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Elon Musk's SpaceX Ready for Starship Flight · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:01
  Hey everybody, welcome back to the Elon Musk Podcast.
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  This is a show where we discuss the critical Crossroads, The
• 0:08
  Shape, SpaceX, Tesla X, The Boring Company, and Neuralink,
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  and I'm your host, Will Walden. If you want uninterrupted
• 0:17
  episodes of the Elon Musk podcast, please go to
• 0:20
  clubelon.supercast.com to find out how there's a link in the
• 0:26
  show notes. This episode is going to be a
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  little bit different. I'm going to be talking off the
• 0:31
  cuff about Spacex's Starship, which will be doing its third
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  test flight, hopefully on Thursday of this week.
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  Now, either Thursday or Friday. We're still waiting for the FAA
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  to approve Starship's flight, but everything else is in place.
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  SpaceX has tested the rocket booster numerous times.
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  They've done cryogenic testing, which means they fill up the
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  booster with cryogenic fluid and that makes it absolutely super
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  cold because when a rocket fires its engines, it gets extremely
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  hot. Now the fuel inside is pumped
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  through. They make sure that the
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  cryogenics work. They make sure that all the
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  plumbing works on the base station down at stage zero.
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  Stage zero is where they launched the rocket from.
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  So they have the the rocket launching facility down at Boca
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  Chica Beach, which is also known as Starbase, and the ground
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  facilities, they've had a huge revamp recently they've added
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  new, I've added new fuel decks, they've added new plumbing to
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  the thing. It's been millions of dollars in
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  the making and they've also added new piping.
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  They've added new electronics to the the launch deck.
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  They've also added a water deluge system, and if you're not
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  familiar what a water deer system is, it basically pumps
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  millions of gallons of water underneath the rocket for noise
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  suppression and so basically the rocket doesn't explode the
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  launchpad. This has kilotons worth of
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  power. It is the most powerful rocket
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  and the biggest rocket that's ever flown.
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  They made it to space last time for the Ift 2 flight, IFT 1
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  didn't go too well, but it went, you know, better than expected.
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  Elon has said numerous times he didn't think it was gonna even
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  get off the pad, but it cleared the pad, it launched And now the
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  wonderful thing is they learned from the mistakes in IFT One
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  from IFT one and both the rocket and the booster and the ship
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  itself. Starship exploded during IFT
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  One. Same thing happened during IFT
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  2, but during IFT 2 they started this thing called the Hot
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  staging technique, and hot staging is when they ignite the
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  rocket which is on top of the booster during stage separation.
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  So about 50 seconds into the flight, I think it's about 50
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  seconds. About a minute into the flight,
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  they start to separate the the rocket and the booster itself.
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  And that's right after Max Q, which is the most dynamic
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  pressure that's put on the rocket during this flight.
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  And once they make it past Max Q, they know they can go to the
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  next stage, which is stage separation.
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  Now stage separation is very important because you can't send
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  the rocket booster and the Starship to space.
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  The booster has to come back, land, get refurbished and then
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  go up again. So what they did last time, hot
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  staging at about a minute ish into the flight, they separated,
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  started separating the booster and the ship.
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  And when they did that they ignited the ship's rocket
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  engines, which is in itself this is a rarely done move in Space
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  Flight because it's just not needed.
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  But something this powerful like need to push the booster away
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  from the ship and they need that extra kick that the ship can get
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  from the booster because it's pushing against the booster as
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  the booster still pushing forward and up.
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  So they use that kick stage the the hot staging to push it up
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  even further and faster. So when they do that, the
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  booster gets sent back down towards Earth.
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  It does a flip, almost a full flip at that point, and then
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  it's going to reignite its engines.
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  The booster will reignite its engines, 33 Raptor engines when
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  they started, but they're going to do a few of them on the way
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  back in, what they do with a Falcon 9 rocket, very similar.
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  And then they'll land the booster.
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  This time I FT3, which we're talking about, they're going to
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  be landing that softly in the Gulf of Mexico.
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  Now, if this all goes as planned, the booster won't blow
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  up. They'll do a very soft landing
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  in the Gulf of Mexico because they have to learn how to land
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  this. Elon said it took about 15
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  flights for the Falcon 9 to land properly.
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  Now if that's the case, SpaceX has about 10 more flights before
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  the booster will land properly and the ship will land properly.
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  But for Falcon Nine, they didn't have a top half of it.
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  The fairing in anything on top of the booster is expendable,
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  except when they send people to space.
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  So the fairing just falls back down to Earth for a Falcon 9.
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  And with Starship, there's a whole upper stage that they have
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  to land, and they're going to land this thing vertically.
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  Now the difference between IFT 2 and IFT 3?
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  There's a couple. There's a few things we have to
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  talk about as far as differences go, But before we do that, let's
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  talk about what happened to the IFT 2 ship.
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  It's a few minutes into the flight after the stage
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  separation, after the booster blew up.
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  As it was doing the flip, they did the flight termination
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  system because they figured that the booster wasn't going to make
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  it, so they blew it up. And few minutes into the flight
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  after that, the ship was exploded as well because it
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  wasn't going to make it. They released too much fuel they
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  were going to do, they're going to bleed some fuel out, and then
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  they had to terminate the flight at that point.
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  So Booster didn't make it, Ship didn't make it.
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  But from the data that they gathered from both of those
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  occurrences, they made improvements for IFT 3.
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  So when IFT 3 happens, we're hoping for a full stage
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  separation, hot staging, and the flip maneuver by the Booster.
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  This thing is massive by the way.
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  If you've never seen this thing, it is about 250 feet tall.
