SpaceX's Remarkable Full Pressure Test, Starship Sacrificed, & Record Breaking Falcon Heavy Mission
hey hey Marcus has to be here we have got it all today my friends Falcon heavy action in a spectacular record-breaking Mission testing for the first time on starbase's orbital launch Mount since the brutal full stack flight test a little over three months ago Falcon 9 action as always some neat perspectives from Hubble and can Amazon's project kaipa really compete with starlink they sure like to think so based on these construction plans so yes lots to get through today let's get started kicking off right at the launch site the big area of focus on many people's minds is that almighty water Deluge system under the orbital launch Mount although we saw this incredible sight just the week prior what has happened since then on Thursday SpaceX shared this informing us that the very first full pressure test of the new water Deluge system was planned for Friday sure enough as promised the launch complex began clearing the next morning with workers beginning to leave the main pad gate at noon before we knew it the big moment came with the full pressure Deluge test being caught in this incredible view from NASA space flight you can definitely see that this test was performed with much more power the water jets there reaching much higher than in the first test and wow this was an epic test because you can even see the water reaching beyond the tank farm berm here with all that being very successful looking the icing on the cake was from SpaceX themselves look at this slow motion footage they've actually configured the holes so that loads of water flow is coming right up underneath each engine we then have another more elevated view posted later which may be The Pick of them all can you believe that three months ago this was just a massive crater well hopefully this puts the doubts about this system to rest I just can't wait to see how this performs during a static fire and of course a launch speaking of the orbital launch Mount it's been another busy week late Saturday night the work platform was lowered from its raised position down to the top of the steel Deluge plight all in advance of expected cryo testing on booster 9. sure enough on Sunday morning after the roads closed the orbital tank Farms span into action this was the first big test since the huge damage around the site during the first flight test I mean just look at those sub coolers go the great thing is that this process was about as smooth as could be almost as if nothing had been damaged at all the launch Mount joined in next venting out cold gas as the cryogenic liquid slowly moved along the pipes as usual the venting began its waterfall as the liquid propellant got closer to the vent and once almost pure liquid had begun flowing out the vent was shut off and the propellant load had begun we were also treated to some grid fin action from the booster itself and I think that we get a great perspective of just the sheer scale of the super heavy from this you the grid fins are so large that the banging sound that you can hear is simply them clunking as they change direction there was the frost first appearing on the liquid oxygen tank and just under 30 minutes later on the methane tank as well it is worth a quick reminder that in these cryogenic load tests the methane tank is actually being filled with liquid nitrogen not liquid methane this lets them test as much as possible without the risk of fuel igniting or just unnecessarily polluting the air with extra methane by accident using it here would be a dangerous gamble given that this is the first big load test on a new vehicle SpaceX only need to load the liquid methane when a static fire or a full launch is planned now you can actually tell methane was not loaded for this test because the assigned recondensa was not active and the subcoolers on this side of the tank farm weren't venting as strongly as they would when super cooling that Starship fuel so a little over an hour later the upper tank load was complete with the liquid oxygen following it around 10 minutes later that is an incredible achievement given that only a little over three months have passed since the numerous repairs began booster 9 continued to hold here fully filled for over two hours and this I suspect was so that the engineers could gather and compare all the data that they could SpaceX tweeted out or xed out if that's the current terminology this image of booster 9 as it held its propellant beautiful shot there as the booster slowly detanked over the course of the afternoon now on Monday the next day the Raptor installation and removal platform was reassembled near the payload processing facility and the engine removal jig was moved to the pad on the same day now this was a little concerning with all signs pointing to a raptor removal less than 24 hours after the cryo test saying that removing and installing Raptor engines is arguably easier with the booster out on the pad with more space available here perhaps in this case an engine swap had been scheduled in for quite some time so the launch site wasn't all about booster activity we also witnessed the ship quick disconnect interface being extended for the first time since its upgrades we can now see that it has been moved quite a bit higher