 2. Check it out! The link is in the description below. It is so terrific I think having all of these various perspectives as reference. Along with this 3D artists like Blender 3D and Space enthusiast are able to bring Starship and its associated infrastructure to life ahead of time for us to digest. This is the most exciting
time in spaceflight since the space race and being able to present all of this information to you every Saturday is such an amazing thing. Thanks heaps for returning each week for these updates, I can’t thank you enough. Remember to take that opportunity to support those amazing creators by following or subscribing. That support helps them a great deal just as it does right here. For the past year we’ve been keeping track of The Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity Helicopter. Ingenuity has wowed us over the past few months with its record breaking extraterrestrial flights through the martian atmosphere, however, Ingenuity failed to take off during its last attempt. We’ll explain why in just a moment but before that... [Ad Start] … a massive thank you to
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Today we are standing on the precipice of returning to the moon and this time to stay. A lot of the requirements for a long term human presence in deep space are now being met, but we are not there just yet. Return to the Moon seeks to address exactly what point in the journey we are at now, where we need to go, and how we intend to remain on the lunar surface for good. The visuals here are just amazing, and there were a number of great facts here that I hadn't heard before. Curiositystream provides thousands of award-winning videos like this including a huge
library of space or physics-related content. You have other interests outside of rocket science as well? This great streaming service covers a massive range of subjects and common interests from across the globe. You will love it! If you would like to help support me and would like to give it a try head to curiositystream.com slash marcushouse. With that, you can sign up for access at just 14 dollars and 99 cents for the entire year. You’ll find that link in the description below.[AD END] So yes, recently Ingenuity’s 14th flight attempt was aborted due to seasonal changes that occur in the Martian atmosphere. Back in April of course
the Ingenuity helicopter astounded us all by becoming the first vehicle to fly in an atmosphere other than earth’s. It then impressed us further by performing over a dozen more flights, each one essentially aiming to fly further and higher than the previous. It’s also taking the opportunity to gain further experience in navigating and potentially even prospecting the martian surface, aiding in the navigation of the perseverance rover and its own future flights. As predicted, seasonal changes in the Martian atmosphere are making it harder for the little helicopter to lift off now though. Similar to Earth, Mars has four quite distinct seasons so shares a certain familiarity with Earth however there are many norms here that are little more alien to us. For example, in summer, carbon dioxide released from the melting ice makes the atmosphere thicker. As a martian winter approaches, average temperatures fall so much that carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere desublimates which causes local atmospheric pressure to drop enough for Ingenuity to require a total recalibration of it’s rotor blades. This requires them to rotate about 15% faster than before, and they were already clocking in at over 40 revolutions per second. During the first attempt to fly with the increased RPM, Ingenuity encountered abnormal feedback from two of its control servos shutting itself down for safety. This is worrying to us as this could be a sign that it will struggle or even fail to cope as seasonal changes become even less favorable. Successful servo wiggle tests have been performed since then however,
and NASA has every confidence that Ingenuity will return to the skies of Mars very soon. Thanks to an Inconveniently timed solar conjunction, we will be waiting at least a few more weeks now to see if another successful Ingenuity flight is possible. Now it’s been a little while since we caught up with the events from NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. You might be surprised how much time
has already passed for Expedition 65 or Crew 2. Believe it or not, they arrived at the International Space Station way back in April on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavor. Time has absolutely flown, at least, it feels that way to me. Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur,
Thomas Pesquet and Akihiko Hoshide, are now nearing the end of their mission, with the return to earth scheduled in November. This week it was time for the 53rd rotation of command, this time from Akihiko to Thomas. This is quite newsworthy I think because it's the first time a French national has acted in the role of Commander. Surrounded by those Thomas has served under in previous missions, there was a symbolic change of command ceremony to mark the occasion. Having served admirably in the role for the past 5 months, outgoing commander Akihiko praised the excellent team work and achievements of assorted science experiments. Most challenging perhaps being the extravehicular activities, cargo vehicle visits and system upgrades.
After speeches that left you with a sense of real closeness and mateship among the crew, Akihiko proudly passed on the golden key. The role of Commander is one that looks after communications between the crew and the ground based flight director. It is also a crew morale and task oversight role which has authority to act in an emergency, independent of ground control if required. Thomas won't be in command for very long this trip of course as he will be handing over to Anton Shkaplerov early next month. It is however great recognition for his leadership abilities.
