SpaceX Performs Most Important Test For Starship Flight 5! Boeing Starliner Dead?

SpaceX performs final tests on mechazilla before flight 5 will it be enough ship 31 begins testing despite its incomplete heat shield upgrades why are they in a rush the new orbital launch Mound is taking shape will it be better than the old one and starina finally returns to earth and there is a problem my name is Felix welcome to what about it let's Dive Right In Starship updates Starbase Texas is home to the world world's most advanced rocket program and every good rocket program needs its Launchpad so let's take a look at how pre-launch work on to a is coming along and they are done wait done with what well it seems like everything after a literal Army of manlifts descended on to A's catch arms over the past few days work has finally been completed or at least it is complete enough to begin testing spacex's upgrades because we saw SpaceX raise the Chopstick catch arms which will attempt to catch booster 12 on the upcoming flight test 5 they began performing a series of peculiar tests on them including what appeared to be a fullscale catch simulation by the arms they still seem to have a fair bit of wobble but when they impact the side of a falling booster the wobble should cancel out quickly let's just hope that that impact won't be that strong thanks to Family Man John formerly cameraman John we were able to see that workers on the ground were a Sim multaneously calibrating the Chopsticks this will allow the Chopstick software to know precisely how high up they are on the Tower and the location of the Chopsticks to increase their accuracy upon catch it tells the tower where its arms are down to the fraction of an inch talking about impact mitigation because of the amount of work done to the Chopsticks it was hard to keep up but from what we can tell teams went over every single piece of the catch arms this is no exaggeration from add new reinforcements to removing unneeded bumpers teams were everywhere we even saw work happening on a chopstick Carriage which attaches the Chopsticks to the Tower and allows them to move up and down the reason it is likely not what you'd think at first it was a mix of slight design changes and lots of quality checks SpaceX wants to ensure that the design they s up has a real chance of showing what it can do the catch attempt announcement clearly wasn't a marketing gang they tend to try the catch as long as the booster reports values within the tolerances on the way back from space that said it's likely SpaceX still wants to launch sooner rather than later which is why it was pretty interesting when we saw this SpaceX has now gotten clearance from the FCC to launch flight 5 yay so we are going well not exactly that requires clearance from the FAA which SpaceX continues to have trouble with this is not a launch license the FCC has handles Communication in other words SpaceX can now communicate with its rocket during launch it may not be the exact regulatory approval we were looking for but it is a step in the right direction and that's another item checked off the list before launch in the meantime SpaceX will continue testing ahead of flight 5 until the FAA is satisfied with its Readiness the holdup right now seems to largely come from a possible violation of the Clear Water Act on August 12th CNBC report that SpaceX violated environmental regulations by repeatedly releasing pollutants into or near bodies of water prompting a strong response the same day from SpaceX which posted on X that the CNBC report was factually incorrect the Texas commission on Environmental Quality assessed a $3,750 fine against SpaceX for illegally discharging Wastewater into wastelands surrounding the launch site after the state agency found that the company had not applied for a Texas pollutant discharge elimination system permit before operating the Deluge system SpaceX stated publicly that they had repeatedly received the go-ahead from the FAA and were unaware of additional permissions funny enough the FAA thought the same the matter is ongoing and the main reason why SpaceX has not yet received the license for flight 5 we're still watching to see what more testing SpaceX may decide to do in the meantime we have seen worked on on test tank booster 14.1 but given rumors of a possible flight on September 19th SpaceX May begin preparations for Rolling booster 12 and ship 30 down to the Launchpad so the next test may be a full wet dress rehearsal and then a flight test if the gods of bureaucracy allow it of course Launchpad a wasn't spacex's only focus recently thanks to redline helicopter tours we could see from above how much work SpaceX has been doing from this bird's eye view we can see that SpaceX has actually added a third row of sheet piles almost directly next to one of the previous rows and before I tell you about that we've looked into our Channel metrics and there are over 2 million returning monthly viewers who have not yet subscribed help us improve the channel even further by double checking that you have hit that subscribe button so you don't miss our updates and while you're at it give us a like and become a wi supporter why because you'll gain access to a m massive amount of extra content with it you get access to daily new Starbase photo galleries including all those we've posted so far satellite aerial and ground photos more than 400 posts in the past two years alone with up to seven picture galleries per week insights chats with me you name it thank you so much you rock this new third row of sheet piles left a thin gap between it and the outward facing wall we can also see they've added another wall of sheet piles connecting the two space may now fill the space between the two sheet piles with concrete to form one of the flame diverter outer walls this would allow workers to build an extremely thick and robust wall for the flame trench in a relatively short period of time it's possible SpaceX may have done this for another reason as well but we'll just have to see at the rate SpaceX is going we likely won't have to wait long we should also soon begin to see what design SpaceX has chosen for this new launch Mount and Flame diverter but no matter what design they chose it should at least be better than no flame diverter isn't that right pad a it seems SpaceX learned its lesson and it only took a concrete tornado and clashing with Regulators over its water Deluge system it's even possible that spacex's new flame diverter design will result in less water being dumped into the environment this could be extremely important especially given those regulatory clashes over that issue but to divert flames you need Flame in the first place and Starship produces those with tons or rather thousands