August 2 to 8
SpaceX outfits first orbital-class Starship booster with grid fins, Raptor engines
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In the space of two days, SpaceX has outfitted Starship’s first orbital-class Super Heavy booster with four car-sized grid fins, stacked the rocket to its full height, and begun the process of installing up to 29 Raptor engines.
As part of what CEO Elon Musk has described as a “Starbase Surge,” SpaceX has reportedly sent hundreds of employees normaly stationed in California, Florida, and Central Texas to Boca Chica. There, SpaceX has been working for months to build Starship’s first orbital launch pad and first orbital-class ship and booster and prepare all three for an inaugural “Orbital Test Flight” as quickly as possible. Originally scheduled to occur no later than July 2021, Musk’s extremely ambitious target unsurprisingly came and went but SpaceX appears to be well on its way to an “aim for the Moon; miss; fall among the stars” situation as all the parts of Starship’s orbital launch debut begin to come together.
In the last few days, it’s become abundantly clear that SpaceX is likely moving faster than even its most optimistic followers expected.
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Booster B4 has been stacked in the high bay. Look at those grid fins! 🤩🚀@NASASpaceflight pic.twitter.com/9NRwNJIngO
— Mary (@BocaChicaGal) August 1, 2021
Installing Starship booster engines for first orbital flight pic.twitter.com/yhqrNFBclh
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 2, 2021
https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-orb...-fins-raptors/
SpaceX installs more than two dozen Super Heavy Raptor engines in one night
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In a virtually unprecedented feat of engineering and rocketry, SpaceX appears to have installed a full 29 Raptor engines on Starship’s first flightworthy Super Heavy booster in a single evening.
After accepting delivery of five new Raptor engines earlier the same day, Super Heavy Booster 4’s (B4) first Raptor rolled out of one of SpaceX’s Starship factory tents around 6pm CDT to form what would become a line of engines awaiting installation. One by one, Raptors were rolled out of that tent and by 5am CDT, an incredible 25 engines had been spotted and installed on Super Heavy. Come shift handoff around 6am, 27 Raptors had reportedly been installed in 12 hours. The two remaining engines likely joined them an hour or two later, marking 29 high-performance rocket engines installed in just 12-14 hours.
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🚨 #BREAKING 🚨
RB7 is being prepared to be mounted to BN4.#Spacexnews #spacex #starbase #starship pic.twitter.com/1JuNp9IATv
— Nic Ansuini (@NicAnsuini) August 1, 2021
Raptors on Super Heavy pic.twitter.com/jJy1vftHNB
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 2, 2021
https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-sup...ors-installed/
SpaceX’s NASA Starship contract prevails over frivolous Blue Origin, Dynetics protests
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The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has thrown out frivolous protests filed by Blue Origin and Dynetics after NASA awarded SpaceX a $2.9B contract to develop a crewed Starship Moon lander.
In mid-April, NASA announced that it had chosen SpaceX and SpaceX alone to develop a Starship-derived lander capable of returning humanity to the Moon more than half a century after astronauts last stepped foot on Earth’s neighbor. Ultimately, in the context of dismal Congressional support, NASA analyzed proposals submitted by SpaceX, Dynetics, and a Blue Origin-led team and concluded that Congress had only provided enough funding for the space agency to pick a single provider.
By awarding more than one contract, NASA could feasibly ensure – like it did with its Commercial Crew and Cargo programs – that a delay or failure of one vehicle wouldn’t guarantee a program-wide delay. However, thanks to Congress appropriating a pathetic $850M (1/4th) of the $3.4B NASA requested for Human Landing System (HLS) development, awarding two contracts would guarantee that HLS would be delayed years beyond its 2024 target for a crewed Moon landing. Ultimately, though NASA had demonstrated a desire to proceed with more than one HLS provider, the agency unsurprisingly concluded that it would have to pick only the best of the three competitors.
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In a wholly unexpected twist, NASA ultimately determined that SpaceX’s Starship proposal was simultaneously the cheapest and the most competent of the three, rating above or equal to Blue Origin and Dynetics in two main categories. Unsurprisingly, NASA thus chose to award an HLS “Option A” contract to SpaceX alone, citing the agency’s own repeated qualifications that its desire to make multiple awards was “dependent upon funding availability.”
It eventually became clear that Blue Origin’s proposal – the second cheapest, according to NASA – had requested more than $6 billion, making it more than twice as expensive as SpaceX’s offering. In her selection statement, NASA Associate Administrator Kathy Lueders (former head of the extraordinarily successful Commercial Crew Program) noted that the funding left after SpaceX’s $2.94B award was “so insubstantial” that it would have been insulting and a waste of time to even attempt to negotiate Blue Origin’s $6B request down to a feasible number.
https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-nas...rotest-denied/
SpaceX reveals first orbital Starship with six Raptor engines
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CEO Elon Musk has published a photo showing six Raptors – including three vacuum-optimized engines – installed on a Starship prototype for the first time
For the second time in less than five weeks, SpaceX has also transported a brand new Starship booster (known as Super Heavy) from its Boca Chica factory to a launch site and testing facilities just down the road.
pic.twitter.com/nNjhPIEhcZ
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 3, 2021
All 6 engines mounted to first orbital Starship pic.twitter.com/l5QnQRSg3D
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 4, 2021
https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-sta...e-six-raptors/
Starbase Tour with Elon Musk [PART 1]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t705r8ICkRw
4 Breakthrough designs of Starship 20 are unlike others. B4 & S20 Ready for Orbital flight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-1p1RNdfNQ
SpaceX installs booster on launch pad, stacks orbital Starship to full height
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Hours after SpaceX outfitted the first orbital Starship prototype with all six of its Raptor engines, the company has installed the vehicle’s nose section, effectively completing its basic structure.
