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Thanks for this vid. This is one of the many parts of rocket science that aren't really talked about in the usual channels, one is always hearing about the new developments in rocket design (which don't get me wrong, it's amazing to see grain silos with wings fly) but it's also really cool to see the "behind the scenes" stuff in a way
No not at all. Header tank issue is fixed, requiring minimal or no hardware upgrade, launch pads not really either, they just keep doing static fires and launches and reinforce the areas that get damaged. They start with the lowest mass possible and add what is necessary. The biggest problems in order of importance are: 1) The heat shield, especially the attachment to a flexing hull (hot and cold cause it to expand and shrink) and the gaps between the wings and the hull 2) Mastering orbital refueling, the entire mission except deliveries to Earth orbit hangs on this. They do have good potential solutions but nothing demonstrated so far 3) The actual entry, descent and landing at Mars, this will take a few attempts. Try to land, see what happens, fix (mostly software) much like on Earth 4) Propellant production on Mars, set up mostly autonomously. Making enough propellant to fully fuel just one Starship to return to Earth will be a massive undertaking requiring something like a km² of solar arrays 5) Building the crew variant with all the systems associated including life support, entertainment, radiation shelters etc... 6) Make Starlink profitable, because that will pay for everything else. But good progress on that front too.
@@robertlatta2019 The orbital launch pad being built is for Super Heavy, which is expected to have 28 sea level Raptor engines. That's almost 10 times as many as Starship, so the lack of flame diverter is still a real risk. Also they plan to eventually launch Starship from Mars, on nothing but landing legs which definitely won't be as high as the test stand.
That is an issue, but Mars has less than half of Earth's surface gravity, and the Moon has less than 1/6th of Earth's gravity. You don't need as much thrust to get off of the surface, so you can run your engines a little slower and generate less debris. It'll be interesting to see how they deal with it.
@A D Easier to design a spaceship that can land without a pad. Why not put the engines midway up. Have a longer tube and some hardy landing legs. And have a redirection flap on the bottom for take offs that redirect the rocket boosts 45° instead of straight. And once airborn the flaps close for straight down boost. Ive seen a youtube vid of usa jets vs russian jet design. The US jets need clean runways for takeoffs so people have to go out and clean the runway of debrie by hand. Where as the russian migs have a flap on the front intake for take off so they dont need clean runways for take off. A similar design might work.
@@coonjamalay well yes, but that isn’t a rocket design change, it’s a different version of the rocket for Mars. They know this of course, so they will have that already planned out
This video does a very great job introducing the very real issues that engineers must deal with when designing these rockets. That was something that done very well in the era of NASA's space shuttles. It takes a society to develop these ships, and it requires better communication of the high level problems and decisions that need to be made for better and faster advancement of these programs. Thank you Primal Space for keeping it real and reporting on more aspects of the engineering process than just focusing on rocket body concepts that most other media does.
You should have mentioned that the final iteration of launchpads will be off the coast for fully stacked starships and booster combos. Only suborbital (if that) starship launches will be happening from land.
Starship may need to be able to land and take off from unprepared surfaces but the superheavy booster does not, as it is restricted to take off and landing on Earth. And it will have a much bigger problem with heat thrust and noise as it is so much more powerful, so some form of sound suppression and flame diversion would seem to be required to launch the complete Starship stack.
Very intelligently and thoughtfully produced video. One of the only videos to correctly describe current Starship development as part of a test program rather than referring to the vehicles as prototypes as many SpaceX related TH-cam channels do.
Mentioned previously: send or deploy a rolled up debris deflecting landing pad to Mars. To over-simplify: As rocket approaches Mars, a rolled up carpet landing pad; made of graphene and some metal hardware cloth, is deployed to settle on the surface of Mars. Then deploy a trampoline type structure on top of the pad. Then land on that. The trampoline offers some landing resistance but not enough to bounce the rocket. Or maybe; the first pad self inflates to be the debris deflector and the landing cushion. Draco thrusters would really help.