of tons of liquid methane and oxygen and those need to get to the Starship somehow which is why we see this massive pile of dirt sitting next to the Launchpad or more importantly in this case we see where that dirt came from workers have been digging gigantic trenches between the orbital tank farm which holds the fuel for Starship and Launchpad B where Starship will eventually launch given our Birds I view it is hard to show scale from these pictures but each trench is likely around 15 ft or 4.5 M deep given the size of the excavator inside it SpaceX will soon begin adding pipes to this trench to transport Fuel and oxidizer from the tank farm to the ship and booster before burning them again this may also be one reason we saw hoppy get move just a couple of days ago as pipes may have been placed right under where hoppy used to be given its proximity to the fiery and of a booster it is important to bury this infrastructure after all SpaceX doesn't want a repeat of the vertical tank farm just with pipes instead anything close to the pad out there shouldn't be exposed if it doesn't absolutely have to be these gigantic trenches are yet another sign of spacex's progress towards another operational Launchpad which at this rate seems on track to be completed before the end of this year it even appears SpaceX has completed all remaining work near the top of the tower because on the sixth teams began lowering the massive cc8800 crane which they had been using to add some finishing touches to the top of the launch Tower until the last minute according to a filing with the FAA SpaceX will use a small configuration of this crane for various other tasks around the launch site this will likely also include the installation of this Tower's Chopsticks which we hope to see happen soon we are able to see and learn all these things because we're able to get a bird's eye view did you know you can take a helicopter ride over Starbase and get the same views as in our videos visit Redlin hel.com Felix to book your helicopter ride over Starbase with $25 off give it a try it is Unforgettable seeing all this prep work being done at the Launchpad for flight 5 you might be inclined to think that just as much work is being done on the actual flight Hardware however as far as we can tell that is not the case no booster 12 has likely been worked on but given its location in the mega Bay we won't know until SpaceX finally rolls this booster out for its wet dress rehearsal but we managed to look at a different booster's progress in this case we saw the final segment for booster 15's methane tank and shortly after we saw it rolled into the mega Bay where it was stacked completing this booster's methane tank as for ship 30 it has received all the upgrades SpaceX can Implement on the now outdated block one ship what we see here is what we'll see in the air however that isn't the case for ship 3 1 as it still needs quite a bit of heat shield work which is why it's been in the high Bay and it's gone short question where did ship 31 go before I answer that let's talk about privacy issues real quick the internet is something comparable to the wild west there's some sort of law surrounding it but it's fairly enforced and hard to enforce on your own incog take back your personal data think of incog as the sheriff of online security helping fast and designed for things you can't solve alone do you often get spam mail or calls and you have no clue how they even know how to reach you your data has likely been leaked in cogni contacts data Brokers on your behalf requesting the removal of your personal data based on existing law and handling any objections on your behalf it saves you Time by being fully automated just create an account graning cogni permission to work for you and watch them clean up the mess that's relaxing I've tried it and holy cow let me tell you they found leaks all over the place with in cogni you get progress reports a 30-day money back guarantee use code Felix at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan protect your privacy and support what about it at the same time visit incog docomo to get started and if you want to have my phone number now you got to ask me instead of the Brokers all right back from the wild west to a Vanishing SHP 31 it appears SpaceX has other plans for it after a couple of weeks of work slowly being completed on small sections of ship 31's heat shield SpaceX decided to roll the ship out of the high Bay and over to Mega Bay 2 where it was then lifted onto the crap static fir stand and rolled to Massie craptastic stuff this was a bit surprising given that SpaceX is nowhere near completing This ship's new heat shield but it looks like teams wanted to get the static fire for this ship out of the way first after all work appears to have stalled on this and many the other ships heat shields which we theorized is due to supply chain issues regarding the manufacturing of the new upgraded heat tiles which are supposed to be double the strength of the original so if the ship needs to wait anyway why not start some of the testing now this is likely why ship 31 was rolled to massie's testing range on the fifth after its Sixth and final engine was fitted more than 6 weeks ago it will now undergo its static fire testing regime hopefully this one will go better than ship 30s which required two different engine swaps following static fires given that this ship will likely be the last block one ship to fly each Milestone it reaches could also be the last we see one of them pass through it is a Dying Breed outpaced by fast development like many other prototypes at Starbase before then given the pace at which SpaceX has been moving recently ship 31 may have even been static fired by the time you're watching this if so we'll put that on screen now so best of luck to ship 31 and let's hope we won't see any engine swaps after the static fire with ship 31 now at Massie test tank 16 is no longer alone that's not the only good news about test tank 16 because it also finally got some action on the night of the fifth test tank 16 which currently resides in can crusher 2.0 was once again filled with cryogenic nitrogen for its second round of testing this test tank was partly tested a few weeks ago and filled with cryogenic kn nitrogen to ensure it could hold pressure before being rolled back to the production site for checks unlike the first test before this test tank was filled with cryogenic fluids it also had the can crusher lid attached after the lid was placed on top it was attached to hydraulic Pistons at the base of the can crusher to simulate the forces of a launch so it can press down this is how both the original can crusher and can crusher 2 work the difference is that can crusher 2 also has