SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virigin Galactic and other Private Space Companies Thread

[Elderberry]

SpaceX Kicks Off Starship Super Heavy Booster Test Campaign With A Tank Proof Test

TESMANIAN  by Evelyn Arevalo June 09, 2021

https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/bn-star

On Tuesday afternoon, SpaceX kicked off the Starship Super Heavy booster’s test campaign with a proof test of a tank referred to as ‘BN2.1’. During the cryogenic proof test, the stainless-steel tank was subjected to extremely low temperatures as it was filled with liquid nitrogen. This test is conducted causes the tank to experience high-pressure to simulate the stress it would experience during a flight to space. The test helps engineers assess the tank’s structural strength and provides them with insight to know whether the tank’s construction technique and design needs improvement. Testing a smaller tank is better than risking an entire booster if they come across an issue. After finishing all tests with BN2.1, engineers can implement what they learned to prepare the Super Heavy Booster 2 prototype for testing.

Meanwhile, the Starbase facility continues to expand and the company is moving quickly to assemble the launch tower that will support the booster. Super Heavy must be capable of being rapidly reusable, for that purpose SpaceX will design a launch tower that could quickly ‘catch’ the booster as it returns from orbit with a propulsive descent. The final version of Super Heavy will be the most powerful rocket in the world, with over 30 methane-fueled Raptor engines it will generate over 16 million pounds of thrust – which is over twice the thrust of the Saturn V rocket that launched the Apollo missions to the lunar surface. Musk shared they plan to test “29 Raptors on [the] booster initially, rising to 32 later this year, along with thrust increase per engine [...]," he said. SpaceX aims to perform the first orbital flight test with the Starship Super Heavy duo this summer, no earlier than July 1st. If the company obtains regulatory approval, they could attempt to launch the vehicle from Starbase in Texas to orbit, then land it off the coast of Hawaii. You can watch SpaceX Starship development progress Live in the video below, courtesy of LabPadre via YouTube.

[Elderberry]

SpaceX Starship Phase 3 begins! First test candidate at Launch Site!

 What about it!?  6/8/2021


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL1aqlXJJSs

[Elderberry]

Splashy plans: SpaceX foresees water launches/landings

My RGV By Steve Clark - The Brownsville Herald - June 9, 2021

https://myrgv.com/local-news/2021/06/09/making-a-splash-spacex-plans-for-water-launches-landings/

SpaceX’s first orbital flight of a Starship prototype will launch from the company’s production/test site at Boca Chica and wind up in the water — on purpose.

According to a document SpaceX filed with the Federal Communications Commission last month, the massive Super Heavy booster stage used to push the Starship spacecraft into orbit will separate approximately two minutes and 10 seconds into the flight and land in the Gulf of Mexico about 20 miles offshore from Boca Chica.

The orbital Starship will continue flying between the Florida straits and, once in orbit, will execute a powered, targeted, soft ocean landing roughly 62 miles off the northwest coast of Kauai, Hawaii, according to the FCC filing. From launch to splashdown off the Hawaiian coast will take about 90 minutes, said SpaceX, which provided no launch date.

---

Meanwhile, the company is preparing for offshore launches and landings using converted offshore oil-drilling platforms. SpaceX well over a year ago began advertising for offshore operations engineers to “work as part of a team of engineers and technicians to design and build an operational offshore rocket launch facility.”

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk tweeted last July that “SpaceX is building floating, superheavy-class spaceports for Mars, moon & hypersonic travel around Earth.” He also commented that the launch and landing of Starship/Super Heavy (collectively “Starship”) “are not subtle” and that to protect heavily populated areas from extreme noise levels the offshore launches would have to take place many miles from the coast.

[thackney]

...soft ocean landing roughly 62 miles off the northwest coast of Kauai, Hawaii,...

@Elderberry

Do you know the reasoning for not landing in the Gulf and save transport costs?

[Elderberry]

@Elderberry

Do you know the reasoning for not landing in the Gulf and save transport costs?

There are No transport costs. It will be a simulated "soft landing" into the ocean.

I have not seen the orbital trajectory of the flight. It would probably take several orbits to be able to land back at Boca Chica.

