TESMANIAN by Evelyn Arevalo 4/26/2020
SpaceX is in the initial phase of developing a Starship that will one day transport one hundred passengers to the moon and Mars. The rocket company’s grand vision is building a fleet of 1,000 Starships to send all towards the Red Planet with tons of cargo, over the course of 10 orbital synchronizations with Earth –that is a period of about 20 years to build a sustainable city on Mars by the year 2050. The founder and Chief Engineer at SpaceX, Elon Musk stated:
“A thousand ships will be needed to create a sustainable Mars city. As the planets align only once every two years. So, it will take about 20 years to transfer a million tons to Mars Base Alpha, which is hopefully enough to make it sustainable.â€
Last night, SpaceX South Texas conducted an ambient pressure test of the Starship SN4 vehicle, which is the fourth prototype the company has built to test at Boca Chica Beach, TX this year. The test vehicles are made of stainless-steel; pressure testing is required to ensure the structure meets standards required for flight. Musk wrote via Twitter:
“SN4 passed ambient pressure test. Aiming for cryo [cryogenic] pressure test tonight.â€
Starship SN4 is at the launch pad awaiting the next pressure test, which will be conducted with cryogenic (sub-cooled) liquid nitrogen. During cryogenic pressurization, SN4’s tank will be filled up with sub-cooled liquid nitrogen, to determine if the stainless-steel structure can withstand high pressure. The test also serves to determine the weld quality strength ahead of flight. Starship needs to withstand a pressure in between ~6 and ~8.5 bar strength; A ~6 bar is needed for orbital flight and ~8.5 bar is needed for crewed flights.
More:
https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/ambient-cryo
