SpaceX is coming hot once again with an announcement
of their new Starship, and it is bringing
humanity closer to Mars and beyond.
SpaceX has begun to upgrade its South Texas
Starship launch pad in anticipation of the
completion of the next full-scale rocket prototype.
On Thursday March 26, Founder and CEO of SpaceX,
Elon Musk, has tweeted some images of the
company's under-construction Starship prototype
from the SpaceX development facility located
in Boca Chica, formerly Kennedy Shores and
later Kopernik Shores.
The model, dubbed "SN3," is the latest version
of the rocket designed to send humans to Mars,
set up a city, and travel out further to establish
a multi-planetary species.
All this is expected to be done using a stainless
steel rocket that measured at the height of
393 feet, which included the Super Heavy booster
as well into the calculations.
The "SN3" prototype is a key milestone on
that journey.
Musk posted two images on Twitter about 45
minutes apart early Thursday morning.
The first shows the SN3's tank and engine
sections sitting side-by-side in an assembly
facility, and the second shows them joined.
Working in parallel with efforts to repair
damage caused by SpaceXStarship serial number
1’s (SN1) violent February 28th test failure,
SpaceX has managed to build, complete, and
test an entirely separate ‘test tank’
and complete fabrication of a second full-scale
Starship in a handful of weeks.
Flexing the growing capabilities of the impressive
Boca Chica, Texas Starship factory SpaceX
has sprung up in just three months, the company
is working around the clock to build not just
one – but several – SpaceXStarship prototypes
simultaneously.
In this Video Engineering Today will discuss
SpaceX third Starship prototype which stacked
ahead of testing.
The SN3 could take to the skies soon.
Let’s get into details.
Musk previously explained on March 9 that
this iteration of the ship would be aimed
at supporting static test fires and short
flights.
That would make it the first full-size SpaceXStarship
prototype to fly.
Musk also suggested in the same post that
The SN4 which will be its successor of the
SN3 will able to take off at a higher altitude
up; this trend will continue until the time
that SpaceX can fully reach the stars with
their Starships to the goal for establishing
civilization in the stars and ultimately conquer
the galaxy with the help of Elon Musk's SpaceX
program.
Considering the impressive images that emerged
after the August 2019 Starhopper flight, it
could lead to a visually stunning display.
It's been a long journey to make it to this
stage.
SpaceX has been developing the Starship at
the Boca Chica facility.
It uses a Raptor engine, unlike the company's
Falcon 9 Merlin engine that uses liquid oxygen
as well as methane for fuel.
This, combined with the ship's fully-reusable
design, means humans can land on Mars and
harvest resources to refuel and continue the
journey.
Musk detailed this idea at a September 2017
conference, with a ship then dubbed "BFR."
Around 12 months later, it emerged the ship
had undergone a Tintin-inspired redesign and
would now be known as SpaceXStarship.
The Raptor engine first got tested on February
4, 2019.
After just two months, a miniaturized version
of the SpaceXStarship that was dubbed "Starhopper"
completed tethering firing.
In July 2019, it jumped from the ground to
65-feet; a month after, in August, it flew
a whopping 500-feet into the air.
The first full-size SpaceXStarship was unveiled
in September 2019, dubbed "Mk.1," at a press
conference at the Boca Chica facility.
The Mk.1 was supposed to have an orbital flight
last October, but this never came to be because
come November, the top blew off.
Instead, the team conducted a series of pressure
tests to improve its manufacturing process.
Back in January, the team's test tank successfully
withstood 7.5 bar at room temperature, then
8.5 bar at cryo temperatures.
The importance of this, as Musk explained
it is that a ship would need to withstand
the pressures around these rates to be able
to send humans into space successfully.
The design has undergone refinements over
this period, increasing the size and improving
the ways the team joins the steel rings together.
Musk was reportedly left annoyed after a March
test failed and "SN1" was destroyed.