[thackney]

There are No transport costs. It will be a simulated "soft landing" into the ocean.

I have not seen the orbital trajectory of the flight. It would probably take several orbits to be able to land back at Boca Chica.

Thank you

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Splashy plans: SpaceX foresees water launches/landings

My RGV By Steve Clark - The Brownsville Herald - June 9, 2021

https://myrgv.com/local-news/2021/06/09/making-a-splash-spacex-plans-for-water-launches-landings/

SpaceX’s first orbital flight of a Starship prototype will launch from the company’s production/test site at Boca Chica and wind up in the water — on purpose.

According to a document SpaceX filed with the Federal Communications Commission last month, the massive Super Heavy booster stage used to push the Starship spacecraft into orbit will separate approximately two minutes and 10 seconds into the flight and land in the Gulf of Mexico about 20 miles offshore from Boca Chica.

The orbital Starship will continue flying between the Florida straits and, once in orbit, will execute a powered, targeted, soft ocean landing roughly 62 miles off the northwest coast of Kauai, Hawaii, according to the FCC filing. From launch to splashdown off the Hawaiian coast will take about 90 minutes, said SpaceX, which provided no launch date.

---

Meanwhile, the company is preparing for offshore launches and landings using converted offshore oil-drilling platforms. SpaceX well over a year ago began advertising for offshore operations engineers to “work as part of a team of engineers and technicians to design and build an operational offshore rocket launch facility.”

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk tweeted last July that “SpaceX is building floating, superheavy-class spaceports for Mars, moon & hypersonic travel around Earth.” He also commented that the launch and landing of Starship/Super Heavy (collectively “Starship”) “are not subtle” and that to protect heavily populated areas from extreme noise levels the offshore launches would have to take place many miles from the coast.

Wow they really like the mock up sketches to look cyberpunk huh?

[Elderberry]

SpaceX Starship Orbital Test likely to miss July! Why? | FAA defends SpaceX in front of Congress


ENGINEERING TODAY  6/21/2021

SpaceX Starship Orbital Test likely to miss July! Why  FAA defends SpaceX in front of Congress

Hello Friends, Welcome back to another episode by Engineering Today and hope you are doing well. Today we have four updates to share. Our first update is based on the probable delay in orbital launch progress. Secondly we will talk about FAA defending SpaceX in front of Congress. Our next update is about Launcher’s new satellite platform. Lastly we will talk about the launch of Yaogan-30 satellites and Tianqi-14.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFShub4t5nI

[Elderberry]

Elon Musk says SpaceX’s second Starship booster prototype is almost finished

TESLARATI  By Eric Ralph 6/25/2021

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says that the second Starship booster prototype is “almost done” and has revealed that work on the first flightworthy booster has yet to begin.

For unknown reasons, SpaceX has recently changed the naming scheme for Starship and Super Heavy boosters. The booster SpaceX is currently assembling in Boca Chica has been referred to as “Booster 2” by Musk himself but, according to NASASpaceflight, is internally known as Booster 3 or B3, replacing its former Booster Number 3 (BN3) designation.

Regardless, SpaceX began stacking the Super Heavy booster prototype now known as B3 in mid-May. Around six weeks later, 23 or 24 rings have been stacked to create a partially finished prototype 9m (~30 ft) wide and approximately 42m (~140 ft) tall.

We’re almost done with first prototype booster. This will go to test stand A. Next one will fly to orbit. Team has been crushing it many days & nights in a row!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 25, 2021

Super Heavy Booster forward dome with some interesting new modifications. Booster 2 lifted in High Bay for stacking on aft section. Also, what looks like a starship forward dome was sleeved with the unknown section from yesterday. Maybe some kind of test tank? @NASASpaceflight pic.twitter.com/n8Attvv7X7

— Jack Beyer (@thejackbeyer) June 15, 2021

Just like Super Heavy ‘pathfinder’ BN1, which was scrapped almost the instant it reached its full height last March, Booster 3 appears to destined to stand 36 rings – 65m (~215 ft) – tall once complete. While drastically oversimplifying the process of vertically assembling the largest rocket booster ever built, that means that Super Heavy B3 is just shy of two-thirds (~65%) complete.

