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SurfShark VPN for sponsoring today's episode. SpaceX Starship Updates – Waiting for the Hop – Crew Dragon Splash Down Summary
My name is Felix and I am your host for today’s Episode of What about it!?
And as always, there’s been a lot going on in the Space Industry lately, so let’s dive right in!
Starship Updates
I mean, this is insane. In the last 7 days we had Perseverance launch,
we had Crew Dragon Endeavour return home with Bob & Doug and now, we’re hopping with a Starship!
It’s intense and incredible and a special time for everyone on team space.
First of all,
let’s start this one off with a good old Starship Update segment, as there’s a lot to talk about as always!
Mauricio from RGV Aerial photography did another fly by of the Boca Chica SpaceX facility and he just rocks.
If you have not done so yet, please do consider becoming his Patron! His work is absolutely fascinating, and he does deserve it! Thank you!
What you’re seeing here, is the ever growing Starship construction site.
We get a clear view of the growing Superheavy High Bay
and as you can see, there are many many cars parked on the road again.
This is direct testimony to SpaceX’s efforts right now.
Everything is focused on driving the project further down the planned milestone list. The whole site is as busy as never before.
The High Bay is growing further and further and the first level already has all the wall panels as well. According to my prediction,
we’ll at least see two more levels on top of that to make a Superheavy Starship booster actually fit into it.
These things will be massive! Big Blue or Bluezilla, the large
crane is already up again, doing its work after it got taken down in preparation for Hurricane Hanna. Progress will continue now!
Next up we have nosey alley, as my editor and I like to call it now.
This is, where SpaceX is testing different nose designs.
So most of the Starship noses you can see here will most likely be pathfinders of some sort.
The stacked one might be intended for Starship Serial number 8 though
and we should see that fly in the next month or so.
Interesting to note is, that there are also three more nose tips here by now and one more upper header tank.
This would get the number up to 7 noses in the works.
What’s the big plan here, Elon? Will all of them fly at some point?
And if we look into the same nose cone tent from the other side, there’s another header tank visible.
So, the Nose manufacturing department in Boca Chica
either is on steroids or SpaceX and Musk really need a lot of nose cones for the future.
Switching to the launch site,
everything is focused on Serial Number 5 right now. The test stand
surroundings are clean and cleared of any parts that might cause trouble on a Starship hop.
There are a few things left around the landing pad,
but I fully expect SpaceX to completely clear the area for the hop. The tank farm is fully fueled and probably the only reason, why
SpaceX didn’t go for a hop on Sunday
was due to two very important passengers, who booked a flight back to Earth on a Crew Dragon capsule.
SpaceX will want to make sure, that the media can actually concentrate
on the Starship hop without having to cover another very important event at the same time.
That’s a nice problem to have for SpaceX though. Having to shift the flight test of an
interplanetary Starship in favor of a Crew Dragons first crewed return down to Earth, right?
SpaceX is showing the world, how it’s done and there’s no doubt, they have a solid plan right now.
There’s one more point of interest at the launch site though, that I want to direct your attention to. The SuperHeavy launch pad.
And it is making progress fast.
This is the greater picture of the site.
More and more parts have arrived to the right, where they’re stored in groups for later assembly on the pad.
In fact, there are parts everywhere now. Even down the ramp towards highway 4
the sides are covered with more and more parts for later construction steps.
Looking at the pad itself up close, we can see, that concrete pouring has commenced.
The foundation ring, the six large pillars under it, going deep into the Boca
Chica soil and the 24 smaller concrete pillars in the middle are done now.
Next, we should see SpaceX work on covering the middle and the outside.
After Hurricane Hanna has passed over the site, sending immense amounts of rain down,
we can see quite the erosion around the pad and holes are filled with water.
SpaceX will probably want to work on that as soon as possible to make the construction site more accessible for future tasks.
There already seem to be concrete blocks going outwards between the six large pillars.
Those could in theory also be used as access points to the pad itself. More rebar is already on site.
So, work will most likely continue very soon! There also is a blue sign on the ground next to the pad.
It says SpaceX Launch Pad. Captain obvious was here. I guess it's always good to have another sign.
And we can also see, that the whole fence surrounding the site is down right now and partly covered by
mud slides that came down from the slopes while Hanna did her business.
SpaceX might want to use the opportunity to put something more permanent in place.
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vital support. Link is in the description! The team is working relentlessly to provide you with updates twice a week.
