Starship Super Heavy's HUGE Major Upgrades Revealed ...

spacex's latest breed booster will be an absolute Beast that's right we're talking about the Monstrous booster 9 that was recently selected for the next Starship test flight dubbed super heavy this booster is the starship's best friend and is the king of space weighing in at 300 tons empty and capable of holding more than 3 000 tons of propellant that's why SpaceX is sparing no expense on the super heavy unsurprisingly booster 9 is equipped with well over a thousand changes compared to the last one all this and more is what's ahead in today's installment of alpha Tech it's no secret that super heavy is a huge feat of Rocket engineering well kudos must be given to Elon Musk for even daring to attempt to build such a massive structure of course Elon has a private purpose for doing this he's motivated by his desire to help Humanity colonize Mars it's vital that we become a multi-planet species the billionaire entrepreneurs said citing both a much reduced probability of Extinction and the thrill of meaningful space exploration that will deliver to billions of people around the world however the Starship will have other uses the giant gleaming spacecraft is being designed to carry NASA astronauts to the Moon as well as to launch satellites to orbit and spacecraft missions like the James Webb Space Telescope Elon Musk calls it the Holy Grail of space travel measuring around 69 meters from tip to sail super heavy is almost as tall as an entire two-stage Falcon 9 or Falcon heavy rocket at 9 meters wide a single super heavy booster effectively a giant steel tube should be able to store at least six or seven times as much propellant as Falcon 9 and about two to three times as much as Falcon heavy engine count and Peak thrust are similarly staggering to an extent super heavy is even simpler than its Starship upper stage which needs two types of raptor engines flaps a bevy of maneuvering thrusters and more however at the booster's base SpaceX must design fabricate and assemble a nightmarishly crowded and complex mechanical structure that's capable of mounting fueling and powering anywhere from raptor engines simultaneously that structure and all Associated Plumbing must be able to withstand the force and pressure of more than 2 000 metric tons of cryogenic liquid oxygen and the 7 500 tons of thrust those Raptors can generate and that's just the bare minimum beyond the extraordinary mechanical stress it has to withstand super heavy thrust section also needs to be able to survive the hellish violent environment created by almost three dozen powerful rocket engines on one side while the structure is effectively half submerged in a cryogenic fluid subjecting the puck and Dome to brutal thermal conditions and last but certainly not least the exterior of super heavy thrust structure must be able to survive the mechanical and thermal hell of hypersonic atmospheric re-entry with zero cushioning of the blow including smaller secondary runs for each Raptor engine super Heavy's engine will likely contain miles of Plumbing for highly flammable explosive and high pressure liquid and gaseous methane and oxygen all 33 Raptors also need to be connected to Super Heavy's power supplies and avionic systems demanding still more miles of wiring fortunately booster 9 features a number of other design changes including sleeker raceways like external conduits that protect wiring and smaller Plumbing a different layout of the pressure vessels hydraulic power units an umbilical panel installed on its aft and significant changes to the Aero covers that slot over the AFT Hardware Beyond its Raptor engines the two next most substantial modifications made the super heavy booster 9 are arguably a pair of strike-like Arrow covers and the addition of large internal header tanks meant to store Landing propellant a series of sharp edged Arrow covers are slotted over the top of two new pairs of five composited overwrap pressure vessels or copvs that run about a third of the way up booster Nine's tanks it's possible that they'll function a bit like strikes fixed like Wing structures designed to improve aerodynamic stability in comparison super heavy B4 has four sets of two copvs spaced evenly around the outside of its engine section another significant change is the addition of an upgraded version of raptor the engine's combustion related Hardware is likely the same as the Raptor V2 engines present on booster 7 ship 24 and ship 25 but the hardware used to steer each engine called thrust vector control or TVC has been completely changed instead of using a complex web of plumbing and hydraulic power units bolted to the side of super heavy booster 9's 13 Central Raptors will be electrically steered that has allowed SpaceX to remove those power units streamlining booster 9's exterior and reduce the already Rat's Nest of Plumbing required to fuel control Power and steer dozens of high performance rocket engines on one booster once all 33 engines are installed it's likely that booster 9 will be thoroughly tested to ensure that all 13 electrically steered engines work well together before during and after numerous static fire tests SpaceX will also need to verify that the batteries likely powering those new systems function as expected during the peak stresses that they'll likely experience the electric TVC could need to rapidly redirect more than three thousand tons of thrust multiple times per second the peak power required from Super Heavy's batteries will likely be immense as a result so as we mentioned the reusable super heavy first stage is equipped with 33 methane powered Raptor engines while the starship's second stage features six the original design called for super Heavy's engines to shut down after boosting the Starship out of the lower atmosphere the Starship would then separate and ignite its own engines to continue on to orbit SpaceX is building a variant of the Starship to serve as a lunar lander in NASA's Artemis program however during the Super Heavies