More: https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starship-booster-prototype-progress-elon-musk/

[Elderberry]

SpaceX's Mechazilla Rises, Starliner Prepares, Nauka Launch, Wally Funk's flight to Space

 Marcus House Jul 24, 2021

Not only did we see Raptor action this week with SpaceX’s record-sized rocket booster, but we witnessed the launch of Russia’s Nauka Laboratory for the International Space Station. Better late than never. We have updates on Hubble's Trouble and Rocket Lab’s anomaly review. The Dragon has been tamed yet again, and of course, we had the first crewed flight of New Shepard with Wally Funk’s long-awaited ride to space. Quite the action-packed week right there!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZv6JYdZEeA

[Elderberry]

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reveals Starship factory upgrade plans

TESLARATI  By Eric Ralph 7/26/2021

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-elon-musk-starship-factory-new-high-bay/

CEO Elon Musk says that SpaceX is about to begin the construction of “a much larger high bay” adjacent to the existing structure, an 82m (~270 ft) tall building used to complete assembly of Starship and Super Heavy boosters.

    Construction starts soon on a much larger high bay just north of current high bay
    — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2021

    Only a little taller, but much bigger base & two gantry cranes that run full span
    — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 26, 2021

According to Musk, the newest addition to SpaceX’s arsenal of Starship production facilities will be located “just north” of an existing high bay, which measures approximately 30m by 25m (100′ x 80′). Most importantly, Boca Chica’s high bay is tall enough for SpaceX to use a bridge crane to stack 50m (165′) Starships and ~70m (~230′) Super Heavy boosters – far more efficient and protected than using wheeled or tracked cranes to assemble rockets out in the open.

Construction of the existing high bay began in May 2020 and was more or less complete by the start of 2021. The structure was truly finished in April 2021 with the installation of a heavy-duty bridge crane, though work continues to this day on what CEO Elon Musk has described as a bar and viewing area to be located at the top of the bay.

Musk’s assertion that the new facility will be “much larger” can be interpreted a number of ways. There’s a distant possibility that SpaceX will build a true NASA-style Vehicle Assembly Building like the colossal VAB used to fully assembled Saturn V and the Space Shuttle at Kennedy Space Center. For Starship, that would require a structure at least ~130m (~430 ft) tall – more than 50% taller than the current ‘high bay’.

[Elderberry]

Jeff Bezos is offering to cover billions in costs if NASA remedies its 'mistake' and gives Blue Origin the chance to compete with SpaceX again for a moon-lander contract

Yahoo News by Grace Kay 7/26/2021

https://www.yahoo.com/news/jeff-bezos-offering-cover-billions-153139228.html

•  Bezos sent an open letter to NASA offering to cover $2 billion for the Human Landing System program.

•  Blue Origin's offer would help it compete with SpaceX for a $2.9 billion NASA contract.

•  In the letter, Bezos criticizes NASA's original decision to select SpaceX as the sole winner.

Jeff Bezos' space company is offering to cover billions of dollars in costs for a contract with NASA to take astronauts to the moon.

Blue Origin said it would cover up to $2 billion for the first two years of production of a moon lander, waiving payments for the first two years if NASA awards the company the project.

The company is also offering to develop and launch a pathfinder mission at its own expense, as well as work with NASA on a fixed-price contract, which would free the space agency from any cost overages.

The offer could make a contract with Blue Origin a cheaper option than one with Elon Musk's company. SpaceX was originally handed the NASA contract for the Human Landing System program in April. NASA was forced to suspend the contract in May after Bezos' company filed a protest against the $2.9 billion contract, calling it "unfair." The contract will remain suspended until rulings have been made on the protests.

In an open letter to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on Monday, Bezos highlighted his commitment to keeping the Human Landing System program competitive by having NASA select two companies to build machinery to take astronauts to the moon instead of just one. Before selecting a single winner of the contest, NASA had given 10-month contracts to SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Dynetics to begin work on lunar landers so the agency could pick from a variety of options.

