https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-orb...eavy-assembly/

SpaceX begins assembling first orbital Starship and Super Heavy booster

First Super Heavy Booster test flying.

Test firing surely. 😁

****** autocorrect…..

From Michael Paul on FB...
The SpaceX Gulstream has been shuttling for the last few days...

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-elo...-new-high-bay/

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reveals Starship factory upgrade plans

Mind blowing….

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-sta...reakneck-pace/

SpaceX is building Starship’s first orbital-class booster at a breakneck pace

….In that sense, it’s not a huge surprise that SpaceX’s Booster 4 assembly has quickly surpassed the pace set with Booster 3 less than a month earlier. SpaceX began stacking Super Heavy B3 around May 20th, starting with the rocket’s aft liquid oxygen (LOx) tank. Five separate stacks are required to turn the LOx tank’s 23 steel rings into a single structure – a process that took SpaceX about a month with Booster 3.

Booster 3 methane (CH4) tank assembly began a few days after the LOx tank’s completion but proceeded far more quickly, wrapping up just a few days later. Two days after that, those two tank sections were then mated and welded together to complete Booster 3’s full ~65m (~210 ft) tall airframe.

Now, just four weeks after Booster 3 was rolled to the launch pad for proof and static fire testing, Super Heavy Booster 4 is well on its way to reaching its full ~65m height almost twice as quickly. With work beginning around July 16th, B4’s oxygen tank is now just missing an (extremely complex) engine section and the booster’s methane tank was stacked to completion – 13 rings tall – in less than two days. That leaves SpaceX’s first potentially flightworthy, orbital-class Super Heavy booster just two stacks away from completion less than two weeks after its assembly began…..

https://www.space.com/starship-super...-section-photo

Elon Musk shows off wild plumbing for 29-engine Super Heavy booster (photo)

Twitter

Speedy work
 

Lots of welding and(I trust) non destructive testing in such a short time!

Some great insight from Musk here and exclusive views of the production facility at Boca Chica.

https://www.space.com/spacex-super-h...h-stand-photos

SpaceX lifts huge Super Heavy rocket onto launch stand (photos)

Twitter

I watched this live, amazing really, all previous large rockets have always been moved using large gantry and support structures. SpaceX, nah we just use a big crane!

Everyone would be petrified of dropping it.

SpaceX? No problem, we’ve got the engines and fuselage sections rolling off the production line - we’ll whip another together in a couple of weeks….

They fitted all 29 Raptor engines to Super Heavy in one night!

SN20 rolled out to the launch site. Stacking postponed due to high winds. They're not hanging about are they.

https://www.space.com/spacex-starshi...acked-1st-time

SpaceX stacks Starship atop massive booster for 1st time to make the world's tallest rocket

SpaceX's newest Starship prototype was briefly placed atop of its massive booster for the first time on Friday (Aug. 6), setting a new record for the world's tallest rocket ahead of a planned orbital test flight this year.

Engineers performed the stacking test at the SpaceX Starbase facility in South Texas, near the village of Boca Chica, in view of livestreams from NASA Spaceflight andSpadre.com

Starship SN20 ("Serial No. 20") and its Super Heavy booster were mated for about an hour for fit checks, during which time the two vehicles posed a towering site. Super Heavy alone stands 230 feet (70 meters) tall and Starship SN4 added another 165 feet (50 m) of height. Together they stood a whopping 395 feet tall (120 m), taller than NASA's massive Saturn V moon rocket, which was 363 feet tall (110 m).….

On Twitter, Musk wrote that Starship and its Super Heavy booster also still need at least "4 significant items" before they'd be ready to fly. Those include final heat shield tiles for Starship, thermal protection for the Super Heavy's engines, more ground system propellant storage tanks and a quick disconnect arm for Starship, likely attached to the pad's gantry tower.

It's likely that both Starship SN20 and Super Heavy Booster 4 will test-fire their engines in separate static fire tests. SpaceX routinely conducts such tests before its commercial launches and test-fired its Super Heavy Booster 3 prototype last month.….


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You Tube

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That’s some rocket…


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I wonder who, eventually, will be the first to “ride the stack”…..

They never sleep.....https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-sle...-storage-tank/

SpaceX ‘sleeves’ Starship-derived propellant tank for the first time – here’s why

In a small but important step towards activating a pad capable of launching the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, SpaceX has ‘sleeved’ one of its Starship-derived propellant storage tanks for the first time......

SpaceX wants to be able to launch at least two Starships from Boca Chica in rapid succession. To meet the staggering needs of back-to-back Starship launches, SpaceX has thus had to design and build what will be the world’s largest launch pad tank farm.

Work on that tank farm is already well underway, though progress has been slower than expected. The site’s foundation and a few associated blockhouses were mostly completed by January 2021. By early April, the company had completed the first of at least seven steel propellant storage tanks at its Starship factory and rolled it to the launch pad for installation.