SN2 has survived the initial test and fixed
the problem SN1 had at spontaneously combusting.
A successful March 9th tank test designed
to prove a new thrust structure design managed
to do just that less than two weeks after
the same faulty part brought about SpaceXStarship
SN1’s demise.
The focus has recently shifted to the launch
pad the ship will be tested at.
In the last few days, SpaceX technicians have
begun to install a bizarre, new structural
element on the mount Starship SN3 will be
secured on top of, hinting at the goals of
the rocket’s first test campaign.
With the SN2 becoming the main test prototype
as of the moment, it's good to have a back
up which is the SN3.
Musk said that the test model represented
by all three prototypes could fly up to an
altitude of over 12.4 miles or 20 kilometers
and land back safely on Earth.
During the SpaceXStarship SN2 tank’s thrust
structure test campaign, SpaceX debuted the
concurrent use of a beefy hydraulic jack to
simulate the forces a Raptor engine static
might produce.
Capable of producing upwards of 200 metric
tons of thrust at full power, SpaceX will
likely begin Starship static fire tests with
a single Raptor engine.
As soon as a Starship prototype completes
one or several single-engine test fires, the
plan is to install three sea level-optimized
Raptor engines and repeat static fire tests
for SN3.
Based on an unofficial analysis of existing
photos, it appears that every single major
structural piece of SpaceXStarship SN3 – excluding
legs and fins – is nearing completion, even
including the ship’s shiny nosecone.
Likely to head to the launch pad for its first
tests as soon as the tank section alone has
been completed, just one stacking event remains
before said tank section reaches its full
height.
Both of those parts have been moved to Vertical
Assembly Building.
SpaceX technicians stacked Starship SN3’s
two main segments, completing its tank and
engine section.
Perhaps just a day or two, SpaceX will likely
transport the massive rocket to the launch
pad to begin preparing for its first proof
tests.
It's important to note that the SpaceXStarship
has been largely following the expected timeline
outlined by Musk in January 2019.
At that point, he said that an orbital prototype
would be ready in June, and post-Starhopper
flights would run in 2020 or possibly sooner.
If SpaceX meets its goals, Starship could
fly missions relatively soon.
SpaceXStarship is designed to launch atop
a huge rocket called Super Heavy, which will
have space for 37 of SpaceX's next-generation
Raptor engines.
Both elements will be fully and rapidly reusable;
Super Heavy will come back to Earth for vertical
landings shortly after delivering Starship
to orbit.
Some of this work will take Starship very
far afield, if all goes according to Musk's
plan.
SpaceXStarship will be capable of carrying
100 people to distant destinations such as
the moon and Mars.
And the Red Planet is the ultimate goal: Musk
wants the Starship architecture to help humanity
set up a million-person city on Mars in the
next 50 to 100 years.
Before that, a satellite launch has been suggested
for 2021 for a third-party client.
The company is also expected to send Japanese
billionaire YusakuMaezawa on a trip around
the moon sometime in 2023.
It's an ambitious timescale, but SpaceX could
meet a lot of its deadline goals for the Starship.
Some of them are perhaps too farfetched, like
landing on Mars by 2022, a goal that even
Musk described in September 2017 as "aspirational."
The big question is whether external forces
could slow down its plans.
It's entirely possible that SpaceX's plans
are delayed by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
At least 12 SpaceX employees have been sent
home to quarantine after two confirmed cases
of the novel coronavirus were reported at
the company's Hawthorne, California headquarters.
The company said in the guidelines that it
notified workers who were in close contact
with the employee to quarantine for 14 days.
SpaceX also said it disinfected areas where
that employee had been.
At least a dozen employees had contact with
the healthcare provider three days before
that person felt ill.
SpaceX said it was not aware that any of those
employees had symptoms, but that they will
stay at home until cleared by One Medical
and after they finish the quarantine period.
"SN3" may be on the way, but it wouldn't be
too surprising if the company has to rethink
its roadmap amid the outbreak.