[GtHawk]

Jeff Bezos is offering to cover billions in costs if NASA remedies its 'mistake' and gives Blue Origin the chance to compete with SpaceX again for a moon-lander contract

Yahoo News by Grace Kay 7/26/2021

https://www.yahoo.com/news/jeff-bezos-offering-cover-billions-153139228.html

Do you go with the cheaper less successful company that has taken longer to reach milestones that have been met and surpassed by a competitor who started later or do you stick with the proven innovator setting new standards in spaceflight? Save money or proven innovator? Someone who outperforms the schedule or someone who fails to meet schedules? How much is an astronauts life worth?

[Elderberry]

Hotels near capacity as several hundred SpaceX employees arrive in Brownsville in preparation for orbital launch

Valley Central by  Gaby Moreno 7/29/2021

https://www.valleycentral.com/news/local-news/hotels-near-capacity-as-several-hundred-spacex-employees-arrive-in-brownsville-in-preparation-for-orbital-launch/

Development at the SpaceX Boca Chica launch site is ramping up under orders from company CEO Elon Musk, in an effort to finish the orbital launch tower and stack the starship and booster prototypes before launching into orbit. Musk has called on several hundred employees from other SpaceX sites to temporarily relocate to the area until the project is finished. 

In the effort to launch the fully stacked Starship SN20 and Super Heavy B4 prototypes into orbit, Musk has called on 500 employees from SpaceX sites in Hawthorn, California, Cape Canaveral, Florida, and McGregor, Texas, to relocate to the Brownsville/Boca Chica area temporarily.

Musk’s ambitious goals to reach orbit by July have been delayed, but supplemental employees have been arriving in Brownsville to help finish constructing the orbital launch tower that will support the starship and booster, as well as the vehicle itself.

[Elderberry]

Space start-up Varda, founded by SpaceX and Founders Fund veterans, aims to build factories in orbit

CNBC by Michael Sheetz 7/29/2021

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/29/varda-space-raises-over-50-million-to-build-space-factories.html

Varda Space Industries, a start-up founded less than a year ago by a pair with experience at Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, has now raised more than $50 million as it works toward its first mission in the first quarter of 2023.

“The Varda mission is to build the first space factory – essentially the first industrial park on orbit,” CEO Will Bruey, who spent much of the past decade working on SpaceX’s Cargo Dragon spacecraft, told CNBC.

Varda raised $42 million in a round led by Khosla Ventures and Caffeinated Capital, and joined by investors including Lux Capital, General Catalyst, and Founders Fund. With $11 million raised in a prior seed round, the company has brought in $53 million since its founding eight months ago.

[Elderberry]

SpaceX is building Starship’s first orbital-class booster at a breakneck pace

TESLARATI  By Eric Ralph 7/30/2021

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starship-booster-production-breakneck-pace/

Within the last week, SpaceX’s South Texas Starship factory appears to have kicked things into high gear and are now assembling the first orbital-class Super Heavy booster prototype at a breakneck pace.

While the assembly of the Super Heavy known as Booster 4 (B4) wasn’t too dissimilar to what CEO Elon Musk described as a “very hard” build of Booster 3 up to last week, work on the rocket has visibly accelerated. Since January 2020, the process of building Starships and Super Heavy boosters has been fairly simple. Both onsite and offsite, raw materials (mostly sheet steel) are cut, bent, and welded into relatively small parts that then make their way to (or around) Boca Chica by truck, forklift, or crane.

With the help of jigs and good amount of automation, the resulting hardware is then welded together to form domes, header tanks, transfer tubes, tank barrels, flaps, and more. Once subassembly is complete, those integrated rocket sections are reinforced with stringers, ribs, and baffles and outfitted with mechanisms, hardpoints, brackets, plumbing, and more. Finally, final assembly – better known as stacking and by far the most visible step – can begin and technicians stack each of those premade segments on top of each other to form a complete Starship or Super Heavy.

While part fabrication and subassembly integration takes weeks or months on its own, those earlier steps can be done more or less simultaneously, meaning that SpaceX can prepare sections for several different ships and boosters at the same time. For the last six or so months,at any given moment, SpaceX has had 40-60+ rings in work as part of 15-20+ different ring ‘sections’ visible all across Starbase.