Maiden flight half a dozen engines shut down or never started and the Starship never separated from the super Heavies first stage after reaching an altitude of just 24 miles or so the entire vehicle began tumbling falling about six miles before its self-destruct system activated blowing the rocket apart the self-destruct system took longer to respond than expected for its second flight musk said the stage separation system has been modified a late-breaking change that's really quite significant the starship's engines will begin firing before all of the super heavy engines have shut down this so-called hot staging technique has been used for years in Russian rockets and musk has said that it'll improve the performance of the super heavy Starship We shut down most of the engines on the booster leaving just a few running um and and then at the same time start the engines on the ship pull up a stage um which you can obviously that results in kind of blasting the boosters so then you've got to protect the boosted the the top of the blue stage from getting incinerated by the uh upper stage engines so the solution is to add shielding to the top of the super heavy stage along with an extension featuring vents to direct the upper stage engine exhaust plumps away from the lower stage during their initial startup and finally booster nines grid fins now have additional plates on the exterior faces possibly adding strength against warping these are not booster 7's grid fins besides there will be a modification for super heavy that we hadn't realized before which might be implemented in the future in an interview with everyday astronaut Elon said he thinks four grid fins are excessive for a spacecraft he went on to say that two grid fins would be ideal or maybe three if the third one is significantly smaller this is similar to the rendering of the interplanetary transport system that SpaceX unveiled in 2016. however we haven't seen any changes to the booster so far but what about the future is it possible to have a booster with three grid fins well nothing is impossible as long as it can still provide normal Landing guidance for super heavy everything will be fine so who knows maybe we'll see a booster with three grid fins in the future it would surely be a sight to behold after all Starship super heavy should be the tallest most powerful and reliable launch vehicle ever made once it heads to the launch pad for the next time spacex's process of continuously tweaking and improving the design and production of its rocket does typically have that effect however it's more of a symptom of the company's approach to hardware and software development instead of working slowly and carefully from nothing to a preconceived finished product SpaceX typically seeks to design build and test the minimum viable product gradually improving or entirely replacing past ideas designs and Hardware until overarching goals are fully realized with Falcon 9 and Falcon heavy this meant beginning with Falcon 1 and a dead simple proof of concept rocket after successfully reaching orbit SpaceX expanded its Falcon 9 development program itself focused initially on the minimum viable product a full-scale Expendable rocket since Elon Musk founded SpaceX back in 2002 the goal's always been to build a fully reusable rocket the company has simply chosen the far more sustainable and practical approach of tackling only a select few problems at a time the Starship and Falcon development programs aren't directly comparable but it's safe to say that Starship is currently still in the very early stages of Hardware development with a nascent Factory quite literally churning out Starship Hardware these tweaks are a whole different animal thanks to data and insight gathered from testing actual full-scale Starship flight SpaceX will be able to guide its continuous improvement with even greater Precision honing in on the Next Generation Rockets orbital launch debut Mars has always been a top goal of Elon and SpaceX so the company's always changing and upgrading the Starship prototypes to achieve that Target this has been happening more and more after the launch of s24 and B7 on April 20th because that launch proved a great potential for the Starship system in particular and the Mars colonization mission in general so what are those changes what benefits do those changes bring first of all we'll come up with the new design changes on the Starship prototypes in this picture that Elon posted to Twitter on July 10th he implied there will be three more Raptor 2 vacuum engines added to the current version and that means that the Starship will now have nine engines including three sea level engines and six vacuum engines the increase in the number of engines will cause the design of Starship to have two major changes including the size of the propellant tanks and the overall height of the Starship the propellant tanks will be stretched by 25 percent to store an additional 30 tons of cryogenic liquid oxygen and liquid methane and that'll increase the total propellant mass of the Starship from 1200 tons to 1500 tons the height of the Starship will also increase by 5 meters going from 50 to 55 meters and that's 10 percent taller than the current prototypes in the total thrust of the engine system and as we all know the recent Starship prototypes had six Raptor 2 engines including three sea level engines and three vacuum engines the thrust of each Raptor 2 reaching 2.3 MN lifting up 230 tons of thrust so a Starship prototype with six engines generates a total thrust of about 14 000 tons with the increase of six to nine engines Starship will be able to generate more than 2 000 tons of thrust we can safely say that these improvements will make starship's propulsion system one of the most powerful Rockets ever for spacecraft only behind the Falcon heavy rocket the most powerful operational rocket in the world which was also created by SpaceX on top of that according to recently updated info Raptor 2 may be replaced by an even more powerful version