Starship To MARS in 2 YEARS? | Starbase Update

Starship flight 5 is shaping up to be the most exciting Starship flight yet with a booster catch attempt expected to be a major objective of the test to that end SpaceX has performed a load of work on the Chopsticks to prepare them for a catch attempt and this week they even performed some interesting tests of stage zero which we're of course going to talk about on top of all this ship 31 was moved to Massie to begin its engine testing campaign oh and starhopper has been relocated after nearly 5 years at the launch Elon then

decided to do some late night tweeting on Saturday about the first Starship flight to Mars which will fit in as well what's up tank Watchers I'm Jack berer for NSF and this is your Starbase [Music] update before we talk about what's going on here in Starbase let's first take a trip to spx's engine testing facility in McGregor Texas where a block 2 header tank labeled s34 was tested earlier this week you may remember seeing this header tank leave star base in a previous episode this test was most likely to validate the block 2 design changes

that ship header tanks now have it'll be interesting to see if this header tank gets tested to destruction or what happens with it so keep your eyes on McGregor live in case anything interesting happens all right now let's head back here to Star base and take a look at the starf Factory which is getting a nice front door facing the Stargate building here's a glass delivery that could be for said entrance and once this is complete it's really going to be an amazing way to enter the star Factory as soon as you walk through the

doors you'll immediately be in the nose cone production area and there'll just be massive rocket Parts strewn about before you Crews have also been constantly at work connecting the office building with the star Factory and on outfitting the internals of the office building it's going to take a while to fit out this building fully but SpaceX is well on its way to having a dedicated office space for Starship development just don't forget the new cover sheet on your TPS reports in Block 2 ship news what we expect will be ship 34's nose cone inside the

star Factory has begun to receive its flap fairings and flap mounting points once these are fully installed SpaceX will be able to install the forward flaps on the nose cone and then stack that assembly onto its payload section probably in mega Bay 2 and with all of this being so close to completion stacking of the second block two Starship again ship 34 could happen this month of course we'll be keeping our eyes open for this nose cone to roll out of the star Factory and hopefully stacking of ship 34 goes a little bit smoother than

it did with ship 33 as crews are beginning to get a handle on the new construction process for Block 2 Starship all right so remember when SpaceX posted on X that the flight 5 vehicles were ready to fly and that they were going to test the flight six vehicles in the meantime well here we are ship 31 has been rolled out to the Massie Outpost to begin its engine testing campaign and we expect it to light up all six of its Raptor engines in a static fire test as we've seen with previous Vehicles The Last

Ship to perform a static fire here was ship 30 and it took about 5 days from when the ship was placed over the flame trench to a static fire over a week ago this testing was telegraphed by the dismantling of the Scaffolding in the high Bay this was done after Cru had barely even touched ship 31's heat shield only the nose cone tip and a few other locations with glued on tiles were stripped maybe this is because SpaceX is waiting on data from Starship flight 5 to determine if the heat shield upgrades actually work I

mean you don't want to go through all the trouble of rebuilding ship 31's heat shield only to learn that you have to do it all over again or maybe it could be for some other reason I have no idea let us know what you think is going on in the comments as we'll talk about later though SpaceX does have a ton of time on their hands to get ship 31 ready for flight so maybe it's just that they're not any kind of hurry early in the morning on September 5th Cruz rolled the static fir stand

into the ringyard and just in front of Mega Bay 2 to prepare it to receive ship 31 once that was done ship 31 was rolled out of the high Bay and into Mega Bay 2 where it was connected to the two-point lifter which actually doesn't have that many uses left in it since block two of Starship uses its own upgraded lifting fixture once it was all hooked up and ready Cruz lifted ship 31 onto the static fir stand and it was rolled out to The massie's Outpost for static fire testing since arriving at the Massie

Outpost ship 31 has already been connected to the quick disconnect ellal and had its flaps open so hopefully we'll see a static fire sooner rather than later ship 31 is expected to conduct a six engine static fire just like all previous ships although with all the time that SpaceX has on their hands it could be that they conduct some additional testing with 31 and who knows maybe even we'll get to see a long duration static fire but I don't know I just have to wait and see what happens I said engine testing soon right well

sure enough on Sunday some sort of engine testing happened with ship 31 potentially a spin Prime hopefully we'll see a static fire sometime this week next up for the first time in nearly 5 years starhopper has moved locations it had been parked inside the launch site since it was moved from The Landing Pad on October 4th or 5th 2019 after completing its 150 M hop on August 27th 2019 now since SpaceX has long since scrapped the moving jig for starhopper this time teams had to get a little creative SpaceX used a pair of 12 axle

spmt or self-propelled modular Transporters along with crane cribbing and some pipe stands to reach the bottom skirt of starhopper once this was in place Cruz chained down starhopper using newly installed hooks to secure it to the spmt starhopper was then moved to its new parking location in the danger lot which is one of two remote camera locations that SpaceX afford the media during launches for those of you out there who've been watching for a while you may remember this location as where danger van got impaled by concrete on Starship flight one luckily danger van was

