How SpaceX Mastered Starship’s Welding

Since SpaceX first started building Starship back in 2018, we’ve seen it go from looking rough and weak to a very sophisticated rocket. This video looks at how SpaceX developed their welding technique for Starship and how it led to a stronger and better looking rocket.

Thanks to these awesome people for their resources:

Special thanks to Chris Nash, Nicholas Queiroz and Riley Mannion for their expertise on welding.

References:

Thanks for watching this Primal Space video. If you enjoyed it, let me know in the comments below and don't forget to subscribe so you can see more videos like this!

Support Primal Space by becoming a Patron!

Music used in this video:

» Vaculator Blues - The Mini Vandals
» Sprightly Pursuit - Cooper Cannell
» Sunset Trails - DJ Williams
» Double You - The Mini Vandals
» Marianas - Quincas Moreira

Credits:

#SpaceX #Starship #ElonMusk

[guillermocastorena]

I own a welding academy here in South Texas and I am proud to say I have over 30 former students working in Space X as welders.

[bastifantasti]

As a mechanical engineer, I would have summed it up differently. It took them several years to change the production process from Joe's garage to the industrial standard.

[ENCHANTMEN_]

Starship has been pretty unique as far as rocket development goes. It's almost like agile software development: "Move Fast and Break Things"

[VictorLarsen-fyls]

The evolution of water tower construction. It was interesting to learn about the materials and methods of welding, because it was surprising how the welds began to differ over time.

[pugglez]

At 3:45, I think you may be mistaken about flux-cored arc welding, the metal is on the outside and the flux is in the middle (core). In the video, you describe it as the metal being surrounded by the flux, which is true for stick or SMAW, but not this. The reason the flux is in the middle is because the drive wheels that push the wire through the gun have knurling to grip the wire, and if the flux was on the outside it would rip up the coating while feeding it. Otherwise, great video I really enjoyed learning about the different iterations of welding SpaceX has been going through.

[anonymous-rbsr]

They went from looking like the average aluminium can at the bottom of the ocean to the average grain silo I'm so proud 😍!

[kirkdemadaler]

Planishing the welds is meant to stretch out the "heat affected zone" or HAZ as it's known in welding circles. When you weld the metal around the weld shrinks as it cools this causes the warping. By stretching out the metal with the planishing hammer the original shape is retained. This is a normal operation in autobody work when welding sheet metal repair panels together.

[profile.]

The prototype LOX tank at 2:23 is for the original ITS vehicle, with a diameter measuring 12 meters, not 9.

[ttyler]

You got Flux Core welding backwards, the Flux is in the middle (core) of the wire is what provides shielding and turns into the slag ontop of the weld.

[fordsrgay]

Since stainless is one of the more heat sensitive alloys, especially 304, laser welding keeps the HAZ minimal, which is pretty key for tensile strength I'd imagine.

[BBru]

I used to work for the company that makes the welders both Tesla and SpaceX use. They typically would send a sample of the material and the weld engineers would do the work of finding the correct parameters, speeds, and feed rates for the welders.

[DashFlashTheLife]

First rocket looks like grus rocket in despicable me LMAOOO

[Gyro-]

My spoon is made of the same material as a SpaceX rocket.

[oancemr]

awesome video, its so cool to learn about the engineering going on behind the scenes and see how manufacturing evolves over time and all the problem solving that takes place to reach the final design

[Frenchiezy]

I was always curious about this but never asked the question myself 😅
Great work and very well explained!

[Warlord-xitp]

never knew grain silos has so much engineering put into them

[titter]

They could just commission a tank manufacturer for the food or farma industry in the first place. They make smooth stainless steel tanks with "invisible" welds on a rutine basis. In fact they have to make flat smooth welds because that is a demand for being able to clean the tanks properly with a CIP system.

[sanctuspiano]

The clip of Steve Carrell at 3:16 is classic. I haven’t laughed that hard in a while, thank you!

[JohnDoe-pbks]

Wait, Kiwi Co actually sounds phenomenal. I got my first breadboard when I was 14, and that was daunting as hell. A softer introduction to that would have been amazing.

[erideimos]

LOL A trip down memory lane! Outstanding! Boy, those were the days. Non-Flying exploding water towers and building in the dirt when ULA was using clean rooms for storage.

Great vid, thanks!