Elon Musk Reveals Updated Starship Launch Timeline!

on today's episode we are getting into the latest space news including Elon Musk drops the next Starship launch Target on Twitter rocket lab is forced to delay their mission to Venus by over a year and NASA officially becomes an advisor for commercial space endeavors this is the space race the SpaceX Starship will launch again in six to eight weeks this is the latest timeline for the second test flight of the Prototype heavy lift rocket system according to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk this came on June 13th when Elon responded to a post asking when the next Starship launch would be giving us the first update since he claimed that the company would be ready to launch by June or July the original prediction was barely a day after the April 20th flight that saw starship's first attempt and since then SpaceX has had to face the huge scale of damage caused to their launch light as well as sift through the data from their failed rocket flight which showed that some critical systems like the flight termination system were dangerously inadequate on top of that the FAA began their routine investigation and faced down a lawsuit from Angry local environmental groups all of those factors combined made elon's earlier prediction look very unrealistic but while many of us understood that his initial prediction was likely not achievable the SpaceX team has really been working miracles at the Boca Chica launch site company Engineers took advantage of the massive crater in the pad beneath the orbital launch Mount to install their new water Deluge system the multi-part steel device acts like a reverse shower head underneath the rocket and should be able to deal with the overwhelming launch thrust that caused the pad damage last time parts for this system have been arriving over the last couple of weeks and the plumbing has been almost completed by the looks of things most of the superficial damage to the site was repaired in the first few weeks mostly with some rearranging of tanks in the orbital tank farm the upright tanks are reportedly due to be changed out eventually but the dense to the outer shielding were pulled out recently and while some elements like the shed that houses the draw works on the launch Tower still look a little rough it's just cosmetic and can be fixed after the critical repairs and upgrades to the olm are done a lot of long hours went into this work the speed of these repairs is truly mind boggling and has come pretty close to nailing the original timeline that Elon set out but the repairs were never the biggest thing holding SpaceX back from their second launch it's the regulatory Fallout that's doing that this is hardly the first FAA investigation or lawsuit that SpaceX has been subject to but these are processes that have to be dealt with before moving on which meant SpaceX was going to be seeing some sort of delay before the FAA could give them permission to try another launch Elon knows this of course which is why his assertion that the company is so close to their next test flight is so interesting six to eight weeks is definitely enough time to get the new Deluge system installed and tested which means that Elon must be thinking that the lawsuit and investigation are about to finish and that does make sense the FAA was never going to be taking extra time with their investigation the April 20th launch may have ended in an explosion but no one was even close to being hurt and the vehicle performed relatively well under the circumstances Additionally the US government has a lot riding on spacex's success so there's a lot of pressure to close up investigations and lawsuits as quickly as possible for their part SpaceX has been working furiously and not just on-site construction the company has been working hard on other prototypes in order to keep to the tight deadlines involving their new starship and they might need more time on June 7th the NASA administrator Jim free made comments that showed that the administration is fairly certain spacex's Starship vehicle will not be ready in time for the 2025 Artemis 3 launch the mission that will bring humans back to the moon for the first time since 1972 the company's current workload is a huge hurdle to get over and there's been almost no sign of any Lander prototypes even being constructed yet the current planned lift update for Artemis 3 is December 2025 but before they can be cleared for that they need to demonstrate several several different functions of Starship like automated docking refueling and an uncrewed landing on the moon achieving all that in less than 18 months is a very tall order for a vehicle that hasn't successfully escaped the atmosphere yet but we have been seeing some construction that could possibly be our first looks at a Lander prototype SpaceX has been working hard to make sure they've got more Vehicles than they need so they don't have to worry about losing any during the testing process this means we're pretty much constantly seeing new boosters and ships being built while looking over Starbase but occasionally we see some designs that are out of the ordinary this one spotted back in mid-may did leave some of us wondering what it could be one of the more popular theories is that we're seeing the beginnings of a Lander here the extra holes on the side of the structure look a little like the landing thrusters from SpaceX renders of their hls variant while the spindly deck plates certainly look like they might be the beginning of a crew cabin cooler heads however think this is likely our first look at a crude Starship variant not far off from the Lander for sure but SpaceX needs to test a crude environment before even getting to the landing tests so it makes more sense that this is what we're seeing here so all told SpaceX is making great use of the time they have to upgrade repair and manufacture new ships should the FAA manage to complete all the paperwork within the next month it's very possible that elon's newest estimation will prove to be correct and as for the Artemis 3 deadline well it's not like SpaceX isn't going to try to keep that 2025 launch date where it is it'll mean completing some of the most difficult testing of any modern spacecraft in an extremely tight schedule but just like with the site repairs SpaceX