hydraulic p distance connected directly to the lid which attach it to this outer ring this allows SpaceX to simulate horizontal forces similar to what a Starship or booster May encounter on re-entry however we can see that these horizontal Force simulators weren't attached for this test you know what that means more testing hopefully SpaceX won't decide to roll this test tank back to the production site again as they did after the first test but instead we'll jump straight into testing its horizontal stress load moving on from SpaceX let's now look at what used to be considered spacex's biggest competitor emphasis on used to be Boeing Starliner is it nearing the end of its life given all the headlines recently I doubt this craft needs much introduction after launching in early June it has received almost constant news coverage from us and other less important traditional media Outlets about its many anomalies all these anomalies caused NASA to announced that Starliner would return without a crew it was deemed unsafe after this we all breathed a sigh of relief as we grabbed some popcorn to see if stalina could return safely on the night of the 6th we finally got that answer as stalina undocked from the international SPAC after its massively Extended Stay sty was originally supposed to spend only 8 days at the space station however due to all of the anomalies it ended up staying for a little over 3 months after after stalina was detached it slowly backed away from the ISS as teams closely monitored its thrusters which were the main cause of concern for starina fortunately for everyone star's thrusters appeared to be operating well and the craft safely Departed the International Space Station it then successfully performed its deorbit burn around 5 hours later before finally jettisoning its problematic service module which houses most navigation thrusters unfortunately for all the engineers on the ground because the service module cannot return to Earth they won't be able to analyze the malfunctioning thrusters to determine the exact cause of the star liner's many problems hopefully Engineers will be able to test the remaining modules on the ground and verify the exact cause suit they've not found it yet but at least for this flight these malfunctions did not cause a mission ending failure as the service module managed to put Starliner into a correct re-entry trajectory the capsule quickly began to decelerate As It Slam slamed into Earth's atmosphere with its heat shield successfully keeping it safely away from The Inferno outside then just a few minutes after re-entry starina successfully deployed its parachutes and airbags before touching down in the White Sands desert in New Mexico marking the end of star's first crude flight test crude I think we all know the problem here because this crude flight test isn't exactly over yet Barry Butch Wilmore and Sita Sunny Williams the two astronauts that that flew up on Boeing starina are still up there after the capsule has touched down right now their only way home is to crawl into the cargo section of one of spacex's crew dragons which is currently at the ISS as part of NASA's Crew 8 mission so if there were an emergency on the International Space Station right now that would be their only way home fortunately for them NASA will soon send up another crew dragon with two empty seats as part of crew 9 that wasn't planned because Butch and son will be flying back with crew 9 that also means they'll need to wait for the crew 9 mission to end which for them means they won't be flying back for quite a few more months with the return date set for around March of next year this means Butch and Sunny's test flight went from an 8-day mission to an8 month Mission but don't feel too bad for them after all they are in no danger and they get a little extra time and space okay maybe more than a little extra but astronauts usually don't complain about that however to make space for them on crew n two astronauts initially supposed to fly on that crew Dragon will need to wait for another right to space these two astronauts include Stephanie Wilson who flew three missions on the space shuttle and Zena Cardman who missed out the most as this would have been her first space fight hopefully they'll get to fly up on a different Mission still it is sad to see them miss out on this opportunity for which they trained so hard here's a final thought on the Starliner return NASA had a press conference surrounding the successful return of stalina five chairs three for NASA and two for Boeing Representatives guess who didn't show up this would have been Boeing's chance to finally talk about something that went right but they didn't take it is this an indicator of how the program will continue leave your thoughts in the comments on the topic of delays it seems once again we're reminded that schedules in rocketry are just recommendations Jeff Bezos say rocket company blue origin faces some delays but this time not with his rocket instead the payload for the inaugural flight of blue origins new Glenn rocket has encountered some delays originally blue origin's first mission was to be won for the history books as it was supposed to attempt to launch NASA's Escapade Mars probes towards the red planet a pretty big goal for flight one however due to delays NASA decided to postpone the launch of these two Stellar explorers until spring 2025 on new Glenn's second launch this is only possible because of how overqualified new Glenn is for this payload as it can launch these probes to Mars near the end of the transfer window strong rocket so this will be on the second flight what's launching on the first blue origin will be flying its blue ring satellite transporter it's similar to Rocket Labs Photon and can precisely maneuver multiple payloads to different orbits or act as its own satellite bus interestingly rocket lab built the Escapade probes for NASA based on what it learned learned from its Photon satellite bus so in a way blue ring is just a large orbital version of the Escapade probes at the same time this will be the first certification mission for the space force and it is expected to launch no earlier than November so one more month of waiting for new Glenn that's it for today remember to smash that like button subscribe for more awesome content this is what fuels the algorithm and it does help us immensely check out our epic shirts in your favorite space nerd store a link is in the description and if you want to train your space IQ even further watch this video next to continue your journey thank you very much for watching and I'll see you again in the next episode into our into our near bodies on or near the tip of the top prop problematic service module proximity to the fifth half