Respectively, each Starship and Super Heavy booster require 20 and 36 rings apiece, while each of the propellant storage tanks SpaceX is building itself for the rocket’s first orbital launch pad require 12-15. All told, SpaceX usually has a combination of around 3-5 ships, boosters, and GSE tanks in some stage of assembly. Unsurprisingly, some assembly is harder than others and building the first in a series of prototypes has almost invariably taken far longer than the later average that develops.


                  Booster 3      Booster 4
LOx tank start     May 20th       July 16th
LOx tank finish    June 18th      July 31st?
CH4 tank start     June 24th      July 28th
CH4 tank finish    June 27th      July 29th
Final stack        June 29th      Aug 1st?

In that sense, it’s not a huge surprise that SpaceX’s Booster 4 assembly has quickly surpassed the pace set with Booster 3 less than a month earlier. SpaceX began stacking Super Heavy B3 around May 20th, starting with the rocket’s aft liquid oxygen (LOx) tank. Five separate stacks are required to turn the LOx tank’s 23 steel rings into a single structure – a process that took SpaceX about a month with Booster 3.

[DB]

Thank you @Elderberry for keeping us informed.

[Idiot]

SpaceX is building Starship’s first orbital-class booster at a breakneck pace

TESLARATI  By Eric Ralph 7/30/2021

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starship-booster-production-breakneck-pace/

SpaceX stacked the launch table on it's legs today.  Pretty amazing watching those HUGE cranes work together to lift that incredibly heavy table.

[Elderberry]

SpaceX installs 29 engines on giant Super Heavy Mars rocket (photos)

Space.com by By Mike Wall 8/2/2021

https://www.space.com/spacex-super-heavy-engines-installed-photos

The company is gearing up for the first orbital test flight of its Starship system.

Starship is powering up.

SpaceX plans to launch the first orbital test flight of Starship, its reusable deep-space transportation system, in the next few months from the company's South Texas site, near the Gulf Coast village of Boca Chica.

The company has made significant strides toward that milestone in the past few days, getting Starship's giant first-stage booster, known as Super Heavy, ready to fly.

"Installing Starship booster engines for first orbital flight," SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said via Twitter yesterday (Aug. 1) in a post that included a photo of the rocket, with himself holding his young son nearby. And today (Aug. 2), Musk tweeted a close-up photo of Super Heavy's base, which is now bristling with Raptor engines.

Super Heavy will initially sport 29 Raptors, and future versions will have 32 of the engines, Musk has said. Starship's upper stage, a 165-foot-tall (50 meters) spacecraft called Starship, will be powered by six additional Raptors.

[Cyber Liberty]

Good Lord!  That beast is huge.  29 Raptors?   

[Elderberry]

TESLARATI
@Teslarati
SpaceX's first flightworthy Starship booster has been fitted with 29 Raptor engines and could roll to the launch pad tomorrow

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.

[Cyber Liberty]

I reiterate:  Good Lord!

[Elderberry]

SpaceX Full-Stack is Cancelled Due to High Winds, But Musk Says 'Mechazilla' Is the Answer

Tech Times by Isaiah Richard 8/5/2021

SpaceX has attempted to do a full-stack earlier today, but was greeted with high winds and eventually got canceled on its trial. This led the public and its fans to fear the future of the full-stack flights with the actual spacecraft, one that would tower in Boca Chica. However, Elon Musk said that there should not be any panic as they have "Mechazilla."

Sadly, the Starship and the Super Heavy Booster rocket get to see another day without getting on top of each other-to serve its purpose of soon going to Mars.

Yes, you heard that right; SpaceX's first attempt to stack its Mars spacecraft atop each other gets canceled, and the Full-Stack further its wait for people to see the enormous combination.

Yes, you heard that right; SpaceX's first attempt to stack its Mars spacecraft atop each other gets canceled, and the Full-Stack further its wait for people to see the enormous combination.

The public was promised the full-stack in July, but that did not happen, as preparations made by SpaceX only started last month, as seen on Musk's tweets.

More: https://www.techtimes.com/articles/263817/20210805/spacex-full-stack-cancelled-due-high-winds-musk-mechazilla-answer.htm

[Elderberry]

https://www.space.com/spacex-super-heavy-lifted-launch-stand-photos

[Elderberry]

LIVE: Starship Prototype Ship 20 Stacked on Super Heavy


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B2_dfvRZ4M