Notably, SpaceX chose to manufacture those storage tanks itself and ended up building structures virtually identical to the tanks that already make up most of flightworthy Starship and Super Heavy airframes. Depending on whether they’re meant to store liquid oxygen or methane, the seven tanks SpaceX is building are either 26 or 30 meters (85 or 100 feet) tall – though the concrete mounts they’re affixed to at the launch site are sized such that all storage tanks will have the same final height.

Of course, being made with the same tools and out of the same steel as Starship and Super Heavy, that means that SpaceX’s custom storage tanks are little more than 4mm (~1/6″) thick steel shells – about as bad as it gets for keeping cryogenic rocket fuel… cryogenic. If SpaceX were to simply use those unmodified tanks, it would be almost impossible to store Starship fuel for more than a few hours – and maybe just a few minutes – without it warming up past the point of usability.

As such, SpaceX’s final Starship tank farm design involves seven Starship-derived storage tanks and seven contractor-built tank sleeves. Measuring around 12m wide and 40m tall, those “cryo shells” will enclose all seven SpaceX-built tanks, allowing the company to fill the 1.5m gap between them with an insulating solid, gas, or some combination of both. With those shells and insulation, SpaceX’s custom-built Starship tank form should be more than capable of storing cryogenic liquid oxygen and methane for days or even weeks.

As of August 5th, SpaceX has installed three of Starship’s custom ground supply equipment (GSE) tanks (with a fourth moved onsite on Thursday), moved two ‘cryo shells’ to temporary storage spots at the pad, and installed one cryo shell that actually turned out to be a million-gallon water tank. On Thursday, SpaceX ‘sleeved’ one of those storage tanks for the first time ever, marking an important milestone towards the activation of a tank farm capable of supporting Starship’s orbital launch debut. Another four sleeves are more or less complete, with the eighth and final sleeve likely just a week or two away from completion.

A fifth GSE tank is also more or less complete, leaving two more to go. However, with some basic math, it’s possible to determine that SpaceX’s orbital launch pad likely only needs five cryogenic tanks (three oxygen, two methane) – and possibly as few as four – to support Starship’s first orbital test flight(s). With SpaceX finally beginning to install tank sleeves, it’s possible that that four or five-tank milestone – and the first tests of SpaceX’s custom, unproven storage solution – are now much closer at hand.

Twitter

Twitter

Reminiscent of the photos from the days of the building of the Empire State Building or Golden Gate Bridge - and the true scale of what they are putting together.

The Starship and heavy lifter will weight over 5000 tons during launch…



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Part two of Tim Dodd's exclusive behind the scenes tour.

Looks like others find that photo evocative as well.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021...aa-regulators/

One of the comments ask if a high definition copy of the photo is available as wall art - if agree and buy one if available - the start of a new era in space.

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-orb...vy-pad-return/

SpaceX’s first orbital-class Starship and Super Heavy to return to launch pad next week

Twitter

Ship 20 rolled back out to the test area today. No engines fitted though.

An interesting article, well worth reading in full….

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-sta...age-test-tank/

SpaceX to put custom Starship propellant storage tanks through first trial

In the latest twist in the saga of SpaceX’s custom-built Starship launch pad propellant storage tanks, the company appears to have retroactively decided to build small prototype meant solely for testing.

Known as a ‘test tank,’ the relatively small steel structure was fairly rapidly assembled from parts of an older Ground Support Equipment (GSE) tank scrapped in July over the last week or so.

SpaceX completed the first Starship-derived propellant storage tank in April 2021 and rapidly rolled that tank (GSE1) and a second (GSE2) from the build site to the orbital launch pad just a few weeks apart. Less than a month after that, SpaceX also completed GSE tank #3, though things seemingly devolved into chaos immediately thereafter.

Only three months later would GSE3 finally be transported to – and installed on a concrete mount at – Starship’s first orbital launch site, and only after a number of structural modifications and in the footsteps of GSE tanks #5 and #6.

Little is known about why SpaceX’s custom GSE tank production faltered so soon after it began, why none of the five Starship-sized tanks installed at the orbital pad have been fully plumbed or subjected to any kind of testing, or why structural modifications were seemingly required after the fact. However, it’s safe to say that SpaceX’s brand new GSE ‘test tank’ is now at the center of the mystery……..

A Tunnel to the Moon
 

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021...exas-launches/

SpaceX may dig a tunnel to enable frequent South Texas launches

Depressing forecast here is that the FAA might take 6-12 months to give clearance for the first test flight.

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-sup...hazilla-catch/

SpaceX’s second Super Heavy booster might land in Mechazilla’s arms

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-orb...einstallation/

SpaceX repairing heat shield, reinstalling Raptors on first orbital-class Starship

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-orb...ch-pad-return/

SpaceX’s first orbital-class Super Heavy booster rejoins Starship at the launch pad

For the second time in five weeks, SpaceX has rolled Starship’s first orbital-class Super Heavy booster from its Starbase factory to the launch pad ahead of a challenging and multifaceted test campaign.