has surprised us before rocket lab has confirmed that their mission to Venus has been postponed until January 2025 at the earliest a spokesperson for the california-based launch Services Company responded to questions from news Outlet TechCrunch on June 1st about the launch of the mission which was supposed to have taken place in May of this year the spokesperson didn't elaborate further than saying our Focus right now is on delivering customer missions as a priority which makes sense rocket lab has been incredibly busy for the first half of this year scoring NASA and U.S government contracts like picking up the tropics contract from Astra who failed to launch the NASA storm chasing satellites last year and working on haste a Hypersonic sub-orbital version of their electron rocket for the U.S defense department that plus their usual work putting equipment into space for commercial clients would certainly keep rocket lab busy too busy to pursue their own projects apparently the company's Venus mission was spurred by the 22 20 discovery of phosphines in the Venetian Cloud layer this compound is often found on Earth as a result of microbial life and so it was a very exciting thing to think about Venus's surface is hot enough to melt lead but its upper atmosphere is much more Earth-like and so rocket lab CEO Peter Beck decided he wanted to send a probe there the company's Engineers even published their plans in the journal Aerospace and then got to work planning for the mission the probe would be funded by rocket Labs MIT and some undisclosed donors and would cost about 10 million dollars reportedly one percent the cost of NASA's Da Vinci and veritas probes plan to head to Venus in the late 2020s and early 2030s and that's mostly because they were keeping the scope small the probe is planned to only be about 38 centimeters wide and about 20 kilograms it would be launched on an electron rocket and a photon bust like the one that delivered NASA's Capstone probe to the Moon last year would get it the rest of the way to V Venus this is why the mission costs so little rocket lab has already developed all the mission appropriate Transportation hardware and they only need to design a probe that can take measurements and transmit them for the five-minute plunge through the upper atmosphere it doesn't have to even survive the surface Venus isn't getting a lot of attention even from the government-run organizations right now all eyes are on the moon and Mars but Beck is Right Venus has a good chance of having life on it and with most other commercial groups racing to make their marks elsewhere rocket lab has the chance to be the first company to get to Venus and could possibly even be the first group to prove the existence of life outside of earth that is a pretty enticing opportunity so it is a shame rocket lab has to wait but considering the reason is reportedly just that the company is being too successful there are definitely worse problems to have NASA is officially moving into a supporting role for commercial development of new space architecture and launch Hardware on June 15th the administration announced an unfunded space act agreement with seven companies including SpaceX and blue origin which pledges NASA's technical expertise inspection capabilities and data in an effort to support this new era of space operations this agreement comes out of NASA's collaborations for commercial space capabilities 2 program and really seems like the end goal for the administration in terms of how they want to operate in the next couple of decades they might have had a hard time getting funding for their own projects but NASA is still the Undisputed authority of space operations in the world scientists engineers probe and flight data research NASA has over half a century of experience and development to share and is generally run by folks who are interested in helping Humanity expand into the Stars rather than hoard that wealth of knowledge but the administration already supports at least some of the seven Partners on their list SpaceX being Chief among them the company's Dragon capsule alone required lots of close work with NASA teams to make sure it was suitable for crude use and safe to operate near the ISS but this agreement represents another step down that path a deeper partnership with companies looking to make new space stations and launch apparatus it's pretty clear to NASA by now that they won't be able to compete with companies like SpaceX once they gain the ability to run more permanent structures in low earth orbit one Starship or the new Glenn are operational NASA's SLS certainly isn't going to be able to keep them on The Cutting Edge of launch Tech either so they are doing what NASA was made to do gather and complete research and use it to get us further into space the agreement specifically mentions helping SpaceX maximize their use of Starship which is large enough to be used as a space station on its own NASA also says they'll be helping Sierra space develop their commercial low earth orbit ecosystem which has their upcoming Dream Chaser shuttle and those life expandable habitat modules smaller companies like think orbital are also going to be getting a hand planning for their large in-space platforms which will reportedly house research and Manufacturing in low earth orbit this is an expected move for NASA they've never really been an entity that wanted to monopolize spaceflight this doesn't mean NASA will stop launching their own missions but with the way things are going the administration's experience can be put to its best use in helping these companies have their best shot at being successful meet us back here every week for more updates on everything Aerospace industry and Interstellar exploration related make sure to give the video a thumbs up today if you liked it that really helps us out for real and subscribe to the Space Race for more videos just like this we do one long form essay and one news update every week and if you'd like more we've got two more on the screen for you right now

Channel: The Space Race

Views: 66,396

Keywords: elon musk, spacex, starship, starship launch, starship launch update, spacex news, spacex update, starsihp update, starship launch date

Id: eycFbUG3Mwg

Length: 12min 9sec (729 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 21 2023