Solution: Gary steel in Richmond supplied the steel plates 14 inches thick for the Golden Gate bridge. They have a sample letter "G" holding open the front door in the summer. They transported the plates by putting them on the deck of a ship to get them over to the bridge site. It would take a long time to heat up a steel plate that thick. I personally worked on a stainless steel plate 10 feet in diameter that was 1 inch thick a Utilicon in Forestville Ca. Just some food for thought.
Great analysis of a problem I didn’t consider. My suggestion would be to encase all engine in a protective shield allowing only the opening of the engine bells to be exposed. It could be called the engine chamber. This engine chamber would be anchored to a pivot front/back and side to side to allow gimbaling. Or even simpler, just add a stainless steel barrier that would close the underside of engine bay and cut out holes for the engine bells. No engine gimbaling needed, all that is needed for rocket orientation is engines throttling.
Well if you can get enough power out of the engines at the top, to get the ship off the ground far enough away from debris to start the engines, that could be it.. But yeah not all planets will have low enough gravity for this... Maybe deployable landing legs that get the ship much farther off the ground? Adding more engines at lower thrust could be it or maybe point some engines at an outward angle just for take off and then once you are far enough from the ground light the main engines.
Both -40f AND c?! Neat! Jokes aside, you kept me interested. One other thing though about the martite, they first used none during early tests. They had to add martite sheets to protect the already damaged concrete.
TfW the massive problem now is not the rocket but the landing and subsequently relaunching site... Thanks for filling in a small detail many forgot to address
Great Video! There were so many things I didn’t know! Like, how they use the water to divert the sound of the engines and how the engine use so much force that it’s actually supersonic at ground level! Holy Crap!
You have a really great point, this needs to land anywhere and takeoff from anywhere without damaging the rocket. maybe they need much bigger legs and more protective shells. or maybe it should land horizontally with bigger legs and have four engines on each side and take up horizontally and then it should go vertical using the bottom engines.
Since The Beginning Of The Video I Wrote A Comment About The Fact That There Is No Launch Pad On Mars... I Was Planning To Post It At The End Of The Video... You Got Me On The First Halftime I'm Not Gonna Lie...
You make good points about landing on Mars and the need to be robust enough to deal with launch and landing with no prepared pad. For Starship, this is necessary. Super Heavy is a different animal, however. It's ONLY going to launch and land here on Earth. And the need for a flame diverter/deluge system for all of those raptors will be REQUIRED if they are going to successfully handle it. Just my two cents.
Debri is less of a risk in a vacuum, there's no shockwaves or turbulence to pick up and move rocks etc, rather just a stream of atoms that rebound off the surface. The exhaust plume also violently expands in all directions into the vacuum, the force at even a short distance is quite small. This enabled the Apollo landings, although the descent stage was single-use and was almost certainly slightly damaged.
They aren't investing much on a concrete launch pad because they ultimately plan on creating a sea launch pad, possibly using a converted oil rig. This would keep dangerous launch activity away from populated areas.
Good video. Problems with the SpaceX launch system have been discussed by the SX community even before Musk announced that there would be no flame diverter. This video puts that all together and adds some additional information. As far as a trip (or trips) to Mars, I have always considered the first Starships sent to mars would be on a one way trip, without yet having a nuclear engine, that is at least a two year interval between flights. Make that a four year interval and you have time to build enough launch "pedestals" and landing pads to do the job. That also gives enough time to build the volume limited fuel making facility currently proposed by SX. NASA is already working on a nuclear engine that can act as a tug between destinations and that would require only enough fuel for the Starship(s) to takeoff from mars. Myself, I think the far more important mission for SX is the moon. We absolutely cannot afford SLS and their problems continue daily. The Super Heavy alone, with its greater capacity, could step in and be used to launch the Orion capsule and still put us on the moon by 2024. My preference would be to use the Starship for that purpose but probably not before 2026. Some skeptics might say we are at war and the first battleground is the moon. I think that is our most important destination.
