Transcript
Weekly Space Update
How’s it going, everybody? This week, Starbase continues to see steady infrastructure activity as SpaceX inches ever closer to flight 12, and the race is on to see which vehicle will perform a full static fire first. Of course, this week also saw the completion of NASA’s historic Artemis 2 mission. What were the highlights after launch on April the 1st? Let’s dig in and find out.
Starbase Updates
We start at Starbase with some fabrication updates. On Tuesday afternoon, booster 20’s forward dome with an integrated hot staging section was brought out of the Star Factory and parked in the ringard area. That evening, it was taken not into Mega Bay 1 as expected, but rather into Mega Bay 2. It seems likely that SpaceX was using this forward section to do fit tests with ship 39 prior to it heading to the booster bay for stacking.
Moving on to the construction at the build site. On Monday, crews were spotted reinstalling Zgurts on Star Factory where cladding had been removed in recent weeks, seemingly preparing to close the building back up. As the gigabay continues to steadily grow, the height of the building caught up to the tower cranes, and in preparation for the next level of steel, the workers began the process of adding mast sections to the cranes to raise them higher.
Down Highway 4 at the air separation plant, work is also progressing steadily on the new commodity production site. New concrete was poured at the site, and throughout the week, crews worked to install access stairs and platforms on the side of the plant’s cold box. On Friday, steel was lifted and installed for the new compressor building at the site as well.
Up the road at the Massiey’s outpost on Tuesday, the booster 18.3 test tank was lifted back into the structural testing cage. The next day, the ship aft article was also lifted and then placed atop the test tank on the stand. On Friday, the cap was lifted and installed atop the stack test articles.
Testing Activities
Moving on to the week’s testing, on Wednesday, SpaceX performed a 12th round of cryogenic testing on the ship 39.1 test tank as they continue working to ensure the block 3 ship designs will perform as expected. Saturday saw some extensive activity over at pad 2. Starting late that afternoon, we saw some varied testing of the pad’s water systems. First, water trickled from the top deck of the mount. Then, a partial strength test of the flame bucket, followed by a full test.
Next, we saw a partial test of the water systems on the deck of the mount, followed a short time later by a full test of that system. That wasn’t all, though, because on Monday evening, water was seen periodically pouring from the launch mount. And first thing the next morning, SpaceX performed another full test of the pad’s deluge system. On Friday, SpaceX wrapped up the week much the same way they began it. We once again saw water spew forth from the pad 2 flame bucket, testing the system once again as they prepare for booster 19’s full 33 engine static fire campaign in the near future.
Going back in time a little bit, on Monday, the ship quick disconnect arm was rotated out away from the tower, and that night water bags were brought over, hooked up to the arm, and filled with water, performing a load test on the structure. It’s speculated that this test was done to ensure the arm can withstand the forces it’ll experience as 33 Raptor 3 engines go roaring by it during a launch.
On Tuesday, we could see some frost forming on the methane vaporizers in the tank farm as SpaceX continues working to ensure stage zero is ready for action. And on Wednesday, crews removed the scaffolding from the pad 2 launch mount in preparation for the pending return of booster 19 to the launch complex. To that same end, on Friday afternoon, a booster transport stand was moved out of the Sanchez site and parked outside of Mega Bay 1. Several hours later, the stand was rolled in, ready to receive booster 19.
Around that same time, booster 20’s forward dome, apparently having completed fit checks with ship 39, was moved back out of Mega Bay 2. And just after that, the ship static fire stand was taken into the building. Around midnight, Mega Bay 2 opened up again and ship 39, in all her glory, now installed onto the static fire stand, was brought out of the building. The Flight 12 starship, complete with some interesting looking patches of heat shield tiles, was rolled out of the build site and taken up Highway 4 to the Massiey’s outpost for its static fire campaign, suggesting that it may perform a full static fire test before booster 19 does.
SpaceX Falcon 9 Launches
This week, we also saw a routine filing that SpaceX submitted to the FCC for their planned communications with booster 19 and ship 39 during flight 12. The filing covers a launch between January 23rd and June 28th of this year. This week was a bit of a slower one for SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket with just two launches. First, on Monday evening, booster 1103 launched its inaugural mission as it lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The Falcon 9 sent another 25 Starlink satellites on their way to sun-synchronous orbit before touching back down on, of course, I still love you.
Then early in the hours of Saturday, booster 1094 launched Northrup Grumman Signis XL spacecraft to the International Space Station from Slick 40 as part of NASA’s commercial resupply services program. The booster returned back to the launch site at landing zone 40 for its seventh landing. And you can see on screen here a phenomenal shot of that landing from our very own Greg Scott.
United Launch Alliance
In other space news, in the early hours of Saturday morning, the United Launch Alliance launched their fifth mission for Amazon’s LEO satellite internet constellation. The company’s Atlas 5 rocket, equipped with five solid rocket boosters, lifted off from Space Launch Complex 41, carrying 29 of those satellites to low Earth orbit. A post from Amazon later confirmed the successful deployment of those satellites and also informed us that the 29 sats on this mission made this launch the heaviest payload ever launched by the Atlas 5.
