this video is sponsored by brilliant hey hey marcus house with you here and loads to cover this week at starbase with a massive push for ship 20 and booster 4 along with the site infrastructure to support it as soon as possible you won't believe the amount that has happened just this week spacex also wins with the falcon heavy a hairy ride for the naoka module and some very interesting updates from blue origin so here we are once again just one week after the last in-depth update at starbase honestly it is near impossible at this point to cover everything happening this here is the static fire that occurred last week with the largest rocket booster ever created for anyone that is unfamiliar what we are witnessing here is the development of the core rocket booster that spacex will use to launch its groundbreaking starship vehicle into orbit both this and the ship are designed to be fully reusable after last week's successful static fire of booster 3 all of the three wrapped engines were removed and taken away presumably for them to be thoroughly checked out in fact artseus who tracks these engines very carefully noticed that those same raptors have already since been returned to starbase speaking of raptors a huge milestone this week at spacex's hawthorne facility in california where the team has completed the 100th build of the raptor engine that is a huge milestone to be proud of now last week a tweet from elon musk hinted at the possibility for a nine engine static fire with booster 3. this now seems very unlikely instead even more exciting news the push for booster 4 and ship 20 has ramped up to the point that more tests with booster 3 would just cause delays with the orbital testing campaign so what does this mean for booster 3 well it could simply mean that this is the end of its testing campaign what do you think so booster 4 has continued stacking this week and based on what we've seen this is going to accelerate even faster firstly the booster aft section 4 was moved into the high bay and that night the rest of the booster's liquid oxygen tank was stacked on top only a day later after section 5 was also moved into the high bay and stacking continued the downcomer which will feed the liquid methane from the top tank down into the engines was also installed into the tank section soon after that there completed the majority of the bottom liquid oxygen tank with it already standing at 20 rings tall the thrust dome itself was placed onto the sleeving stand that evening and was sleeved overnight this section was then flipped back to its correct orientation and it's ready now for stacking now just check out this tweet posted by elon musk on thursday this is the internals of the thrust section and those 20 long and nine short pipes will feed the liquid methane from the downcomer to each of the engines he added that these are only the primary fuel lines and that the maze of secondary plumbing and wiring is going to be the greatest concern since then of course the rest of the liquid oxygen tank was stacked on top of this so now we move on to the methane tank the forwarded dome was spotted on the sleeving stand which was then sleeved soon after stacking then commenced and up that went onto the top of forward tank number two stacking continued and that section was stacked on top of forward section three and then again on section four completing the methane tank at 13 rings tall within hours of that the first grid fin was being installed as shown here by a cosmic perspective literally hours ago that there was shown in comparison to that used on the falcon 9. by the time this video is live who knows the entire booster could be stacked how crazy is all of that work on the ground support equipment tanks has certainly sped up even further this week as well the final section of gse6 the after dome was lifted into the high bay and placed inside the rest of that tank was then mounted on top and once it was finished being welded together that was then rolled straight out of the high bay and moved over next to gse3 as you can see we are not exaggerating by the acceleration of the activity with the ground support equipment on top of that we also had gse7 construction begin in the mid bay with a four ring section being lifted inside and its after dome was slaved as well over at the launch site gse1 and 2 have started receiving reinforcement bracings on wednesday the road was closed to allow gse5 to roll down to the launch site and it was then promptly attached to the crane's load spreader and lifted over next to gse1 this is actually the first gse tank to be rolled to the pad since gse2 on april the 19th this same road closure was also utilized to move the orbital launch table as well i'll go into that more in just a moment with the third gse tank finally out of the mid bay new space was open for ship 20 stacking operations to continue as well now there is a load of activity to talk about with that first orbit capable ship its thrust section was brought into the mid bay where the methane tank and the middle liquid oxygen section was stacked on top that now completes the tank section we of course saw the two aft flaps being delivered last week covered in thermal protection system or tps tiles after closer observation on that and thanks to the amazing rgv aerial photography those flaps are visibly around 20 narrower than those seen on the prototypes between sn8 and sn15s elon actually confirmed this replying to a rendered by alex spann saying that the previous flight tests now show that spacex could make body flaps narrower and lighter that is great of course as any reduction in dry mass adds that amount more payload potential to prepare for testing this ship and future orbit capable ships new thrust puck hydraulics were installed on test stand b which will be used to simulate the forces of the vacuum raptor engines as well as the sea level engines so what is next for ship 20 well we expect the tank section to be moved into the high bay where it will receive its nose cone that by the way was recently spotted by the amazing starship geyser we can see it right here inside the tent receiving the insulation that will sit directly under those tps tiles that nose cone was then rolled out of the tent where teams then started attaching the tiles yesterday up that went over the nose barrel section that was recently moved into the low bay we expect to see the forward flaps mounted on this very soon now speaking of noses at the production area this nose cone was spotted with a large section cut out for the testing of the cargo bay doors the team at nasa space flight posted a photo thanks to the amazing bokeh chicago