Welcome back to an absolutely incredible week my
friends. I hope you’ve got a coffee or snack in hand because there is just so much great stuff
to talk about today. We have the usual Starship updates to dive into, missions plans from NASA to
brush up on and obviously my favorite right now, the beautiful Polaris Dawn mission. Let's jump
right into all of this. Hey, Hey Marcus House with you here and it has been a particularly stormy
week at Starbase. Despite the many challenges that this had, SpaceX pushed through and still
crammed in tons of activity. Starting off at the launch site, the gigantic crane that had been used
to stack the new launch tower was laid back down on Saturday. This may have also been to prepare
for strong winds at the launch site coming, but indeed it needed to be reconfigured for lifting
heavy components around the launch site anyway. Think of the new set of tower arms nearby, or the
ship Quick Disconnect will be needed at some point too. If they were to attach that weight on with
the crane fully extended, that can create a big difference between the center of gravity and the
center of mass which they would want to avoid. To prevent the crane leaning in too much, a shorter
configuration is better for those lower lifts. The first steps of this reconfiguration was
started on Tuesday, where both of the crane’s stay beams were lowered to ground level. As you
can see in this technical document, the crane can be configured to have one, two or even no jib
masts depending on the height, so this was a good indication that they did want to decrease the
height of it. On Wednesday morning, the first segments to go were the recently lowered stay
beams, followed by the hook and hook jib. After this they got to work removing jib extensions
until they had reached the desired height. That also allowed them to configure the crane for
operation with no stay beams at all. This will allow SpaceX to raise the heaviest loads, since
they don’t have to lift the mass of the large boom itself. They finally replaced the hook jib on
the end of the newly shortened boom, and with this new configuration we should see them focusing on
lifting lower heavy loads. Perhaps work on the new Pad B Orbital Launch Mount, or the Tower 2 arms.
In general, the work at Pad B is still progressing really well. Before the storm rolled in, RGV
Aerial was out again on a low-altitude flight, capturing these photos of the site. As you can
see there was still a bit of groundwork activity across the new pad, but most of this needed to
wait out the weather. Now, it seems SpaceX have wrapped up installing the sheet piles at the flame
trench area, because part of the driver here has just left the site. They’ve been using this to
clamp onto the sheets and essentially vibrate them into the ground. This is great news, because
if they really have finished adding those sheets then we should hopefully see groundwork activity
pick up very soon! It was nice to see that the weather had cleared so they could do this.
You can see how rough it was thanks to Anthony Gomez here, so bad at times that the road up
towards the build site was partially flooded. It does take a lot to stop though to stop the
SpaceX team. Making that same drive up, this strangely shaped object was rolled into the area
on Monday afternoon, and props to TheSpaceEngineer on X for pointing out that it had a striking
resemblance to an HLS airlock found at Hawthorne, California. This is the one that teams have been
practicing operations in to get an understanding of what design changes they should make and what
the airlock requires. Interestingly, after its brief appearance at the production site this part
was rolled right into the Starfactory. What do you think they will be using this for? Will they turn
it into a mock-up for HLS? Or could it even be flight hardware? It’s intriguing that this turns
up right after they have finished the first ever integration of a Block 2 vehicle. Mary with NSF
was able to catch some pretty neat footage of these newly installed flaps on this nosecone! As
we can see from the different flap design, this is another Block 2 vehicle. Of course we can’t
be totally sure which ship this is destined for, but given that Ship 33 is fully stacked out in
Megabay 2, the next in line is Ship 34. Given that the nose sections are the first to be stacked
during Ship integration, hopefully we see segments begin to leave the Starfactory shortly to begin
construction of yet another Block 2 upper stage! Now here’s an interesting one for you, and
at this point quite speculative. On Wednesday Starship Gazer caught these intriguing objects
being delivered to the Sanchez site. They seem to be steel pedestals of some sort, and given how
chunky these bad boys are, I wouldn’t be surprised they are related to the new orbital launch mount
that will be used at Pad B! If we look closely at the corner there you’ll see that there are
two protruding edges on each side. Possibly for holding an object in place. From this aerial
shot, we can see that there were already two of these pedestals sitting near the tower arms
a week ago. This new delivery was on the 11th, so we know they have at least four of these
objects now. Further along the Sanchez area, you can see that they have recently replaced four
concrete squares over here. We can even see crews working on them if we go back to a previous
flight. It seems most likely that each of these 4 new pedestals will be placed on each corner of
the new concrete pads, and the steel objects will be used to hold a new launch mount in place while