this is necessary as the panel that it connects with on the ship will be higher as well given the addition of a booster hot staging ring additionally a new protection was being lifted into place in the drawworks Hoist area which controls the raising and the lowering of the tower Arms This reinforcement didn't fare too well after the first launch with huge chunks of concrete being slammed right through the armored wall hopefully this one is going to fare much better right time to head over to the build site just like a booster 10 did a little over a week ago after it completed its testing at the Massey site this ended up in the Rocket Garden temporarily and next up we should see some final upgrades and the installation of its 33 Raptor engines in the megabay SpaceX once again sending an ax oh boy does that sound stupid posting Onyx this image of it with the wonderful view around masses during the testing we have Starship 30 now underway recently its payload base section was moved into the highway with its nose cone joining it less than 24 hours later for stacking zooming in you can see that this ship no longer has the hexagon tiled communication antennas on its nose like we've seen on past ships instead the antenna now looks to be relocated below the payload bay door now we left off last week's video showing the fourth level of the new Mega Bay being completed and this week the fifth was well underway this is the final level of the bay part of the building and wow is it going up fast with the first section of the first level only being lifted into place about 47 days ago ship 27 destruction continued this week with its nose cone being lifted as shown in this image by RGV aerial photography just look over here as I described last week this common Dome really took quite of a beating in fact it looks like the Dome had been ruptured upwards for this to happen we assume that the liquid oxygen tank must have remained pressurized while the liquid methane tank was depressurized again it is still unclear whether or not this was an intentional test or not what I will say though is that we've seen a heck of a lot of rollouts and vehicle staging events over the last few years so it'd be quite the shock if this was an accident one popular theory is that this ship was turned into a flight termination System test article why would that be though well perhaps to demonstrate how well the propellants in both tanks would mix if they blew the common Dome out this way all still speculation though so hopefully we're going to have an answer on this some point soon ship 27 sadly hasn't been the only ship being instructed this week as spacex's destructive gaze turned to the old sn15 vehicle 813 days before sn15 would be the very first Starship prototype to propulsively land and survive in one piece all after its suborbital hop to 10 kilometers in altitude soon after that SpaceX had relocated it to the Rocket Garden where it has been sitting all this time sadly that has come to an end this week with the crane being hooked up and teams starting to cut up the Raceway as the sun set for the last time over the ship its fate had been sealed overnight the scrapping continued further with SpaceX cutting the forward Dome section off from the nose and the payload Bay goodbye sn15 you have been a great source of inspiration for so many of us the best that we can do is hope that at least some of its parts like the forward flaps will be kept and put up for display somewhere now on Tuesday last week a single ring was moved into the mid Bay ahead of stacking with the s24.2 structural test article hopefully the stacking went well this time as the last attempt in the high Bay was aborted for an unknown reason but the stacking was then reattempted this week with SpaceX lifting it onto the single ring inside the mid Bay now some of you may be wondering why exactly SpaceX would need a single ring like this as it's not part of an actual vehicle we've actually already seen this in the past with the nc31 nose cone test article that they tested over at Massey's this bottom ring essentially ensures that the actual test article above is in no way influenced by the testing rig below plus as an added benefit the hatches provide easy crew access inside and as a support to place things such as strain gauges now with so much activity overall and booster testing now well underway hopefully we aren't too far off the second flight test of a fully stacked Starship it really does feel like it is on the horizon now when do you think that we are going to see this Beast fly again September October later than that maybe one thing that I can say for certain is that we will be here to cover everything we can so that you don't miss anything in the lead up thanks a bunch for sticking with us all this time of course that half million subscriber count is gradually getting closer all because of you I think that we're going to need to do something quite special when we reach that one the big event of the week of course has to be the Falcon heavy launching the Jupiter 3 satellite more impressively this was apparently the heaviest geostationary satellite ever launched at 9.2 metric tons now that might not seem like a huge mess but a geostationary orbit takes about 42 percent more Delta V to reach than low earth orbit due to that you need a