People often miss one important detail: Starship (the upper stage) is NOT supposed to start from launch pads. So they have to develop a launch pad for Superheavy that is more resiliant by amplitudes. But these Starship-launchmounts basically are prototypes for interstages that will be mounted on top of Superheavy! You will not have tons of concrete or a large flame diverter on top of the booster, still you want to reuse that instantly so you must not burn it up like on single use rockets where you don't care. Also Starship might have little margin to have a coasting phase where hydraulics can push away the upper stage like on F9 (also how would you hydraulically push it like 20m ? ). So the top of Superheavy might get super toasted once Starship lights its 6 raptors on ascent, what they really have to figure out is how to cope with that.
Just do it like how historically rockets have always done it: decouple a stack (booster), wait a few seconds, then fire several smaller engines to increase the gap in between each stage. You can see this at work with a ton of different rockets, just look up rocket footage and I'm sure you'll find some.
@@bluntcabbage6042 Lol, no need to tell me about this. Yes, there where reverse thrusters since the apollo era and stuff. However, you can see the upper stage plume interacting with the interstage in most footage of larger rockets. And the thing is, SpaceX wants to relaunch these boosters, not after refurbishing a half year later, not after checking them over in a week, but they want them to just go again within the hour. This is a different problem. Also, several Raptors would be way more destructive on the interstage than a single Mvac engine might be. You are lighting several hundret tons of thrust there and you basically don't even want that to push your booster out of direction!
@@A.Lifecraft If you knew about small separation engines, why ask the question to start with? Separator engines are nowhere near as powerful as a Raptor and would only serve for a few seconds to give a greater distance between the two stages. Additionally, even after the engines stop burning, the two stages will continue to drift apart at a considerable rate. It's essentially a non-issue, even for reusing rocket bodies. The tech exists and has been readily available for years.
@@bluntcabbage6042 I did not ask a question. I assumed that SpaceX is purposefully doing testlaunches from simplyfied launchmounts to collect data on how to do things under less optimal conditions. Basically the same they did from the beginning by building an orbital rocket in the open. I stated Starship will barely ever launch from a normal launchmount, the thing that comes closest will be the interstage of Superheavy and that could be optimized through data they collect now.
Bonjour. Super vidéo 👍 et surtout c'est la première fois que je vois un créateur de contenu sur TH-cam être aussi pertinent, intelligent et très réaliste dans sa démonstration et sa logique. Félicitations à toi 👏. Ça change de tous les idiots qui s'émerveillent devant les vidéos qui (c'est vrai) en mettent plein le vue, sans pour autant prendre le temps de réfléchir ...
this was a well done presentation of a serious problem- I suppose Starship initially might bring it's launchpad as a lander-module, attached after orbital refueling operation- which might at least provide a measure of predictability for a safe return
How will the crew determine that the ground is suitable for a landing, and the presumed take off ? Mr Armstrong had to manually intervene after using the mark 1 eyeball. Recent launches have shown that concrete was blasted from the pad. Armouring up the base of the ship, from an engineering point of view is straight forward. On the Moon, or Mars, at lift off , the surface around, and underneath the feet could be sufficiently eroded away or undermined by the exhaust gases , so as to make the vessel tilt. How much off, perfectly vertical can SpaceX launch from an alien surface. (We have already seen that it can fall over). Will the crew have to manually deploy some sort of ground shield after landing? Landing pads would have to be built eventually. Beefy bum and space concrete ? Personally I think what SpaceX is attempting is brilliant. And what they have already achieved is fantastic. Just very little info on the above.
I does make sense they are using the simplest possible landing gear at the moment. No point in wasting resources on them yet as they expect to lose some early prototypes. They are incrementally adding complexity as it's needed and legs will come when they start being confident about having safe speeds at the landing phase.