Deemed Super Heavy Booster 4 or B4, the 69m (~225 ft) tall rocket first rolled to the launch pad around August 3rd after SpaceX technicians fitted it with 29 Raptor engines in a single night. Followed by orbital-class Starship prototype S20 a few days later, the two stages of a Starship were stacked to their full height on August 6th, briefly creating the largest rocket ever assembled. Ship 20 was then quickly returned to the build site, where SpaceX workers completed an additional ~10 days of finishing touches – mainly focused on avionics wiring and secondary plumbing.

A week later, Booster 4 followed Ship 20 back to Starbase’s ‘high bay,’ where teams ultimately removed all 29 of its Raptor engines and spent the next four or so weeks performing similar final integration work. Now, after installing what looks like hundreds of feet of wiring, dozens of additional gas and fluid lines, compressed gas tanks, hydraulic ‘sleds’ SpaceX’s first flightworthy Super Heavy has once again returned to the launch site

A bit less than two weeks ago, SpaceX once again installed 29 Raptors on Booster 4. This time around, though, all of those engines are believed to be ready for flight – or, at minimum, static fire testing – after completing qualification testing at SpaceX’s Central Texas development facilities. Intriguingly, every one of Super Heavy’s outer ring of 20 ‘Raptor Boost’ engines is also expected to have its own small umbilical panel that will connect to the orbital launch pad’s ground systems.

When Booster 4 was installed on the brand new orbital launch mount, most of those individual engine connectors had yet to be installed and it’s unclear if SpaceX was actually able to test the complex mechanisms before Super Heavy returned to the build site. This time, all 20 engine umbilical actuators have been installed on the launch mount and it’s safe to assume that those mechanisms will be tested extensively in the coming weeks.

That testing will be part of a much more involved test campaign. Namely, if SpaceX intends to test Super Heavy Booster 4 at the orbital launch site, any booster testing will simultaneously require the shakedown of the orbital pad’s extensive, custom-built tank farm and a wide range of other ground infrastructure that simply didn’t exist at the start of 2021.

Booster 4 qualification is no less daunting, as no Super Heavy has ever been fully tested. Now in the midst of being scrapped in place at SpaceX’s suborbital test facilities, Super Heavy Booster 3 didcomplete a partial cryogenic proof test and a static fire with three Raptor engines, but SpaceX has never fully filled a Super Heavy with >3000 tons (~6.6M lb) of propellant and never static fired more than three Raptor engines simultaneously.

Perhaps the most uncertain part of Super Heavy Booster 4 qualification is its static fire test campaign. However SpaceX gets there, the final challenge will likely be igniting all 29 of B4’s Raptor engines – potentially producing up to ~5400 tons (11.9M lbf) of thrust, thus making Super Heavy the most powerful rocket booster ever tested.

Simultaneously, SpaceX also began reinstalling Raptors on Ship 20 – currently installed at Suborbital Pad B – ahead of the Starship’s first proof test(s) and static fire(s). Stay tuned for updates on SpaceX’s plans for testing the first orbital-class Starship and Super Heavy booster.

Twitter

I wonder if those umbilical lines are to test each engine individually? Maybe a static sequential firing. I can't imagine firing all 29 even for a few seconds will be an option. Once they're all up to full power they're going to have to let it go surely.

I still don’t think most people understand the scale of what Musk is planning….


https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2021...ting-mcgregor/

New Raptor Factory under construction at SpaceX McGregor amid continued engine testing

…..However, Elon Musk has recently announced that a new production plant will be built near the McGregor engine testing facility. This plant will specifically produce Raptor 2 engines optimized for firing at sea level, most of which will be used on Super Heavy boosters.

The Raptor 2 is a future version of the engine soon to enter testing, and the factory will be capable of making 2 to 4 of these engines per day.

This production rate is higher than a typical rocket factory, but low compared to an automobile factory. As Elon stated in a tweet: “It [the factory] will be the highest output & most advanced rocket engine factory in the world.”

He believes it will be needed to support high-cadence Super Heavy operations, including many flights to Mars related to the build-out of the planned Martian city…..

The McGregor facility also now has a new test stand for Raptors that will allow up to one test firing per day, possibly up to two per day, of the sea-level engines…..

While engine testing has continued apace, the new sea-level Raptor assembly plant has started foundation work, with groundbreaking taking place and work on the superstructure expected to be finished by the end of the year.…..

Testing activities will also support future Starship missions such as Starlink 2.0 flights, Yusaku Maezawa’s Dear Moon crewed lunar mission, the two demonstration HLS missions to the Moon on Lunar Starship, and Starship missions to build out Elon Musk’s planned city on Mars — which could be home to up to a million people by 2050.……

https://spacenews.com/faa-releases-d...ital-launches/

FAA releases draft environmental report on SpaceX Starship orbital launches

What will future space mining do to the space environment and to earth? This is what it all seems to be about. Can companies commercially mine stars or asteroids and bring exotic stuff to earth?

Mining asteroids, fair enough. Mining stars might require a decent set of oven gloves and a very very long shovel.

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-sta...law-installed/

SpaceX installs Mechazilla ‘claw’ on Starship launch tower

https://news.yahoo.com/anti-spacex-l...145100840.html

Anti-SpaceX lobbying campaign casts new light on Elon Musk's Biden beef

Interesting times….



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