gigantic amount of extra propellant to hurl it all the way up into this position and orbit circularized at 35 786 kilometers or 22 236 miles in altitude this was as always a spectacular launch lifting off on Friday last night from launch complex 39a at Kennedy Space Center excitement is always guaranteed with these mind-blowing events right through the ascent but you just can't go past an explosive triple plumage how about that early in the ascent of course the core stage throttles right down to say life propellant while these side boosters use all the margin that they can saving the reserve that they need to return to land booster engines cut off there with the cameras both watching the separation and oh my what a great perspective that always is these boosters completed a lengthy boost back burn to return all the way back to close to where they launched from minutes before landing Zone 1 and Landing Zone 2. meanwhile main engine cutoff from the center core and due to the Delta V requirements mentioned before this one was never expected to make a landing attempt at all SpaceX needed every little bit of performance out of this just to make the mission possible so goodbye booster 1079 a brand new booster on its one and only flight fearing separation from the second stage after that had fired up and there it is the Jupiter 3 satellite built by maxar Technologies for HughesNet interestingly While most of the competition is betting on constellations made up of smaller and more numerous satellites used net seems to be sticking with these gigantic ones to provide their services saying that these geostationary satellites do have their advantages given that they remain stationary in the sky from a viewer's perspective on the ground that is because it takes exactly one sidereal a day to orbit the earth once making them appear stationary this of course only works when orbiting directly above the planet's equator so with these solar panels on each side fully opened up Jupiter 3 measures in at just under 39 meters or 127 feet wide and yes this enormousness will help Jupiter 3 Focus its capacity down to support one specified region in this case the Americas HughesNet aims to reach about 80 percent of the population area across both North and South America Jupiter 3 is also roughly going to double the company's data transfer capacity from all their previous satellites so yes this one alone is capable of speeds around 500 gigabits per second certainly wonderful to see that spectacular Falcon heavy only the seventh flight ever for the Triple core Beast although four of those have all occurred over the past eight months or so really starting to pick up the pace with a falcon Heavy after all this time we had two more separate Falcon 9 launchers go up during the week the first one from Cape Canaveral space force station booster 1076 lifted off here with 22 version 2 mini satellites loaded on board between those fairings only the sixth flight for this booster as it disappeared there into the night sky again stunning views from the second stage which I still think is awesome to study in particular the second stage here with the sun setting behind was just magic this view reminds me of the perspective that Alexi leonov might have had when he drew that first famous picture in orbit anyway when you compare the quality of that feed from the second stage to the booster camera on the left you can really see just how much better that quality is hopefully they'll upgrade the booster cameras here soon too of course there was the textbook landing on the Drone ship and just read the instructions for this Mission and I've been continually hoping that we would see some deployment footage again on one of these version 2 mini missions but sadly only the Glimpse at fairing separation we had more action with the second starlink launch of the week from Cape Canaveral again 22 version 2 mini satellites on board this one here was taking off for the 15th time which also happens to be spacex's 50th launch of the Year 28 of those alone have been Starling missions of course but given that we are only a little over halfway through the year the Cadence just keeps getting better another night Mission this one very similar to the first and we did also get some beautiful photos shared by SpaceX Falcon 9 here rocketing off there with the Falcon heavy still on the pad to fly the next day I will say this rocket nebula cloud is quite the shot too before we knew it we had the usual first stage separation and booster 1062 here made its way back to successfully land on the Drone ship a shortfall of Gravitas the starlink satellites all successfully deployed off camera now while on the topic of colossal satellite networks where is Amazon's project kaipa we haven't seen a lot of activity around this have we but news breaking this week announced that Amazon is building a processing facility for their kaipa satellites at Kennedy Space Center in Florida a 120 million dollar investment to build a facility that will house and integrate these Satellites with the launch vehicles of course these sunlights won't actually be built here as well that will instead happen in their manufacturing facility in Washington state production of those satellites is yet to start however with Amazon aiming to kick off production by the end of this year