not a super important vehicle it was kind of on its last legs the more important stuff the camera equipment survived just fine so why did SpaceX move starhopper now after 5 years turns out they need the space to expand the orbital tank farm and add capacity pumps and sub coolers in order to support orbital pad B now that star Hoppers out of the way teams can begin laying the foundations for these expansions to the tank farm with SpaceX going through all the trouble to move starhopper I am a little bit hopeful that it won't ever

be scrapped because you know they could have scrapped it right in place rather than moving it so hopefully at least some vehicles are sacred to SpaceX moving right along as teams continue to work furiously on pad a to prepare it for a catch they've also been working continuously on pad B there are new sheet piles being installed in the trench area and Welding on the tower has continued non-stop as you can see here crews are welding in the area where the spool and winch will go for the Chopstick system on pad B also known as

the Draw Works after stacking the tower and helping with a few other odds and ends the cc8800 D1 crane was laid down for reconfiguration we don't yet know what the Crane's next configuration will be but it's still needed here at the launch site in order to install the Chopsticks and ship quick disconnect onto Tower 2 and speaking of that ship quick disconnect it's still nowhere to be seen as for the orbital launch mount for pad B it'll be a while until we see it start to rise out of the ground as well but hopefully parts

for orbital Launchpad B's Mount will start arriving here in the next few weeks up next is work continuing on orbital Launchpad a that's it thanks for coming no but seriously over the last few weeks SpaceX has been hard at work upgrading and modifying the Chopsticks as we've been covering in previous updates as far as progress this week SpaceX has been continuing to weld reinforcement doublers on the main Chopstick structure following the last round of testing with booster 14.1 this will help strengthen the Chopsticks even more as they undergo the tremendous loads associated with high-speed movement

lifting the vehicles and catching boosters or ships it seems like SpaceX has at least a couple more weeks of work to do on the Chopsticks and they're certainly going to do some more testing with booster 14.1 which whatever they find out during that testing might necessitate even more modifications which might take more time and then might require more testing and so on Tower one p a has also been getting a load of work done to it and new gusset plates have been installed near the top of the tower these will help the tower be a

little bit more structurally sound during lifting and catch operations but why would SpaceX install them at the top of the tower I'll admit at first we were a little bit confused why SpaceX was installing these at this location well we got our answer when on Thursday the Chopsticks went all the way up to the top of the tower and SpaceX started to perform some opening and closing tests this ended with a nearly complete stage zero launch and catch rehearsal as the booster quick disconnect closed and the ship quick disconnect swung out simulating a launch then

about 8 minutes later the sticks performed a simulated catch having the sticks do this at the top of the tower was a little bit of a surprise as previously we all sort of expected the catch to happen about 2/3 of the way up the tower to give clearance between the booster and the orbital launch Mount however it seems like SpaceX is going to use the entire height of the tower as a cushion to protect the orbital launch Mount from the Raptor engine exhaust and potential impact of booster engines during the test the forces placed on

the tower caused it to Bend forward which is not a bad thing if it didn't have this flexibility the tower would snap however something happened that really shouldn't and it's going to be something that SpaceX needs to figure out and that is that during the fulls speed catch attempt the Tower actually twisted if you look really closely you can see the tower twist and the Chopsticks carriage and their skates look like they might actually come off the rails now a structure like this actually does need to be flexible as I just mention but you don't

want it to move too much so either being too rigid or too flexible is a bad thing and again SpaceX is going to surely figure this out before flight 5 disclaimer I'm not a structural engineer so I could be wrong here but I assume this is going to be something that SpaceX is going to need to either mitigate or just figure out how to solve once the testing was complete the Chopsticks were low lowered back down to the tower into their maintenance position and opened on either side of the orbital launch Mount as you can

see here behind me Crews then got back up on their lifts and began once again furiously working on the catch arms once they were back down Cruz immediately got to work on the sticks once again and installed new gusset plates on the diagonal beams as seen here so far these are only installed on the sides facing the orbital launch Mount but they could also be added to the backsides As for the carriage and skates it'll be interesting to see what changes if any SpaceX makes to that system in the coming weeks we're all also still

expecting booster 14.1 to roll back here to the launch site to conduct additional catch testing with the Chopsticks and we're all eagerly awaiting what kind of testing SpaceX decides to do just stay tuned to Starbase live and maybe you'll see it happen a few other items of note for the Chopsticks were the ship lifting pins which have been reinstalled this week these might have required modifications because the new bumpers installed are larger than the older ones so the pins have to stick out a bit further to grab the sh Crews have also been testing the

landing rail deployment which takes about 2 and 1/2 minutes to get done and that does sound like a long time but between the booster launching and coming back to land there's about 8 minutes so that's plenty of time one last thing of note SpaceX added some oddl looking rails with the top of the Chopstick Carriage sat on the tracks for the catch simulation this may just be like a hard stop or something but we'll have to keep our eyes open and see if we can figure out what's going on and I know some of you

might be asking why are they doing all this work now why not just buy bler 12 and ship 30 and do a catch later well we have a pretty good answer for you first let's address the elephant in the room or I guess the green screen in the room yes I have moved inside because as you could probably tell the weather in Star base has been deteriorating this week all right let's talk about vehicle Readiness yes it does appear that ship 30 and booster 12 are ready to fly but the flight 6 vehicles are not