The launch site issue needs to be dealt with in small scale before just ignoring it until later. A basic system similar to the basic tank/engine units from earlier tests that launches, lands, refuels and launches again from un-developed sites similar to what would be found on the moon and Mars. If they can't work it out in small scale then they are not likely to make it work in large scale. Another issue is that putting the fueling ports in the engine bay drastically increases the chances of those ports being damaged rendering the craft either largely useless of perhaps even destroyed.
Its a good idea to tackle problems on earth and want the problems to tackle less trouble later it does make sense in the long run . Spacex will figure it out . What's one more problem. That's what spacex is good at.
What I didn’t hear about is the fact that the thrust required to land and take off from Mars is much less than on Earth. Less thrust, in much thinner atmosphere. That is what needs to be tested.
@@avid0g Is that based on actual calculations of coefficient of drag in the thinner Martian atmosphere and under the lower gravity of Mars? Or a guess because the atmosphere is thinner? I admit that intuition suggests you may be right, but I’ve been surprised by unexpected results in math and physics.
This was a very enlightening presentation. Now I finally understand what is going on with the rapid Starship prototyping. Thanks. Oh...by the way, very good sales technique as well.
sound energy lol, it disperses the rocket thrust yes.... and dampens the sound yes. The sound is not what heats the water, it is the huge flames shooting out of the rocket. :-D
The pressure wave peaks compress water vapor back to liquid and the low pressure between peaks allows that water to vaporise again, converting latent heat. Thus, the dangerous acoustic volume is reduced.
A cone shaped structure directly beneath the rocket engines with a high volume water nozzle at the tip + curtain of water encircling the perimeter of the launch mount. I think that would survive even superheavy.
I guess Spacex will build infrastructure on Mars in the following order: 1. Power production/solar panels 2. Landing pad 3. Isru fuel production and storage 4. Fresh water production 5. Food production 6. Crew habitation 7. Starship maintenance and repair facility Or am I totally wrong? Is there any documentation on this?
Very excellent insight... I think each one of those topics will be resolved further down the pipeline of Thee SpaceX iteration Program. Elon, I'm sure will keep the manufacturing process here in the US to improve the over all processes in making a great space-liner. Keeping and growing STEM employment opportunities here in Texas and the states at every opportunity... There will be much to learn and improve in Manufacturing Starship Liners, Crew-ships, Moon Mars landers, Starship rotating Station keeping gateways, etc.... Prep Landing craft, possibly prep pads to protect against electrostatic charged regolith that sticks to everything on moon landings... Lunar Raised landing thrusters may not stop all the regolith serious issues on initial landings...
@@baen. Its not about spacex being more interesting, it about the views he is getting from spacex videos... spacex is the hot topic these days and people will click on it more. More views = more money for the channel.
@@jotham123 Been thinking about that but I doubt the content providers can/are going to have a separate video without the ads for curiosity stream, blinkist, etc, etc, etc. It's a blight in the whole youtube ecosystem.
Keep in mind that at its core, Starship is designed to eventually not need prepared launch and landing facilities. Yes, they need a secure mount for testing, but just as important is learning to build the engine area to not be destroyed by engine thrust debris. I have to believe that whatever happened with the static fire tests was as important to the end goal as the actual flight itself. SpaceX absolutely cannot design this vehicle to only launch with hardened flame trenches, etc. That just won't work on the lunar or martian surfaces
All I will give you is electromagnetic frequency will dilute sound wave problem, magnetic grid will solve the suspension ,will have to incorporate internal rows of magnets, LEVITATION .
At the moment the Raptor engines on the Starship have to be able to gimbal independent from one another (and I dont think that will change) so a structure like the Octaweb on the Falcon Heavy actually wont be possible. They might have to surround each engine with its own protection mechanism which will be a very complex task since there isnt much space in between each engine.