they've certainly got a lot of ground to catch up on though don't they so far Amazon has secured 83 launches with blue origin's new Glenn Ariane spaces Ariane 6 and ula's Vulcan Center I mean I'd be happy at this point to see the first launch from any of those in that regard ula's Vulcan centaur was supposed to carry two Kuiper test satellites on their first flight hopefully coming by the end of the year still Ariane 6 has been having many delays which had its debut slip to next year and new Glenn is apparently scheduled to make a potential First Flight sometime next year too so we're looking pretty long term here aren't we while talking about awesome Aerospace equipment big thanks once again to Henson shaving supporting today's video for around two decades Henson has dedicated itself to crafting components for Grand Aerospace Endeavors their focus centered around enduring quality since then they also began creating this Hanson razor that is because the Precision that you want in a shave is right up there with the accuracy required for components for projects like the one web constellation or the future EXO Mars Rover I absolutely love this razor and I've been using it now for over a year actually compared to the expensive disposable plastic razors that I used to use which were dull after a few uses this is a solid aluminum machined unit so robust that it will last a lifetime you've probably seen me talking about this a number of times beforehand thanks to the so so many of you all that have expressed just how much you love it too it's nice to know that you are all enjoying a neat quality of life upgrade all you do when one of the double-edged blades needs replacing is unscrew the handle and switch the blade out to be recycled in fact each blade works out to be only about 10 cents each comparatively those expensive plastic cartridge razors continuously have you paying up again and again well if you order here you can pick up a 100 blade pack with your razer for free enough to last you for years go to hensonshaving.com add the Razer in your preferred color and make sure that you have that along with a pack of 100 blades in your cart like this enter in code Marcus in the final step of the checkout process and Bam 100 free blades it is as simple as that and you'll have upgraded your shaving experience to Aerospace grade thank you Henson shaving now you may or may not have spotted some news from rocket lab this week with these new updates on the website showing an evolved Neutron design now subtitled with the mega constellation launcher the idea of course with this rocket is to be the successor to electron but being a larger more cost effective and mostly reusable vehicle previously it looked kind of stubby with a wider base but this now looks a little closer to the base of Falcon 9 with Deployable landing gear these four strikes now stand in for stability which overall should help with re-entry heating issues the deployment renders all seem similar but instead of four petal fairings that open up there now looking at only the two it is nice to see that design evolving what do you think of this new style now I imagine that few of you need reminding of NASA's Dart Mission those incredible scenes where we got to not only witness a colossal impact in space between spacecraft and dimorphos last September but also to observe how the event affected the orbits of dimorphos around its parent asteroid didimus this allowed us to gauge how effective asteroid redirection missions could be after all efforts should certainly be made to save us all from a potential Bruce Willis Armageddon style event in the future now interestingly fresh images from the Hubble Space Telescope have revealed a boulder swarm that now surrounds the little asteroid these little points of life that we can see in this image range in size from 1 meter to 6.7 meters across and they're receding
from the asteroid at a rate of only about one kilometer per hour now these Boulders are some of the faintest objects ever imaged in the solar system representing a tiny tiny fraction of the original Mass from dimorphos itself the more surprising thing is that the origin of most of this debris is not believed to be ejected directly from the impact crater that Dart created but instead from loose Rubble that was shaken off the asteroid's surface due to the sheer amount of seismic shock Rippling through the asteroid during the event it is indeed good evidence that the makeup of the asteroid fits the loose Rubble pile model in this way the test feels less like a hammer and Anvil type test and more of a snooker break it's great to see years of theory and speculation finally having some first-hand data to compare and consider so I hope you enjoyed this video if you did don't forget to hit subscribe so we get to keep making them if you would like to help more directly like these many many Fantastic people all this support makes a colossal difference to us it really does if you want to continue with more space goodness do watch some of our deeper dive videos if you haven't checked them out yet we released a brand new one just a couple of weeks ago here on the left and a few more on the right there that the algorithm thinks that you will enjoy thanks for watching all this way through and I'll see you all in the next video
2023-08-02 10:30
