SpaceX Drops Massive Update On Next-Gen Starship! RFA One Burns On The Pad!

Could Starship destroy the pad during a catch? The second tower is finally complete? Well almost. The next-gen starship gets an upgrade, but what is this? And a German rocket has an unfortunate failure.

#SpaceX #starship #elonmusk #starbase

Editing: John Young, Alex Potvin, Stefanie Schlang
Photography: Jordan Guidry, John Cargile, John Winkopp & Stefanie Schlang
3D Animation: Voop3D
Script & Research: Nathan, Soren, Oskar Wrobel, Felix Schlang
LIVE Production: Jonathan Heuer, Jordan Guidry
Host: Felix Schlang
Production: Stefanie & Felix Schlang
Graphics & Media Processing: Jonathan Heuer, Felix Schlang

Credit:

⭐SpaceX
⭐NASA
⭐VirtualSpace_3D on X: @Lolomatico3d
⭐The Ring Watchers on X: @RingWatchers
📄Links for this Episode:

[Whataboutit]

Do you think they’ll launch something from Tower B this year?

[AdvantestInc]

The mention of the RFA incident highlights just how challenging the space industry can be. It’s impressive to see how SpaceX continues to push forward with innovation despite the risks.

[johndoe-hrvp]

The thing that I think is missed with gravity assist descriptions, and maybe because it's obvious to people steeped in space science, is that yes, it accelerates toward the planet but it loses all the extra speed as it rises back up the gravity well. What it DOES pick up is some of the planet's momentum around the sun. The same reason launches are made closer to the equator, you pick up some velocity for free.

A space craft is very small compared to a planet so the amount of velocity it loses to the passing space craft is very small, but the space craft is very small, so even picking up a little of the planet's orbital velocity is a big boost. That's why they go to the inner planets first, they are moving much faster than the outer planets due to the conservation of angular momentum, Kepler's equal areas in equal time.

An imperfect analogy of a large mass granting momentum to a smaller mass would be to drop a tennis ball and a basketball or soccer ball together with the tennis ball on top. The more massive ball will transfer some of its rebound energy to the smaller ball sending the tennis ball shooting away much faster and higher than if you had dropped it by itself.

[CoreyKearney]

Gussets are for corners. When you double up on a weld like that, they are called fish plates or simply doublers.

[nerdwatch]

If I was musk I’d have a team on the side looking into designing some type of concepts of a larger ship that will become some type of Starship Tugboat. Have these ships dock on this ship like holding up to 4-6 starships. These SS fully loaded with cargo and fuel for mars saving it all for use there. This ship will of course be nuclear powered and propulsion. This ship could have a small live in area letting all the crews from each SS meet there with much of the tug automatic. With these tugs used to launch cargo missions to mars during the off years when mars is farther away with nuclear still getting this ship there in half the time still this could be when no humans go unless this tug has some areas to create artificial gravity.

[ANGRY_AMERICAN]

From a welder's point of view, OLM1 arms are much longer than the ones for OLM2&3. With the arms on OLM1 being much longer and with the bouncing identified during catch testing SpaceX decided to put doublers on the weld points because around the welds tends to be the weak point as a preventative measure instead of waiting for a possible failure if a hard landing occurs.

[Shinglers]

First thought is the second tower is being built in case the catch goes wrong and RUD the first tower. then they can still continue to test and launch from the second tower while they rebuild the first tower.

[professor-viewsalot]

You are probably correct but let me offer a different view.
Chopsticks, having a new bracket fitted because SpaceX doesnt trust their design.
Well maybe, spaceX design was originally good,
Imagine chopsticks finished for ages.
Imagine you cant have too much data.
Imagine not having to connect data gatherers to the rocket and not send data back via an rf link.
Put a copy bracket - but unstressed - adjacent to chopsticks.
Now put strain gauges between the brackets.
SpaceX would be able to MEASURE the stresses in the chopsticks during each catch.
Detailing deflections and g etc for both ship and chopstick parts.
More data is more better and less weight on starship is better and low cost is better and not imperative is better and not urgent is better and using up (time to spare caused by paperwork) is better.
Just my outside the box view.

[StEvEn-dpri]

If the German boys only found minor damage to the pad after the RUD and inferno, there's likely no reason for them to have to redesign the launch mount. It appears to be quite robust. WOW!!!

[rogerrrice]

I wonder if pad A requires so much upgrading, that having it damaged during a catch attempt wouldn’t be much of a loss.

[Nathan-vtjz]

I’m excited to see how block two performs. Hopefully SpaceX gets approval for more launches in future years. That will greatly accelerate the development pace for the moon and mars missions.

[petecomps]

The origin of the name "chopsticks" comes from the movie "The Karate Kid, " when he caught a fly with chopsticks. "Beginner's luck!"

[picksalot]

I think a "drop test" onto the Chopsticks would be a good idea to see how strong they are in a less than perfect catch.

[evilroothepure]

Adding reinforcement on the welds and joints makes sense. The whole tower was probably designed for slow cautious manipulation with empty boosters. Now they need something capable of handling of the dynamic short shocks from capturing the booster slowing down and having a few tons of fuel inside.

[keithprice]

I still don't understand why they don't test it with a hop. Send the booster 1 mile up and see if you can catch that. Seems way safer than trying to catch it from orbit on the first round.

[jonwatkins]

Hooks and cables and cable dampers like aircraft carriers have used for 100 years landing aircraft could give positional flexibility and reduce maximum loads.

[ronaldlebeck]

The booster hitting the tower on a landing/ catch attempt would be one thing -- the booster crashing into the tank farm would be disastrous of major proportions. 😱

[listerdave]

A possible reason for the multiple downcomers could be to ensure that if one engine fails it will not cause a sudden change in the flow to the other engines as it would if all three were fed through the same pipe. That said I think it would be more important to do that on the sea level engines than the vacuum ones.

[Digital-Dan]

Something that continues to baffle me is the tiny size of the two nubs that protrude from the booster to form the parts that must be in a rotationally near-perfect position in order for the catch to have a chance of working. Is this wrong, or is there an option for the catch, such as landing on the grid fins? I have been puzzled by this from the start.

[chuckm]

To me, it just seems like they need to do a couple of controlled splashdowns in the water on target, plus or minus the range of the chopsticks, before they try to catch a Starship Booster. Don't think they are ready for a booster catch, but SpaceX has surprised me before.