At the same time as teams are now working around the clock to weld Starship S20’s nose and tank sections together, SpaceX attached the first orbital-class Super Heavy – Booster 4 (B4) – to a massive crane that lives at the launch pad. Around 3pm CDT (UTC-5), after allowing a minor storm to pass through the area, Super Heavy B4 lifted free from its transport stand, raised 30-40 meters into the air, and was carefully lowered onto the orbital pad’s ‘launch table.’
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S20 undergoes stacking in the high bay!! Hopefully this rolls out soon! Since I won’t be here, follow @NicAnsuini for that coverage! pic.twitter.com/36u88cLTl3
— Austin DeSisto (@AustinDeSisto) August 4, 2021
Moving rocket to orbital launch pad pic.twitter.com/zZLiXIPD6M
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 4, 2021
https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-sup...rship-stacked/
SpaceX is about to stack Starship on a Super Heavy booster for the first time
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After a slight delay, CEO Elon Musk says that SpaceX is now on track to stack a complete Starship prototype on top of a Super Heavy booster for the first time ever as early as Friday morning.
In the latest stage of SpaceX’s continually impressive “Starbase Surge,” the company rolled the first orbital-class Starship prototype’s aft tank section from its birthplace in the factory “midbay” to a much larger “high bay” around noon on August 3rd. Mere hours later, Elon Musk revealed that SpaceX had fitted the Starship with a full six Raptors – a first for any Starship prototype, though Super Heavy Booster 4 technically beat it to the punch with the installation of a staggering 29 Raptor engines hours prior.
The rocket’s conical nose section joined it in the high bay later that evening and SpaceX wasted no time stacking and welding the two Starship halves together early on August 4th, effectively completing the basic structure of Ship 20 (S20). After a day of final integration work, Starship S20 left the high bay around dawn on August 5th and took to the highway for a brief trip from SpaceX’s Boca Chica factory to launch and testing facilities just a mile and a half to the east.
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Starship 20 rolling! pic.twitter.com/j40bEMfPRr
— Starship Gazer (@StarshipGazer) August 5, 2021
Winds are too high today. Looks like wind speed will be low enough to stack early tomorrow morning.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 5, 2021
https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-sta...ack-scheduled/
Starship 20 rolls out to stack on Super Heavy Booster 4. Can't wait to see what's crazy coming.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c6p...EDYRuT&index=1
SpaceX ‘sleeves’ Starship-derived propellant tank for the first time – here’s why
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In a small but important step towards activating a pad capable of launching the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, SpaceX has ‘sleeved’ one of its Starship-derived propellant storage tanks for the first time.
Starship is a fully-reusable, two-stage liquid rocket designed to ultimately cut the cost of orbital launch by at least one magnitude, opening the door for humanity’s sustainable expansion to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and even beyond. To accomplish that lofty feat, it has to be a massive rocket. Measuring approximately 120m (~395 ft) tall and 9m (~30 ft) wide, Starship and Super Heavy will weigh on the order of 300 metric tons (~675,000 lb) when empty.
Once filled to the brim with cryogenic liquid methane (CH4) and liquid oxygen (LOx) propellant and gas, though, a two-stage Starship will easily weigh more than 5000 tons (11 million lb) shortly before and after liftoff. Further, SpaceX wants to be able to launch at least two Starships from Boca Chica in rapid succession. To meet the staggering needs of back-to-back Starship launches, SpaceX has thus had to design and build what will be the world’s largest launch pad tank farm.
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First GSE Tank sleeving is happening now!
What a day!#Spacexnews #spacex #starbase #starship pic.twitter.com/jUhEYYHQdH
— Nic Ansuini (@NicAnsuini) August 5, 2021
Cryo shell going on: pic.twitter.com/DaAG2Guauw
— Starship Gazer (@StarshipGazer) August 5, 2021
https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-sle...-storage-tank/
SpaceX Starship Fully Stacked for the first time, Starliner and Starlink Updates
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS0s0rI5UKg
Ship 20 Stacked on top of Super Heavy Booster 4 for the First Time | SpaceX Boca Chica
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXxM6Thj5YI
Starbase Tour with Elon Musk [PART 2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA8ZBJWo73E
NSF Live: Discussing a historic week for Starship with Tim Dodd the Everyday Astronaut
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyfTZEqP8_g
How SpaceX Designed A Heat Shield For The Largest Spacecraft Ever Built
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Lsbi-bVfk0
Raptor Engines Removed from Ship 20 | SpaceX Boca Chica
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3Tp8_SKU1s
Musk Said 'Dream come true', Starship 20 & Super Heavy Booster 4 Stacked Breaking World Record.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4GxWFyGPzo
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