they work on it. That of course is assuming that the new launch mount deck will be square, instead
of round like the current one at Pad A. But given that the flame trench at Pad B is rectangular, a
square deck would really be the best shape to slot in there. Lots to digest there, but I’d love
to hear your thoughts on what they’re up to. Looking over at Massey's test site, it has
been extremely exciting to watch the testing action with Ship 31! Of course, the first thing we
expected after its thermal retiling was a static fire. This ship has already attempted three
cryogenic proofing tests before and has all of its engines installed, so it seemed like
it was ready to go. On Sunday morning crews began fueling up thai ship for flight number 6,
and as we watched the Liquid Oxygen and Methane propellant frost lines slowly climb the stainless
steel walls, the heavy rain and wind overtaking Starbase raged on. Unfortunately, this event
didn’t end up with a static fire. Possibly an abort due to the weather, or it could have
been due to a hiccup in the test itself. Maybe they never planned to fire the engines in the
first place. So far, SpaceX hasn't mentioned it. Right near Ship 31 we also had Test Tank 16
undergoing more action this week. Remember, we believe this is the aft section prototype
for Block 2 ships and it was here undergoing yet another cryogenic proofing test on Monday
evening. Just like the proofing test they performed the Thursday before, they likely pulled
down on the can crusher cap again to compress the structure and simulate the forces the section ship
experiences in different stages of flight. They must get a ton of data from these simulations.
They continued testing it Thursday afternoon as they performed further cryogenic proofing tests.
This one had the tank loaded up for around 5 hours, which could be an indication that they’re
trying to find any signs of fatigue that may be caused by repeated compressions. At this point,
I’m wondering if they’ll have this test article soon heading back to the build site, or if indeed
they may do more testing to purposefully crush it until it fails. That is afterall the
only way to truly know how strong it is. Now we had a huge update from SpaceX this week
expressing frustration over the time it is taking to get flight approval for flight 5. Firstly, I
do urge you to read the full article itself. I’ve got that linked below, but what triggered this is
that SpaceX “recently received a launch license date estimate of late November from the FAA. This
is more than two-months of added delay to the previously communicated date of mid-September”.
Yea, that sucks, obviously, but why? Well, SpaceX continues. It's a delay “not based on
a new safety concern, but instead driven by superfluous environmental analysis”. Now without
making this a super long winded video, they've really made a case here so everyone can understand
how crucial this problem is for the United States. The testing and the success of the Starship
program obviously impacts the timelines for the Artemis missions right? Well, not only that!
Regardless if people care about lunar missions, Starlink networks, future inspiring missions to
Mars, or any of that stuff, it’s so much more. It isn’t just these inspiring missions that will
become possible with the new reusable technology, but there are also growing U.S. national
priorities that need this to work. Afterall we are talking about the largest and most powerful
space transportation system ever designed, and it is all right here to take if SpaceX are allowed to
move forward at their rapid pace. Full reusability has been something very very needed since the
dawn of the original space race, and SpaceX have spent gigantic resources developing this system.
As the article says, this is “rocket science, on ludicrous mode”. But to get there, Starships
need to fly, iterate, fly again and move forward as fast as they are able. Unfortunately, they
are now, as of this week it seems, stuck back in the reality where it takes longer for government
paperwork to approve the flight than it takes to prepare the entire launch site along with getting
these gigantic vehicles ready to fly. Something that really can, if it continues, remove the
USA’s ability to remain the leader in the ultimate high ground. I mean just think about this. The 2
vehicles for flight 5 have now been ready for well over a month. The bigger challenge for this
upcoming event though is to prepare the tower and launch site around it for SpaceX’s most
ambitious objective yet. To catch this colossal booster out of the air. Obviously this is a key
step to full and rapid reusability, and I can’t really say this better than SpaceX did. “Every
test comes with risk, especially those seeking to do something for the first time. The team
prepares to the maximum extent possible on every flight to ensure that while they are accepting
risk to hardware, they accept no compromises when it comes to ensuring public safety.”
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which is a great thing. Especially important when talking about science and space. It’s
interesting! Just the language used can give you a great idea on public perception of the
story. The Verge there immediately emphasizes the grounding after a fiery landing failure. Sort
of makes it immediately feel like a catastrophic setback that would have government oversight
causing massive delays right? Compare that to Gizmodo calling it a “Rare Fumbled Landing” .