only ship 31 is set to test its engine soon and booster 12 needs the orbital launch mount to test its engines which is a bit preoccupied at the moment also ship 31 as stated earlier does not yet have a reworked heat shield and that process takes about a month to complete after flight 6 the next Vehicles we expect to fly at least right now are ship 33 and booster 14 neither of which has completed a cryogenic proof test ship 33 being the first block two ship May undergo additional testing thus taking more time the point

we're trying to make here is that even if SpaceX flew flight 5 tomorrow there would still be significant in downtime between the next few launches so why not figure out how to catch a rocket now rather than later just to be clear SpaceX is trying to do something that no one has ever done before they're trying to catch the largest and most powerful rocket ever built in human history there's going to be setbacks and Lessons Learned along the way to put it into perspective SpaceX is going to catch a 300 T rocket booster with a

pair of little pins and a couple of arms hanging off the side of a tower it's really crazy to think about and it'll take time to figure out all of the changes and required hardware to actually pull it off we here just get the luxury of sitting back relaxing and watching as they figure it out in real time one of the significant benefits of attempting a catch on flight 5 is that SpaceX will learn what sort of changes they need to make to all of the other orbital launch pads they're building from what we can

see pad B's Tower at Starbase will need changes based on this testing as that Tower does not yet have the upgraded gusset plates at the bottom or near the top of the tower and you may be asking why didn't they just install them well SpaceX is probably waiting to see all of the upgrades that are necessary for catch before taking the time to do the work both at lc-39a and here in Starbase so with all the changes that crews are making to pad a and all the changes that probably are still to be made what

if SpaceX actually manages to catch booster 12 on flight 5 well the program has hit a major Milestone and remember SpaceX needs to start recovering boosters as fast as possible in order to fulfill their Artemis contract Starship is designed from the ground up to be fully reusable and of course SpaceX would like to take advantage of that as soon as possible they also need to begin to recover ships as well but that's a little ways out because as of right now ships still do not have the required hardware for a catch overall there really isn't

a better time for SpaceX to try this they have the time and they don't have a large backlog of vehicles ready to go so the Cadence is low right now anyways so all of that begs the question when Flight 5 well considering the number of changes that have been made to the to Tower and the number of changes that are possible coming down the line I think it's safe to say that the tower and Chopstick work is a long pole item at least on the SpaceX side there is the regulatory side as well but unfortunately

we don't have much visibility into that process so hopefully in the coming days and weeks we get some more information regarding the modified launch license that's required for SpaceX to attempt to catch given all of that I'm currently guessing and I'd like to stress this is a guess that the current time frame for flight 5 is sometime between the end of October October and the beginning of November I don't think the beginning of October is necessarily ruled out yet however it makes a lot of sense to me that with all of the work that we're

seeing going on it would slip a little bit further maybe to the end of October or beginning of November so again that's my current guess and again it is a guess we'll just have to wait and see how the coming weeks play out truthfully I don't even think SpaceX knows at least I sure don't another example of why SpaceX is trying to catch a booster now rather than later has been laid out X by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk first Elon mentioned that Starship can do around 100 tons to a starlink orbit which is about what's

expected of block two of Starship along with reiterating the starship's payload capacity he also set a very ambitious goal to quote Elon himself quote the first Starships to Mars will launch in 2 years when the next Earth Mars transfer window opens these will be uncrewed to test the reliability of Landing intact on Mars if those Landings go well then the first crude flights to Mars will be in 4 years this is a very ambitious plan for SpaceX to achieve in such a short time considering where the program currently is SpaceX still has to solve the

problem of on orbit refueling much less figure out EAS or environmental control and life support systems aboard Starship which is obviously required for crude Vehicles this would all be in addition to their emis contract with NASA to land humans back on the moon currently SpaceX has a single pad from which to launch Starship and the second pad in Star base is not expected to come online for at least a year however the padded LC 39a is still in limbo with an environmental impact statement in progress as well as slick 37 and slick 50 and these

pads might launch a Starship no earlier than sometime in 2026 I'm saying 2026 because there's currently no major pad work ongoing at lc-39a to indicate any kind of progress which means SpaceX is most likely waiting for pad B at Starbase for more data which again itself won't be online until at least mid next year either way SpaceX might not have the wiggle room to add Mars missions this early on in the program that's not to say that SpaceX can't plan these missions but whether or not they have the launch Cadence vehicles or launchpads in order

to pull it off is another story that said SpaceX has surprised Us in the past and personally I would not bet against them even if they don't hit the 2026 window the very next window in 2029 seems entirely possible so now we get to continue patiently waiting as SpaceX figures out how to land a booster and pushes onward to the Moon and Mars you can keep up to date by watching Starbase live watching our streams whenever we go live reading articles on our website and check out our newly narrated daily videos we hope you guys

like the change and if you don't you can just go into the audio settings and make it not narrated again all right that's it for this week thanks for watching and as always don't forget be excellent to each other