soon Raptor 3 which is expected to come out by the end of this year this new version of the Raptor engine is intended to be used on the next Starship prototype based on the latest test result Raptor 3 can generate up to 2.69 MN and lift up to 269 tons of thrust so nine engines at Starship can generate more than 2 400 tons of thrust a booster with 33 engines the Raptor 3 can generate 8877 tons of thrust while the Raptor 2 version only generates 7 590 tons of thrust in short Raptor 3 will be about 18 percent more powerful than Raptor 2. also in this photo we can see some other small changes to the engine compartment an insulation layer has been added to limit the effects of low temperatures on the shielding engine especially to prevent the shielding engine from freezing on the outside when undergoing cryogenic tests or working in extremely low temperature environments an onboard camera was installed inside the engine compartment specifically on the false ceiling capturing a full view of what's Happening inside the engine compartment we can also see the hydraulic power unit system still inside the engine compartment before Elon told us that he'd use the new electric TVC system for the engine system however with a hydraulic engine still appearing in the picture that means it'll be used for the next launch with prototype s25 and B9 while the new electric TVC system will be used for the later prototypes the above changes promise to help SpaceX create a new step of SpaceX Starship in its Mission to Mars and there are many other small changes that are being worked on and will be continuously updated by our Channel to support the upgrades on Starship super heavy booster also has a big change the addition of hot staging with the message of never stop thrusting Elon and SpaceX plan to make this change during the separation process between the Starship and the booster in this new change the Starship engine will be activated simultaneously with separation when it still sits on the booster this principle of operation isn't too strange because it's been applied to some Russian Rockets such as soyuz and proton the benefits of hot staging are to maximize efficiency and use propellants because it helps remain The Continuous thrust output making the starting process of the second stage similar and more reliable as well as limiting the period of operation without thrust to do that SpaceX will remove the current Archway ring and replace it with a new sturdy ring with a dome shape inside this hot staging will be added on top of the booster above grid fins so it'll increase the height of the booster hot staging will have vents which help disperse and reduce the buildup of heat and pressure generated by the Starship engine and allow for the release of gases when Starship activates the engine which can cause damage to both stages obviously this change is very useful because SpaceX has realized a lot of shortcomings from the old design which caused the failure of the separation process on the s24 and B7 launch this new change will be applied immediately to current prototypes specifically on booster B9 and Starship s25 plus many upgrades also took place in the areas of Starbase at the build site Mega Bay 2 has completed the installation of the four corners for the third level after that the construction of the first corner of the fourth level also started this corner will be stacked on top of the third level which has just been completed along with the construction of Mega Bay 2 the construction of the new Star Factory is also going smoothly finally we'll move on to the launch site where major changes are taking place at the orbital launch mount under olm the construction of the Deluge manifold pipes in the water cooled steel plate system are being focused on the reason musk and SpaceX are focusing on these two systems is because they want to avoid the terrible damage that happened to their olm during the s24 and B7 launch on April 20th after this launch besides damaging the surrounding infrastructure it also caused a lot of change to the olm typically a big hole underneath this structure with some recent information the Deluge system is almost done with the installation ready to be connected to the water supply tank and Deluge steel plates of the water cooled steel plate system the hexagonal center plate has also been placed below the orbital launch Mount other parts will soon be in place and welded to the center place to complete the whole system this system combined with the Deluge system can help launch more efficiently limit damage from thrust and heat from the 33 Raptor engine at super heavy booster and prevent the terrible destruction to the orbital launch Mount and other surrounding infrastructure these systems will play a very important role in the future when they increase the number of engines as well as the replacement of the Raptor 2 with the Raptor 3 in the near future as I said in the earlier part of this video so these are the main changes that have been happening with the SpaceX Starship there's still a lot of changes in upgrades that'll be made until the next mission is officially launched but we think that Elon and SpaceX are doing the right thing that's all for today's episode we hope you enjoyed it and learned something new please let us know what you think in the comments section your feedback's very important to us and helps us make better videos for you thank you so much for watching and see you next time

Channel: ALPHA TECH

Views: 76,855

Keywords: spacex, alpha tech, starship, spacex starship, starship spacex, Starship Super Heavy's HUGE Major Upgrades Incoming..., elon musk, spacex today, space x, spacex live, star ship, spacex boca chica, space x starship, starships, every astronaut, starship news, starship super heavy, super heavy booster, starship booster, new starship booster, elon, musk, spacex update, elon musk news, spacex news today, starship booster upgrade

Id: 1OlZA6F55qQ

Length: 18min 57sec (1137 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 18 2023