We’ll no doubt see him acting in a leadership role in the future, be it in space or back home here. Speaking of the ISS, about 12 hours after Thomas took command, we saw the launch of MS-19 which was riding on the Soyuz rocket variant 2.1a. As a side note, unlike the 2.1b version, the upper stage still runs on the open cycle engine RD-0110. The 2.1b which has been operational since 2006, introduced the RD-0124. That is instead a staged combustion engine with about 33 seconds or 10 percent more specific impulse. That’s currently the highest performing Kerosene and Liquid Oxygen engine out there. Quite the success actually as this increased the payload capability by over
1 metric tonne or 17 percent. So why fly MS-19 with the inferior 2.1a variant? Well that is all because Soyuz MS-19 only weighs about 7 metric tonnes. For that payload the extremely well flight-proven RD-0110 was sufficient. In this and other configurations, Soyuz has launched over 1,800 times successfully so is THE workhorse of Russian space exploration. At this point, the sight of such a launch probably doesn't seem overly special, but in this case, the payload was a little out of the ordinary. On this flight, actress Yulia Peresild and film director Klim Shipenko were flown to the International Space Station by commander Anton Shkaplerov. Klim,
additionally, is the screenwriter and producer for “The Challenge”, (Vyzov) which is the film they plan to shoot onboard. Interestingly, the cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky is also on the cast list for the production. Anton and even Mark Vande Hei, an astronaut who came on board with MS-18, will have cameos in the film. Oleg will perform the role of an incopasated crewman who needs
emergency surgery and personally I’m quite keen to see how this all pans out. They arrived at and docked with the ISS only about 3 and a half hours after launch and proceeded immediately to their first ISS conference. Strangely, the automated docking software called KURS failed but Anton docked successfully by manual flight. Over the span of about half a year, this will be the first feature-length fiction film shot in Space. Of course that doesn’t come without a little criticism due to the mission not so much being about science and discovery, but more for commercial use. I’m not sure this is a good perspective to have though. Remember that commercial opportunities will drive more flights and more innovation in space travel. Whether you
believe this to be a misuse of the resources of the ISS or not, one thing is for certain: Bringing films to the general public will we hope elevate the need for further innovation and lower cost access to space as technology improves. Along with this mission, Tom Cruise and the director Doug Liman, are also due to travel there soon on a Crew Dragon but no specific date is known at this stage. So life is going to look a little different on the station over the next few months. Also, the rumors about William Shatner flying on NS18 that we spoke of last week have indeed turned out to be true. The final fourth seat that was also unknown will be taken by Audrey Powers, the Vice President of Mission & Flight Operations at Blue Origin. So yes, look out for that suborbital
launch on the 12th of October! The commercial space industry is really kicking into high gear. For something far beyond suborbital, the James Webb Space Telescope is coming and it is coming soon! This epic project of space agencies from the USA, Canada and Europe is going to be truly groundbreaking. Currently, the 18th of December this year is planned for launch. And it’ll be huge! Literally. The James Webb Space Telescope, will be the largest telescope in space known to humanity. It’ll be able to reach farther out to explore what even Hubble couldn’t. The Hubble Telescope already did great work but it looks cute compared to the James Web
Space Telescope. The main goals are exploring the Big Bang and the evolution of galaxies. For this, not only does the telescope itself needs to be huge but its sun shield, too. The shield is required to keep off any heat coming from the sun, allowing the telescope to operate at minus 223 degree Celsius or minus 370 degrees Fahrenheit. Only then, the faint infrared radiation can be observed coming from extremely old and far away objects. Helping here is the orbit,
too. It’ll be drifting around the LaGrange point 2 of the Sun-Earth system, therefore having the Sun, Earth and Moon all behind it. We talked a little about LaGrange points last week when talking about the Lucy mission, but there are essentially places in space between 2 celestial bodies where the gravity of both are balanced and create a stable position. In this case, it will hold its
position to Earth and Sun despite being in an orbit further out which would typically end up with a longer orbital period than objects closer to the Sun. Even in this stable location, it will still need a little fuel to stay in place. This thrusting is provided by the Spacecraft Bus with its monopropellant thrusters. It’ll carry around 150 meters per second in delta-v and six reaction wheels to keep everything in place. Of course it is not only the telescope and its heat
shield that are huge. The budget explosion and the delays are too. When it was planned in 1996, a launch in 2007 was expected while costing about half a billion US dollars. By now, the budget has increased to nearly 10 billion US dollars and the launch slipped by 14 years. Let's hope nothing goes wrong with the launch because the investment here is.. Lets say... astronomical. The rocket launching this is not a US rocket. Rather the Ariane 5 will do the job. This beast usually
enables Geostationary Transfer Orbit payloads of nearly 11 metric tonnes. Quite hefty. Because the 6.5 metric tonnes heavy James Web Space Telescope is much less than 11 tons, it should be pushed close to Earth escape velocities. I am really looking forward to this mission. So yes, there is yet another fascinating week of updates and today, I need to shout out some big thanks to my awesome team for all the help on this one. I’ve been away most of the week,
but that did not stop Brendan, Adam, also known as GameplayReviewUk, Brenton and Aeneas for taking over to pick up the slack. And this week, I have been slack mostly off on holiday with the family for the first time in... Well… probably too long. Thanks of course to you for watching all the way through. You are incredible. You really are. This channel wouldn’t exist without
you. Likewise the incredible Patrons and Youtube members supporting what we are doing collectively. For me to even contemplate having a few days away and still being able to produce a video with this effort put in… well… that's only possible because of that support. Thanks for helping all of us here. If you like what we are doing and would like to help assist us with what we do directly, you can join as a Youtube member or at patreon.com/marcushouse. Either of those options will have you chatting with us all in Discord via the member assigned roles, you can also have your name listed right here like these other terrific individuals, and you of course also get ad free versions of these videos released direct to you before anyone else gets to watch them. If you’re interested in these topics and would like to keep up to date, remember to follow here below and on Twitter at marcushouse. In the
tile in the bottom left today, we have my video from last week. 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.
2021-10-11 06:25