That makes it feel like the minor hiccup that it actually was resulting in almost no delay.
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So getting back to this Starship related FAA delay, where has this environmental concern
actually come from all of a sudden? Well, the claim is that the water deluge system
that uses only drinking water has been the target of false reporting. It has been claimed
they’ve operated it without permit. Now that permit was actually assigned and made active
in July of 2023 over a year ago. In fact, the officials were physically there during the
first tests. Another claim is that pollutants are washed into the surrounding environment.
SpaceX have said that samples are taken after every use of the system and they consistently
show negligible traces of any contaminants. All levels have remained below standards for all
state permits. Again, it’s potable drinking water they’re using here. Ok, so who is making the
claim that there are environmental concerns? Well the Environmental Protection Agency issued
an Administrative Order in March this year. It is stated here by SpaceX on the website,
that this was “done before seeking a basic understanding of the facts of the deluge system or
acknowledgement that SpaceX were operating under the Texas Multi-Sector General Permit”. After
some back and forth SpaceX did need to apply for an individual discharge permit. Something all
to do with industrial waste discharges. That seems heavy handed considering there doesn't really seem
to be many parallels with that sort of discharge, but they applied all the same. Now here is the
important bit. There have been “fines levied on SpaceX by the Texas Commission on Environmental
Quality and the EPA which are entirely tied to disagreements over paperwork. SpaceX chose to
settle these so that they can focus their energy on completing the missions and commitments
that have been made to the U.S. government, and commercial customers.” So yea, paying fines
is disappointing given they fundamentally disagree with these allegations. Even stranger is
that after all this, the EPA has agreed that nothing about the operation of the
deluge system will need to actually change. It is kind of crazy isn’t it? On one hand you
have incredible missions to the international space station for the government, preparation for
SpaceX’s part in the Artemis program for NASA, and all those critical government supported missions,
and all at the same time as being held up by this paperwork. No one is saying that environmental
regulations and mitigations are not needed, but it is the process that is just completely
broken. Let's just use some examples here. A small change for flight 5 is a slight modification
to the splashdown location of the hot-stage. Something that should make no difference to marine
life. Despite this though, the FAA has approved a 60-day consultation with the National Marine
Fisheries Service. That is frustrating enough right, but as they say here “any new questions
raised during that time can reset the 60-day counter over and over”. This means a single issue,
which in this case is already analyzed previously, can continue pushing the launch indefinitely. With
that there is another similar 60 day consultation case to do with evaluated sonic booms from
the landing of the Super Heavy. There is just so much more in this update, and again,
read the full document because it details the painstaking mitigation efforts for bird nesting,
with litter and cleanup and all sorts of stuff. Adrian from NSF did get a little more information
from the FAA the next day. From their point of view they state they had received new
information in mid-August which required the consultation with other agencies. Playing
devil's advocate, this was only a few weeks ago, and covers a much wider environmental area. But
yea, how minor that new information is to these roles is hard to say. The problem as I see it is
that all these agencies move at government pace and whenever SpaceX wants to test something new,
you would hope there would be some priority to ensure that they can move forward quickly.
SpaceX closed off the article sharing the frustration saying that a small minority seem
to be gaming the regulatory system to delay the progress. Something that could ultimately
only harm the US efforts to lead in this technology. The ultimate high ground. As stated
right at the end, “life will be multiplanetary, and will be made possible by the farsighted
strides we take today”. A beautiful way to end it, and let’s hope we start seeing some big changes.
So yes, after a few weeks of added anticipation, we have the biggest human spaceflight event
of this decade! I’m talking of course of the Polaris Dawn mission flying on a Falcon 9 to
make some amazing history. Actually, let's just switch this venting Starship to a Falcon 9
shall we!? Quite fitting to pop this one on the set this week because it just arrived recently
here. I love these venting models by Stardesk. Links to those below if you're interested. Thanks
for being here to help engage with all these creators making incredible things. It truly is
such an inspiring community to be a part of. Just like being subscribed here to what we are doing,
you are crucial to all these wonderful creators too. You being here makes a big difference.