I feel like our priorities are mixed up though we should have a idea of making space ports and space buildings and that will allow for us to build a fleet of rockets faster
Pretty sure the reason why they're using the side engines on the lunar version of starship is to do with impingement on other objects at the launch site. Because of practically zero atmosphere on the moon debris that's kicked up travels a long distance before it's pulled down by gravity, or if it is travelling at orbital velocity, before it meets a hill or mountain and stops. The only way to regularly land starships near lunar land bases would be to have complicated wall structures or to land them on the opposite side of the nearest mountain, a logistical nightmare.
Building a launch pad on Mars isn't out of the question, and something that may very well be worth it for a crewed mission. It might be as simple as bringing a shovel and digging a trench to give the flame and debris somewhere to go other than back up. If that reduces the chance of launch failure by a couple percent, the shovel (which will also be useful for digging down for deeper samples, so it isn't even wasted mass) will be well worth having on the payload. Spending a couple weeks of the mission digging a 30 foot long trench deep enough to divert sufficient exhaust doesn't sound like an ideal use of our astronauts time, but if that is what it takes to ensure they get back home, well worth it, especially on a year long mission. It might even be possible to have a robot do it, send a mission up one cycle in advance, giving it time for a robotic digger to set it up for takeoff, while a fuel mining and refining robot deploys to fill the tank. Once the tank is confirmed to be filling and the trenches dug, the crewed mission can then launch, land nearby, and know that they have a ride home already in place, plus a plan B in the rocket they landed in. If it is possible to just make the exterior of the rocket engines and engine bells, and other relevant systems tough enough to reliably withstand landing and launch, great. If not, that still won't stop us from getting to Mars.
It might be better to build spacecraft on the moon. These may be used to land on and launch from our moon and Mars. Another design can be used specifically to transfer payload from Earth to orbit.
@@PassportGaming mars surface is not entirely soft soil and contains hard rock. Plus, mars has about 1/3 earths gravity so the effect is minimized. Plus, they will only launch and land from a specific location only one time.
Good point. They don't because that's not something they are addressing right now. It just cheaper right now to not build a proper launch pad. And you're right, they will have to deal with the issue of blasting lots of dirt around on mars just like they would if they tested on earth. Gravity being 1/3 won't make much of a difference because of the large mass of the spacecraft compared to the Apollo LEM. In addition we don't have the technology to detect soil thickness to a usable accuracy from orbit around mars. So finding a hard surface will be impossible at the beginning.
To test for landing on terrain, they should launch from Boca Chica, go suborbital and land somewhere in Atacama Desert since its regarded to be mars like location.
Great video, I subscribed. Regarding trying new programs, if they’d not require a credit card for the free trial I’d try it. But you always end up having to contact them to stop or clear the coming charges. Just my opinion.
The only channel to actually call this out. All the others are just Elon fan bois hoping to be noticed by their boyfriend. Good job. How do they expect to launch a booster with 27 engines? They can barely do it with 3.
![F.HERO Ft. JSPKK x ลำไย ไหทองคำ x M-PEE - ไม่สนิทบิดหมด (Thai Riders Anthem) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kPJZ0UihBfk/mqdefault.jpg)
What are the chances that SN9 sticks the landing? - Shoutout to Blinkist for supporting this video - you can try it out for free and support the channel by signing up using the Primal Space link! www.blinkist.com/primalspace
bruh
Comment: “1 day ago”...
It’s because the video was unlisted
95 percent
Hmm
"There are no failed experiments. There is only new data."
SpaceX is raking in the data like no one ever before.
Providing that your new data is not burnt during a failed experiment.
Massimo O'Kissed you say that as if wireless communications don’t exist
@@quinnreierson , it has to be possible for your experiment to fail in a spectacular fireball right on top of your wireless data collection centre.
@@massimookissed1023 false clearly you have no clue
@@KeepItReal2024 , clearly you have no imagination.