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This is SpaceX!
The rest of the industry is still franticly trying to come up with a solution to Falcon 9 taking over the launch market and
they’re already making their next big innovation fly. Incredible times to be a rocket enthusiast for sure!
Crew Dragon Splash Down Summary
And onwards to the next SpaceX headline.
Sometimes I am being asked in the comments, if I was a SpaceX fanboy because I’m talking about them so much. Frankly though,
SpaceX is the reason, why I am releasing two episodes per week.
There just is no other launch provider out there that would produce enough news.
If there were trophies handed out to SpaceX for every first they’ve accomplished in their extremely short company history,
they’d have a very shiny trophy room in Hawthorne already and they’d be polishing a new one since Sunday.
What started as Launch America on May 30th with an absolutely epic launch of a Falcon 9 rocket with a NASA worm on the side
and a Crew Dragon called Endeavour on top has now come to a conclusion.
After undocking from the ISS on August 1st and a perfect execution of a departure burn,
several phasing burns to align the descend with the landing site,
a claw and trunk separation and a deorbit burn, executed by the 4 draco thrusters on top of the capsule… The parachute sequence
guided the capsule on its descent through the atmosphere.
On reentry, Endeavour endured temperatures of up to 2000 degrees Celsius or
3500 degrees Fahrenheit.
After this initial reentry phase, the drogue chutes deployed just on time at around 5300
Meters or 18000 feet slowing the capsule down from
560 kilometers per hour down to 190 kilometers per hour. At this point
the 4 main chutes opened up and slowed the capsule further down to around 25 kilometers per hour.
That’s the speed at which most people ride their bikes.
Then came a perfect splash down. My countdown clock on the stream was almost perfectly down to the second and team space
celebrated all around the globe. Mission accomplished. Coming home from the ISS is a difficult task and SpaceX did an
awesome job.
The only thing that was not perfect according to the plan was some residual dinitrogen
tetroxide or NTO, left between the capsules outer hull and the pressurized cabin.
It’s the fuel used in the onboard thrusters and an extremely toxic,
carcinogenic and acidic substance that needed to be purged before the hatch could be opened. The concentration was extremely low though
and so after properly purging the system, the hatch could be opened and Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley
got their first breath of fresh air after being in Space for two months!
Soon after, a helicopter took the two astronauts back to the shore and a short flight on a plane then took them to Ellington Field
joint reserve Base which is a stone throw away from the Houston Space Center. Nothing compared to the long trips
Astronauts had to endure after landing in Kazakhstan as done with Russian Soyuz capsules.
Of course both gave a speech as soon as they arrived. Let’s listen in to what they had to say.
We're not going to stand right now.
For those of you who have done this before, you know
it's not pleasant standing for a few hours after you get back.
Five hours ago. We were in a spaceship bobbing around,
making prank satellite phone calls to whoever we could get a hold of,
which was kind of fun, by the way.
There's something special about having that capability to launch and and bring your own astronauts home.
We went through a lot of years without that capability, took years to get here.
We brought the capability back to America and we came home safely to our families and I think for the SpaceX team!
We couldn't have asked for a more wonderful team to work with.
Elon Musk
of course was there too to welcome the two back on Earth and he had a few words to say as well that
we should listen to, as what he said was critical in my opinion.
What this heralds really is fundamentally a new era in space exploration.
We're gonna go to the Moon send people to Mars and make life
multi-planetary and I think this day heralds a new age of space exploration, you know
I think this is something that the whole world can really look at this as an achievement of humanity
and I think this is one of those things that is universally good no matter where you are on planet Earth.
This is a good thing and I hope it brightens your day.
Endeavour will be reused for the flight of Crew 2, which will carry Bob Behnkens wife
Megan McArthur, up to the ISS. The mission will also reuse the Booster B1061,
that will fly the crew 1 mission this fall. It will be an almost fully reused flight up to the ISS.
Shown in the picture is Crew 1 together with NASA Administrator Bridenstine and Elon Musk.
They will take off from Kennedy Space Center
hopefully towards the end of September and it will mark the first regular mission for SpaceX to the ISS.
No matter where you are on planet Earth, this is a good thing. I couldn’t have said it better.
It was clearly visible,
that Musk was extremely excited and emotional about the achievement and he emphasized again, that the whole world is in the same boat here.
If we want to become multi-planetary,
we will have to work together.
Working together in large groups is not an easy task though and security needs
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