Northrup Grumman
On Tuesday morning, Northrup Grumman’s Minotaur 4 rocket launched from Space Launch Complex 8 at Vandenberg Space Force Base. This mission carried STP SAT 7 for the US Space Force, hosting several experiments for the Department of Defense as well as several other ride share payloads.
Blue Origin
It was a very busy week for Blue Origin. Buckle up, we’ve got a lot of updates here. First, the company announced this week that they’ve completed acceptance testing for another of their BE7 engines and that it was now in their lunar plant 1 facility in Florida to await integration with a Blue Moon lander. They also shared that their Blue Moon Mark 1 lander, nicknamed Endurance, has successfully completed thermal vacuum testing and is being prepared for its return to Florida from Houston as the company continues to see steady progress with its lunar program.
Blue Origin stated that they’ve finished inspecting every system on the Never Tell Me the Odds New Glenn first stage booster, the one that successfully landed a few months back. Refurbishment is now complete and the rocket has been certified ready for flight ahead of its second mission, the first reflight of a new Glenn booster. And speaking of new Glenn, it also broke that Blue have filed plans to build a second launch pad at Space Launch Complex 36 in Cape Canaveral. This second pad will enable a much increased launch cadence to align with the company’s ambitions for New Glenn.
On Friday, Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp welcomed the third flightworthy new Glenn booster to their fleet and revealed that it’s been named “No, it’s Necessary,” after the famous quote from the Interstellar movie. And finally, in some less stellar news for the company, on Thursday, photos were posted showing that there was another testing failure in Blue Origin’s New Glenn’s second stage cleaning and testing facility. The evidence seems to indicate that it was a more energetic event than the failure we saw back in 2024 in the same place. We can see damage to the recently installed replacement door on the front of the building and to the facility’s roof, which wasn’t seen last time. It’s not yet clear if this was a failure of a test article or actual flight hardware, but according to a Blue Origin spokesperson, there will be no impact to ongoing production operations.
Firefly Aerospace
Firefly Aerospace announced that they are working with Seagate Space to explore the possibility of developing a sea-based launch capability for their alpha rocket. The company also announced that the first stage tanks for their Eclipse rocket are now on the structural test stand and will be pushed beyond their design limits during their test campaign. Boeing posted that they have delivered the next VIAT satellite to the Cape for integration ahead of its launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket in the coming weeks. Astrobotic announced that their cube rover mini lunar rover has been attached to the Griffin 1 lander as they prepare for the mission, which is also slated for launch on a Falcon Heavy later this year as part of NASA’s CLPS program.
Isar Aerospace
Isar Aerospace had to once again stand down from an attempted launch of their Spectrum rocket, this time to investigate a suspected leak in one of their composite overwrapped pressure vessels. Rocket Lab posted that they have signed another three launch deal with IQPS, bringing them up to a total of 15 missions for the Japanese satellite company.
NASA’s Artemis 2 Mission
And to wrap things up, as you all know hopefully by now, this week was a historic one for NASA as their Artemis 2 mission seemed to breeze through its milestones. The Orion Integrity Capsule and its four occupants, Reed Wisman, Victor Glover, Christina Cook, and Jeremy Hansen, flew by the moon on Monday and surpassed a record set by Apollo 13 as they flew further from Earth than any previous crewed mission before. During their flyby of the moon, the crew largely focused on observing the lunar surface.
They observed and named two previously unnamed craters on the lunar surface. One was named Integrity after their Orion capsule, and the other was named Carol after Commander Reed Wisman’s late wife. Multiple crew members were also able to observe several meteoroid impact flashes, which caused quite a bit of excitement within the science teams in mission control. Some of the most spectacular imagery came from the solar eclipse that the crew was able to observe as they experienced almost an hour of totality. And the one that caught the most eyes here on Earth was, of course, the Earth set.
And on Friday evening, it was time for the crew to return home. Just over nine days after lifting off from the space coast, we got some incredible views of the crew module separating from the service module. It then performed a short burn to set its entry angle. The Orion capsule entered the atmosphere heat shield first, using the air to bleed off the nearly 25,000 mph velocity that it carried into the atmosphere. A short time later, the crew entered into an expected communications blackout due to the interference from the plasma created during the first part of their re-entry.
Everything appeared to go according to plan, though, with Houston regaining contact when expected. We saw nominal deployment of all parachutes and a picture-perfect splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego. Reed, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy, and Rise, the little mascot, safely and successfully returned to Earth exactly as predicted at 5:07 p.m. Pacific time following their historic journey around the moon.
Well, for all of you that are still over the moon over Artemis 2, just like I am, keep in mind there’s plenty of exciting stories coming up ahead in the next few weeks. And if you want to keep in touch with every last one of them, be sure to stick around here at Avid Space. Leave a like and a subscribe to keep us boosted in YouTube’s brutal algorithm. And until next time, this is Kaden signing off.