I sense you didn't 'get' LEGO as a child.
Thanks for this vid. This is one of the many parts of rocket science that aren't really talked about in the usual channels, one is always hearing about the new developments in rocket design (which don't get me wrong, it's amazing to see grain silos with wings fly) but it's also really cool to see the "behind the scenes" stuff in a way
Incredible. Of all the spacex starship discussions, this is my favorite. Very insightful. Keep it coming.
W
right now their biggest problems are:
1: Landing Legs
2: Launch Pad
3: Header Tank Pressure :D
Lol. GO SN9!!!
And that all sounds like minor issues compared to what they've already accomplished. Fascinating and impressive.
@@Jens.Krabbe elon said that landing legs is very difficult. but idk.
No not at all. Header tank issue is fixed, requiring minimal or no hardware upgrade, launch pads not really either, they just keep doing static fires and launches and reinforce the areas that get damaged. They start with the lowest mass possible and add what is necessary. The biggest problems in order of importance are:
1) The heat shield, especially the attachment to a flexing hull (hot and cold cause it to expand and shrink) and the gaps between the wings and the hull
2) Mastering orbital refueling, the entire mission except deliveries to Earth orbit hangs on this. They do have good potential solutions but nothing demonstrated so far
3) The actual entry, descent and landing at Mars, this will take a few attempts. Try to land, see what happens, fix (mostly software) much like on Earth
4) Propellant production on Mars, set up mostly autonomously. Making enough propellant to fully fuel just one Starship to return to Earth will be a massive undertaking requiring something like a km² of solar arrays
5) Building the crew variant with all the systems associated including life support, entertainment, radiation shelters etc...
6) Make Starlink profitable, because that will pay for everything else. But good progress on that front too.
@@221b-l3t i think you overlooked someting mate. i said "right now"
you really have to applaud these engineers.
They do always see their failures ahead of time... For whatever thats worth if you never fix them ahead of time.
@John Doe and still someone is to blame for a very serious and too easily overlooked failure
This has been a real eye-opener, one would assume its the rocket fault directly and never about the launchpad.
This IS a rocket fault for completely exposing its sophisticated engines to products of their own exhaust.
This is literally a test pad, the orbital launch pad is being built like 100m away. This won't be a problem for very long.
@@robertlatta2019 The orbital launch pad being built is for Super Heavy, which is expected to have 28 sea level Raptor engines. That's almost 10 times as many as Starship, so the lack of flame diverter is still a real risk. Also they plan to eventually launch Starship from Mars, on nothing but landing legs which definitely won't be as high as the test stand.
@@kurtblackwell7752 maybe they will have to send a payload to Mars to form a hard landing site. Some chemical to bond the surface somehow?
It's kinda sad that Falcon 9 is getting "old" but it's the way forward with a new vehicle!
Falcon 9 is that good, that it brings alot of money for spaceX, for starship engineering
Sry for my english
I think Falcon 9 is the next Soyuz in terms of longevity.
Sad because a chunk of metal is getting old?
A lot of points I've never even thought about and nobody else seems to be talking about. Great video, thanks!
2:22 i was surprised and thought spacex released some video. artists impression looks great!
@3:14 "there are no landing pads on the moon or Mars"... exactly.
Yet
@@zakk2936 The first crew will be a little nervous for sure.
That is an issue, but Mars has less than half of Earth's surface gravity, and the Moon has less than 1/6th of Earth's gravity. You don't need as much thrust to get off of the surface, so you can run your engines a little slower and generate less debris. It'll be interesting to see how they deal with it.
@@SerialSnowmanKiller With less gravity and little to no atmosphere debris will accelerate faster also I think.
@A D Easier to design a spaceship that can land without a pad. Why not put the engines midway up. Have a longer tube and some hardy landing legs. And have a redirection flap on the bottom for take offs that redirect the rocket boosts 45° instead of straight. And once airborn the flaps close for straight down boost.