saying that starship operational flights will initially be focused on cargo emissions and you can imagine just how many starlink satellites they'd be able to push uphill inside this elon replied saying that this is more of a pathfinder test and that there is still debate on the payload bay door dimensions eric x posted a rendering here of how this specific design could look it's a bit shorter than previous official renderings however it's still huge in respect to other vehicles around 1 000 cubic meters of capacity this design looks to be more feasible and realistic similar to that of the space shuttle a system that opens up with dual doors like this allows a simple gentle push upwards at deployment to have the payload exit nice and cleanly so the fact that spacex is already physically testing the design of the payload doors is a big step in the development of this ship so starbase is expanding its production capability yet again with elon announcing on twitter that construction starts soon on a much larger high bay just north of the current high bay when i asked how high it could be he replied to me here with a few more hints telling us that the new high bay will be only a little taller but with a much bigger base and two gantry cranes that will run the full span oh here put together a quick render of this so that we can all see what this may look like what a monster now heading all the way over to the launch site we have significant updates with the orbital launch tower as well the initial assembly of section 9 was completed and was later lifted up and stacked on wednesday this week what's incredible about this section is that it was assembled in less than three days but also that it includes critical hardware for the catching and stacking arm that hardware is the pulleys and reeving blocks these two devices are necessary to put tension into the cabling from the draw works hoist but also to multiply the forces one line through two pulleys of course means double the force and this is scalable simply by adding more pulleys then multiplying the number of times it was put through a pulley or block this is how what often seems to be thin cabling can pull such heavy loads so alongside section 9's assembly we're beginning to see the possible fueling arm come to fruition this is a little speculative at this point but we do have some great insights here the current structure which is a collection of yellow tubing appears to have its welding and assembly largely completed now a recent part arrived which matches the yellow tubing which we think is a hinge or pivot point of some sort that has been attached to the wider end of the structure to then eventually interface with the tower itself these black components here are believed to be those that are needed for the catching arms too some great speculation here by scuba that look pretty spot on to me so we had another major hunk of steel finally arrive on site too yep the orbital launch table this giant construction of course arrived in 10 large sections and was assembled over the past six months or so starting assembly back in february now that all of that has been welded cut assembled and then cut again they have finally brought it over to the launch site for installation onto the launch mounts pillars it's unclear exactly when it's going to be lifted onto these pillars but it is nonetheless very exciting knowing that we are inching closer and closer to the orbital flight test in just weeks now so as you can see there is no shortage of action at starbase and we have a lot more yet to cover today you'll also be pleased to know that on friday the us government accountability office denied the protests filed by blue origin and dynetics in regard to the hls award for spacex let that be a lesson to anyone else trying to slow spacex down it doesn't work and elon musk here replying to me looks to be agreeable to that perspective as well i've got a feeling this next coming week will be even crazier we release these updates every saturday thanks to your amazing support and feedback you make this channel what it is just by watching liking and subscribing no way could we do this without you so nasa recently announced they had settled on using spacex and their falcon heavy launch vehicle for the scheduled october 2024 europa multiple flyby mission commonly known as the europa clipper after a spending bill passed in the us congress in december last year the result isn't overly surprising spacex can do the job for a mere 178 million dollars and prior to this bill the sls system was the only choice congress eventually agreed to allow an alternate commercial launch vehicle and this is all great especially after nasa strongly voiced in its 2021 budget that a commercial launch option instead of sls could save the agency a staggering amount all sorts of figures have been proposed regarding savings however this mission itself will change a little too most notably the time that it will actually take to reach europa the space launch system would have had clipper arrive at jupiter in under three years using a more direct trajectory falcon heavy on the other hand won't fly a direct route to jupiter instead using gravity assist slingshots past earth and mars and that will see clipper arrive around five and a half years later seeing that the sls may not be available before 2025 anyway due to the artemis program this probably only adds an 18-month arrival variance between both launch offerings so why are we heading to europa in the first place firstly this mission will see the spacecraft enter an orbit around jupiter this orbit will help mitigate sensitive equipment being fried by the massive amount of radiation emitted by jupiter that bathes europa the clipper will shoot past gathering data and then head rapidly out of harm's way it will then pass through europa's gravity field some 45 times when the moon is at various distances from jupiter so it is thought that europa has what is described by scientists as a skin or icy shell and what is thought to be salty liquid water below that this could be the right mix of ingredients to support life the water chemistry and energy are all present here now i'm not talking about a space squid or anything like that but rather just the necessary functioning biochemistry that would support basic life the answer to whether life exists on europa would be a quantum leap in our understanding of our place in the universe updates now on the russian space station components the piers docking compartment seen here arrived at the international space station way back on september 16th of 2001. originally it was only intended for a five-year mission