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  So think of a 25 story building, One of the biggest things that's
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  ever flown to be honest with you, because it's so round as
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  well. It's so big.
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  It's 30 feet around, it's 9 meters in diameter.
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  So The thing is massive, massive.
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  And they're gonna do the flip maneuver, soft land it in the
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  Gulf of Mexico, hopefully. And if they do that, that is a
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  huge win. That's huge for a SpaceX 'cause.
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  Then they can move forward with a guided soft landing at to
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  certain parts of the ocean, or they can have a or sorry, the
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  Gulf of Mexico. Or they could do a guided burn
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  back towards Starbase and eventually I don't think they're
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  gonna be doing it right away. They have another launch tower
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  that they want to build before. I believe they're going to do a
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  some sort of landing at Starbase.
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  So having a landing pad at Starbase would be OK catching it
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  with the tower, that's what they're going for because they
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  can't do a landing on the booster without catching it.
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  But if you've never seen the the Catch tower, it's it's also
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  massive 400 foot tall 410 I believe it is 413 feet tall.
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  It's a massive structure and when they catch this thing 250
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  foot tall booster on a 400 foot tall tower, it's going to be
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  absolutely amazing. So if they do that event,
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  they'll do that eventually. I'm probably going to give them
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  about 10 more flights before they even try that.
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  They have to do a bunch of guided flights, make sure that
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  everything works perfectly fine, and then if they can get it
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  mailed for five or six flights in a row, I believe they'll be
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  ready to catch it. But they need to get the second
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  tower up, because if something does happen to the catch tower
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  or the launch tower, it's the same thing.
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  Launch and catch is the same thing, so something happens to
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  one of the towers. They need to have a backup
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  because they can't just wait months.
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  If the booster comes in hot, breaks a bunch of stuff 'cause
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  there's hundreds of miles of cables and pipes that connect
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  everything at Starbase if anything goes wrong.
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  This thing is made out of stainless steel too.
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  So if anything goes wrong, shards of stainless steel could
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  explode and just devastate some of these pipes, some of the
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  tankers, some of the tanks equipment nearby, it's it would
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  be a massive process to get it back up and flying.
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  And also at that point they have to deal with federal
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  regulations, if FAA, etcetera. And then that's going to be a
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  big deal. So if something happens that's a
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  mishap, they have to do a full mishap investigation and it
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  could push them back a year. So they have to make sure this
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  is absolutely perfect for IFT 3. They're going to try to land the
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  booster in the Gulf of Mexico and they're going to, which this
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  is a cool part. They're going to launch the
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  Starship all the way to the Indian Ocean.
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  Before they were going to go to the off the coast of Hawaii,
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  Kauai for the first two flights. That was their plan and they
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  switched it to the Indian Ocean for safety reasons.
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  We're not exactly sure, Elon and SpaceX hasn't released the
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  details about the safety reasons, but they're gonna be
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  landing in the Indian Ocean. And when they land in the Indian
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  Ocean with a ship, they would have done a few things in
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  between the launch and the landing.
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  One of those things is a fuel. It's they're moving fuel from
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  one container to another container within the Starship
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  itself. This is for a bigger problem
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  that SpaceX is solving, which is they're gonna be doing in orbit
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  refueling. So they need to make sure that
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  the fuel can actually move around the Starship, and also
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  they're going to be checking the payload doors for Starship, and
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  the payload doors are very important payload doors.
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  It's a Pez dispenser at this point for the Starlink missions.
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  Now Starlink, if you're not familiar, it's Spacex's
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  broadband rural satellite Internet service, and it's a
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  massive moneymaker for SpaceX. Now, if they could launch
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  hundreds of Starlinks in a month as opposed to 30, it would be a
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  game changer. For SpaceX, it would.
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  The revenue would increase dramatically.
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  They can have more coverage and more people using the service.
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  Better service for everybody. It's just a no brainer.
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  And Starship can hold an infinite amount more than a
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  Falcon 9, there's just no comparison to it.
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  So if they can nail this time the next flight, they may launch
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  some Starlink satellites into orbit, adjust to test it and see
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  if it works. So that might be an interesting
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  one for IFT 4, but IFT 3, if they do, they're just going to
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  test the mechanism to launch those out and the Hatch, things
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  like that. And as far as we know, that's it
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  except for landing in the Indian Ocean and getting to orbit or
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  getting the space for the Starship.
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  And as far as we know, that's the those are the big ones,
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  those are the big takeaways for this launch.
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  I want to, I want to thank you of course for listening to the
• 11:56
  show. If you are a Space Flight
• 11:59
  enthusiast, come check us out over on YouTube.
• 12:01
  Space news Pod. Space News Pod on YouTube is my
• 12:06
  Space Flight channel. Please take a second.
• 12:08
  Go over there. Subscribe.
• 12:10
  Gonna be doing a live launch for the Starship tomorrow morning,
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  Thursday morning at 7:00 AM, so get ready for that.
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  It's going to be wild. Hopefully the FAA comes through
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  with the launch license within the next 12 hours.
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  That's all we got though, and that's all we're waiting for.
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  Thanks again, everybody. Take care of yourselves and I
• 12:34
  will see you in the next one. And make sure to subscribe to
• 12:37
  the show too. And the Space news pod on
• 12:39
  YouTube. Hey, thank you so much for
• 12:42
  listening today. I really do appreciate your
• 12:44
  support. If you could take a second and
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• 13:02
  support the show even more, go to Atreoncom, Stage Zero, and
• 13:08
  please take care of yourselves and each other and I'll see you
• 13:10
  tomorrow.