Ive seen a youtube vid of usa jets vs russian jet design. The US jets need clean runways for takeoffs so people have to go out and clean the runway of debrie by hand. Where as the russian migs have a flap on the front intake for take off so they dont need clean runways for take off. A similar design might work.
When the rocket progressed so fast that infrastructures can't keep up with the developments.
It's the rocket's design that needs to be changed to prevent this actually
@@coonjamalay not really. It’s just interactive development of the infastructure
@@colesmith6874 considering that it will be worse on mars...they have to change the design at the engines for the starship
@@coonjamalay well yes, but that isn’t a rocket design change, it’s a different version of the rocket for Mars. They know this of course, so they will have that already planned out
@@colesmith6874 "that isn't a rocket design change, it's a different design of the rocket for Mars." oxymoron there/
I want to be the part of space X in future
me too.
Same. What part of spacex y’all want to be part of?
@@thewizard-om2zu floor cleaner
@@rohil3023 *L O L*
@@rohil3023 janitor
Man,your voice is amazing.....
Corpse is jealous
This video does a very great job introducing the very real issues that engineers must deal with when designing these rockets. That was something that done very well in the era of NASA's space shuttles. It takes a society to develop these ships, and it requires better communication of the high level problems and decisions that need to be made for better and faster advancement of these programs.
Thank you Primal Space for keeping it real and reporting on more aspects of the engineering process than just focusing on rocket body concepts that most other media does.
Yay you're back
You're not going to have a diverter on the moon or mars, so this has to be dealt with via onboard engineering.
Makes a lot of sense!
That's makes sense
It is always a pleasure to see your videos, well summarized and explained, thank you very much.
My falcon heavy gets all tingly when I watch stuff like this.
Wtf 😂
@Yt-drew no
1:42 great shot. Some great perspective of the SIZE of this starship. Look at those people! Imagine how many you could fit on that thing!!
You should have mentioned that the final iteration of launchpads will be off the coast for fully stacked starships and booster combos. Only suborbital (if that) starship launches will be happening from land.
Starship may need to be able to land and take off from unprepared surfaces but the superheavy booster does not, as it is restricted to take off and landing on Earth. And it will have a much bigger problem with heat thrust and noise as it is so much more powerful, so some form of sound suppression and flame diversion would seem to be required to launch the complete Starship stack.
Very intelligently and thoughtfully produced video. One of the only videos to correctly describe current Starship development as part of a test program rather than referring to the vehicles as prototypes as many SpaceX related TH-cam channels do.
Mentioned previously: send or deploy a rolled up debris deflecting landing pad to Mars. To over-simplify: As rocket approaches Mars, a rolled up carpet landing pad; made of graphene and some metal hardware cloth, is deployed to settle on the surface of Mars. Then deploy a trampoline type structure on top of the pad. Then land on that. The trampoline offers some landing resistance but not enough to bounce the rocket. Or maybe; the first pad self inflates to be the debris deflector and the landing cushion. Draco thrusters would really help.
very good video, you usually don't think about launch/landing problems on the ground
Solution: Gary steel in Richmond supplied the steel plates 14 inches thick for the Golden Gate bridge.
They have a sample letter "G" holding open the front door in the summer. They transported the plates by putting them on the deck of a ship to get them over to the bridge site. It would take a long time to heat up a steel plate that thick. I personally worked on a stainless steel plate 10 feet in diameter that was 1 inch thick a Utilicon in Forestville Ca. Just some food for thought.
2:50 good use of the music
what a cultured man
Excellent video! Pointing out the overlooked need to harden the rocket to launch/landing debris.
Great analysis of a problem I didn’t consider. My suggestion would be to encase all engine in a protective shield allowing only the opening of the engine bells to be exposed. It could be called the engine chamber. This engine chamber would be anchored to a pivot front/back and side to side to allow gimbaling. Or even simpler, just add a stainless steel barrier that would close the underside of engine bay and cut out holes for the engine bells. No engine gimbaling needed, all that is needed for rocket orientation is engines throttling.