and this essential compartment served a vital role as a docking port and airlock for russian spacewalks it was also the sixth pressurized module to expand the space outpost now we fast forward 19 years and 313 days and it was time to retire this portion of the svester service module assisted by the progress cargo spacecraft engines both sections slowly drifted away from its home of almost two whole decades shortly after undocking the progress spacecraft commenced a retrograde burn lasting just over 17 and a half minutes this breaking burn was aimed at slowing these two sections by some 425 meters per second this allowed both vehicles to re-enter the earth's atmosphere where they were mostly destroyed by the blistering temperatures of re-entry with any remaining pieces splashing harmlessly in the pacific ocean of course this whole exercise was done to make way for the long overdue upgrade to the international space station the neuca multi-purpose laboratory module or mlm was launched on july the 21st and it made its way to the station after a series of worrisome hiccups the module was docked to the iss on thursday and yet more issues with the mlm somehow unintentionally firing its thrusters causing the entire station to tilt 45 degrees before the svester module could kick in firing its own thrusters to compensate and bring the station back into alignment that could have been much worse let's just hope that this is the end of the issues with that new module so rocket lab is also back in action as well with their latest launch named it's a little chilly up here on thursday morning after having the electron grounded after the loss of their rocket back on may 15th there were no issues with the launch this day though with the two-stage electron roaring off the pad from new zealand this time carrying a demonstration satellite called monolith for the us space force this satellite will explore and demonstrate the use of a deployable sensor after deployment they want to then test the main spacecraft's dynamic ability to maintain attitude control more information here is on the rocket lab website if you want to read up a little more on that nice to see rock lab back in action okay so given the subscriber base here there tends to be no shortage of new clean skepticism but recently we just heard some pretty cool things we'll talk about that more in just a moment but before that a huge thank you today to our sponsor brilliant now i just love the way the material offered here essentially replaces old style video and 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the first 200 people to follow the link get 20 off the first year of brilliant premium you'll find that link in the description below so yes some pretty cool information here from blue origin first of all jeff bezos wrote an open letter to nasa administrator nelson there he made it perfectly clear that they the national team led by blue still want to be part of the hls competition he even mentions things such as the intention to create long-term landing solutions by utilizing hydrogen as fuel that can be produced of course on the moon with the apparent large water resources on the lunar south pole unlike spacex they would only need three instead of 10 plus launches to get a lander ready which is argued here to reduce the overall risk saying that there is nothing here about the amount of payload actually delivered to the service what was super interesting to me though was that they offered the flexibility to even be launched on a falcon heavy that did surprise me what else did the fact that they want to reduce their total bid by 2 billion us dollars that is impressive but still a billion more than what spacex is asking for this discount as well is upfront in that they will work for free until this amount is used in the current and the next two fiscal years that means that any further request by nasa to congress for more hls funding is most likely not required for now on top of that they also offer development and testing beyond the current proposal and will accept a fixed price contract something that other businesses could certainly be starting to adopt now saying all of this i'm a tad skeptical about blue origin's ability to actually deliver a working hls in time after all their current state of development is well kind of suborbital i just don't think we've seen evidence of new gland progress that would really support this we've only really seen at this point what seems to be pathfinders in their large rather empty construction floors i suspect spacex's success so far with these starship programs seems to have inspired jeff to follow a second stage reusability model as well according to eric berger from ars technica a new design believed to be named project jarvis has been an interesting talking point this project will focus on developing a reasonable upper stage for new glenn and it's supposed to be operational in the middle of the 2020s and also use stainless steel for its tanks learning from the current kings of innovation right there and even inspiration from relativity space perhaps with their terran r planned for 2024 so wow that is another amazing week of space 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 discount thank you most of all to you right there you could be a regular viewer of our content or a patron or youtube member supporting what we do or you could be picking up some gear from our merch store including this shirt that you see here that design is also available in a wide range of products and clothing styles no matter how you support know that it contributes significantly to what we do and it allows us to increase the time that we can collectively spend in research editing and quality control if you like what we're doing and you'd like to help assist us with what we do directly you can join as a youtube member by the join button below or you can also become a patron at patreon.com marcus house either of those two options gives you access to chat with us more directly by the linked roles on our discord server you can also have your names listed right here like these other amazing people and you also get earlier and ad-free access to these videos to watch before anyone else does a huge thanks to the production crew here for helping me research and proof the material for these videos if you're interested in these topics and you would also like to keep up to date remember to subscribe here below and to follow me on twitter at marcus house in the tile in the bottom left today we have my midweek video which was all about hls and what it can achieve 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
2021-08-05