According to Musk, “Starbase is moving at Warp 9” as SpaceX prepare for the first orbital demonstration of the Starship/Super Heavy stack. It is going to be an absolute monster topping out at 120 meters, almost 10 meters taller than the mighty Saturn V.
Although largely a demonstration mission, Musk has said that it will carry a “wheel of cheese.” This was also the first payload of the company’s Dragon spacecraft. It was chosen because it was the silliest thing they could imagine.
Engineers at Caltech and JPL
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The laboratory’s primary function is the construction and operation of planetary robotic spacecraft, though it also conducts Earth-orbit and astronomy missions. It is also responsible for operating NASA’s Deep Space Network. JPL implements programs in planetary exploration, Earth science, space-based astronomy and technology development, while applying its capabilities to technical and scientific problems of national significance.
3D printed rockets save on up front tooling, enable rapid iteration, decrease part count, and facilitate radically new designs. For your chance to win 2 seats on one of the first Virgin Galactic flights to Space and support a great cause, go to https://www.omaze.com/veritasium.
Thanks to Tim Ellis and everyone at Relativity Space for the tour!
https://www.relativityspace.com/
https://youtube.com/c/RelativitySpace.
Special thanks to Scott Manley for the interview and advising on aerospace engineering.
Check out his channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/szyzyg.
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References:
Benson, T. (2021). Rocket Parts. NASA. — https://ve42.co/RocketParts.
Boen, B. (2009). Winter Wonder: Rocket Icicles. NASA. — https://ve42.co/EngineIcicles.
Hall, N. (2021). Rocket Thrust Equation. NASA. — https://ve42.co/RocketEqn.
After a much-anticipated GAO denial of Blue Origin and Dynetics protests over NASA’s decision to solely award SpaceX a contract to turn Starship into a crewed Moon lander, an in-depth (but heavily redacted) document explaining that decision was released on August 10th.
Aside from ruthlessly tearing both companies’ protests limb from limb, the US Government Accountability Office’s decision also offered a surprising amount of insight into SpaceX’s HLS Starship proposal. One of those details in particular seemed to strike an irrational nerve in the online spaceflight community. Specifically, in its decision, GAO happened to reveal that SpaceX had proposed a mission profile that would require as many as 16 launches to fully fuel a Starship Lander and stage the spacecraft in an unusual lunar orbit.
After around 24 hours of chaos, confusion, and misplaced panic, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk finally weighed in on the GAO document’s moderately surprising indication that each Starship Moon landing would require sixteen SpaceX launches.