So we’ve been waiting to witness these scenes for too long, and yes this week my friends the
wait was finally over. In the very early hours of Tuesday morning preparations for the Polaris
Dawn mission were on at Kennedy Space Center. The crew walked out to drive to the launch pad
in their Teslas, and there were some iconic name plates “4STJUDE” reminding us of the very
important cause for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. One quick look at the humongous Falcon
9 rocket for the crew, and there they go to press the “to space” button in the elevator to lift
them up the tower to the Crew access arm. After all that time in quarantine, they finally walked
down it for the last before flight. They signed their names near the SpaceX brand and in fact
Jared Issacman became the second only ever human to sign their name twice right there. The other,
Michael López-Alegría who flew on both Axiom Ax-1 and Ax-3 missions. The four Polaris Dawn team
were loaded in and ready to fly. They just had the one small hiccup before they got to do that.
A weather related issues had the launch pushed forward 100 minutes. Given that this wasn’t
a mission to the International Space Station, SpaceX had a pretty flexible launch window of
about 3 hours, so that was no problem. Two and half years of preparation, and it had all come
down to this. Resilience, the first commercial spacecraft to support a spacewalk, was fully
ready to fly. Finally the countdown was on. A beautiful liftoff there as this mission begins
some big commercial steps in history as it punched through Max-Q and screamed out of the atmosphere.
What a ride! Shortly after a momentary feeling of near weightlessness as the first stage cut off,
the gentle bump of stage separation and as the second stage ignited, and a more subtle push
at this point with the second stage full of propellant. Although the thrust to weight ratio
starts off low, it gradually climbs every second that propellant is ignited and spat out the
beautiful Merlin Vacuum engine. Meanwhile, the booster was coasting out before kicking
off its entry burn as it ripped back into the atmosphere. Moments later, second engine cut off,
and the view switched back to the always glorious landing burn as Booster 1083 soon made its 4th
successful landing on the drone ship Just Read the Instructions. I tell you what, just take note
of how gently it touched the deck there. That is one of the smoothest landings that I remember
seeing. Of course, our attention was right back on that second stage looking into the trunk of
Crew Dragon. A moment later, Resilience separated off into its initial elliptical orbit, and an
incredible view of it drifting away in space. We even got a glimpse of the “Skywalker” as the
forward hatch started to open during the very end of the live stream. Now what the crew needed
to start doing shortly after getting into orbit, was to slowly lower the pressure inside Dragon
while increasing the percentage of oxygen. This way the crew are gradually purging nitrogen
from the crew’s bloodstreams. This was all to help lower the risk of decompression
sickness for the upcoming spacewalk. Before long, the crew had changed out of their new
SpaceX suits and got started right away with their research work, including testing starlink
in orbit. Dragon passed through the South Atlantic Anomaly region where Earth’s magnetic
field intensity is weaker. That means greater high-energy particles can penetrate in, so the
crew and ground team monitored all this data each time their orbit climbed up to its apogee. I’m
sure some neat science experiments were conducted there. At this point already, they had already
broken the highest record that Dragon had ever been. Next they needed to slowly raise its apogee
from around 1200 kilometers up to 1400. Now at its peak in its orbit, Jared, Scott, Anna and Sarah
have traveled higher in altitude than anybody else since the Apollo program ended over half a century
ago. Not only that, but Anna and Sarah became the record holders for the farthest women have ever
traveled from the Earth. To think we are finally here witnessing these missions is amazing to me.
I wasn’t even born when the last Apollo mission returned home, so generations of people out there
were seeing this happen for the first time in their lives. Of course, the big event was still
to come. The first ever commercial spacewalk. The next day, the dragoned began lowering its
apogee using a series of burns, targeting a 190 by 700 kilometer orbit, much lower for the
spacewalk. Finally the SpaceX and the Polaris Dawn mission took a bold leap into the future
on Thursday morning. The event happened later than they had originally planned but it sure was
worth the wait. They carefully depressurised the entire dragon while carefully maintaining pressure
in their SpaceX EVA suits. Jared opened up the door exposing the entire capsule to space, and
technically that means that all four astronauts were actually on the EVA. It was however Jared
and Sarah that had the remarkable experiences of actually heading outside the vehicle. First it
was Jared and my gosh, what an emotional moment it was watching it. I had so many of you reaching
out in awe of it all. "SpaceX, back at home we have a lot of work to do, but from here it sure
looks like a perfect world". Indeed he had great views there because the sun was setting even
before he came back inside. Next out was Sarah as Dragons orbit passed down under Tasmania here,
soon passing over New Zealand, and over the dark Pacific Ocean. Both of them performed a number
of mobility tests with the suit as their bodies were mostly outside the vehicle. Sadly we lost the
live camera views after Sarah had run a few tests, and although we could hear what was going
on, by the time the views returned Dragons hatch was closed and sealed and the pressure was
climbing again inside the cabin. This by the way, I believe, makes Sarah the youngest person ever to
do a spacewalk being only 30 years old. Overall it was an absolutely monumental achievement there
and the entire event having taken around 1 hour 46 minutes. After the suits were back off Jared
mentioned the smell. Indeed, although it is a vacuum out there, there are a bunch of molecules
zipping around that tends to give anything exposed at metallic kind of smell. Anyway this has just
been fantastic and they should wrap up the mission and return home over the next day or two if the
weather in the splashdown location holds up well. Now compared to all that, the next mission of
the week on Wednesday evening felt practically routine. We had three more crew packed tightly
into the Soyuz spacecraft MS-26 and launching into the void to join the rest of the crew at
the international space station. Now anyone who had been keeping track will have noticed
that there were already 16 people in orbit at the time and with the two Cosmonauts along
with NASA Astronaut Don Pettit, that brought that tally up to 19. Yes this is a new record. We
have three Taikonauts currently onboard Tiangong, the four polaris dawn crew, and the residents at
the international space station. As SpaceX fans, it’s exciting to think that half
of those people arrived in orbit thanks to the ever reliable falcon 9 rocket.
The week remained busy with another two of those launched on Thursday. First off SpaceX launched
five production satellites for AST SpaceMobile’s direct-to-smartphone broadband network. This
was actually flying right around the time of the spacewalk which was wild. Booster 1078 had
launched from Cape Canaveral and deployed the Block 1 BlueBird satellites into low Earth orbit
in what seemed the blink of an eye with all the other excitement going on. This SpaceMobile
network is supported by U.S. telecom giants AT&T and Verizon, and plans to offer broadband
services directly to standard smartphones. Yep… that sounds very similar to Starlink’s Direct
to Cell doesn't it? Indeed, this is a direct competitor to SpaceX and they aim to eventually
deploy 45 to 60 satellites for continuous coverage in the US, with future satellites
expected to be significantly larger and more capable. This was also of course another brilliant
return to launch site mission, and touchdown wrapping up the 13th flight for booster 1078.
That same day there was the other across the country from Vandenberg Space Force Base.
Falcon 9 was off again with another Starlink stack on board. A smooth early evening
ride into the vacuum, stage separation, and a glimpse of the single set for the week.
This was set number 6 for shell 9, and moments later the second glorious drone ship landing of
the week, this time on Of Course I Still Love You was waiting down range to take it back home.
So along with the rest of that crazy week, I’ve just got to mention these exciting updates
for the largest planetary exploration spacecraft built by NASA, Europa Clipper. This is now
closer than ever to its crucial launch window to the Jovian system. This opens for 3 weeks
starting next month on October the 10th, and NASA has provided some intriguing details about the
spacecraft’s condition. Europa alone experiences a daily dose of 5.4 Sieverts of radiation. That
is just gigantic. The mission is actually planned keeping this in mind obviously, the spacecraft
will not orbit the moon directly but instead quickly flyby and orbit Jupiter in zones with
relatively less radiation. 4 months ago in May there were concerns that the transistors used
in Europa Clipper’s circuits may not be capable of withstanding the heavy radiation experienced in
and around the jovian system. Well, after 4 months of intense testing, NASA has now confirmed that
the transistors are fine for Jupiter, and they're now confident that there won’t be a problem. This
is great news because that means they are ready to fly in the coming launch window next month.
It will be another mighty Falcon Heavy launch my friends and one of the biggest missions taking
off this year. Europa Clipper will soon be loaded with propellant, and then be sent to begin joint
operations with the SpaceX teams for final tests, and the integration onto the upper stage.
JPL actually published the Europa Clipper Launch Ascent Timeline just the other day so
you can get a good idea of how that initial hour after launch will play out. I can not wait!
So I hope you enjoyed this video! If you did, don’t forget to hit subscribe so we can
keep making them. If you want to continue with more space goodness, check out this video
here next, or maybe these videos. Thanks for watching all this way through, that helps a huge
amount, and I will see you in the next video!