The skirting will be hardened and there will be some form of protective covers for the engine. Where we are going, there are no -roads- landing pads
Well if you can get enough power out of the engines at the top, to get the ship off the ground far enough away from debris to start the engines, that could be it.. But yeah not all planets will have low enough gravity for this... Maybe deployable landing legs that get the ship much farther off the ground? Adding more engines at lower thrust could be it or maybe point some engines at an outward angle just for take off and then once you are far enough from the ground light the main engines.
This is only an hour and a half away. I’m so much more excited now that I can actually see them
The differences in gravity and atmosphere on the other bodies will impart drastically different effects on landings and launches.
Both -40f AND c?! Neat! Jokes aside, you kept me interested. One other thing though about the martite, they first used none during early tests. They had to add martite sheets to protect the already damaged concrete.
TfW the massive problem now is not the rocket but the landing and subsequently relaunching site...
Thanks for filling in a small detail many forgot to address
Great video on an over looked subject. Thank you!
Great Video! There were so many things I didn’t know! Like, how they use the water to divert the sound of the engines and how the engine use so much force that it’s actually supersonic at ground level! Holy Crap!
You have a really great point, this needs to land anywhere and takeoff from anywhere without damaging the rocket. maybe they need much bigger legs and more protective shells. or maybe it should land horizontally with bigger legs and have four engines on each side and take up horizontally and then it should go vertical using the bottom engines.
The problem is that the heat and pressure will destroy the legs
I was thinking about this a lot lately, great video!
Early 2023! Still no flame diverter in Boca.
LMFAO FR
tHE fact that they jjust launched the first starship hahaha as a test
wow how much have they developed
Actually the first starship actually failed due to this problem
"2020 is almost over"
Me: thank fuck it is
allright big mike?
does baraketta still let you take him up the shitter?
asking for a friend..
Hey it's 2021 now, well at least for me
Sucha Greatttttt Video.. Love the Topic, never seen avideo bout this topic before.. Love the voice,love the meme in between..
Since The Beginning Of The Video I Wrote A Comment About The Fact That There Is No Launch Pad On Mars... I Was Planning To Post It At The End Of The Video...
You Got Me On The First Halftime I'm Not Gonna Lie...
You make good points about landing on Mars and the need to be robust enough to deal with launch and landing with no prepared pad. For Starship, this is necessary. Super Heavy is a different animal, however. It's ONLY going to launch and land here on Earth. And the need for a flame diverter/deluge system for all of those raptors will be REQUIRED if they are going to successfully handle it.
Just my two cents.
Debri is less of a risk in a vacuum, there's no shockwaves or turbulence to pick up and move rocks etc, rather just a stream of atoms that rebound off the surface. The exhaust plume also violently expands in all directions into the vacuum, the force at even a short distance is quite small. This enabled the Apollo landings, although the descent stage was single-use and was almost certainly slightly damaged.
Excellent video. Well done, Primal.
They aren't investing much on a concrete launch pad because they ultimately plan on creating a sea launch pad, possibly using a converted oil rig. This would keep dangerous launch activity away from populated areas.
They have a policy of keeping people at least 5 miles away
this was super well put together, thanks!
Good video. Problems with the SpaceX launch system have been discussed by the SX community even before Musk announced that there would be no flame diverter. This video puts that all together and adds some additional information. As far as a trip (or trips) to Mars, I have always considered the first Starships sent to mars would be on a one way trip, without yet having a nuclear engine, that is at least a two year interval between flights. Make that a four year interval and you have time to build enough launch "pedestals" and landing pads to do the job. That also gives enough time to build the volume limited fuel making facility currently proposed by SX. NASA is already working on a nuclear engine that can act as a tug between destinations and that would require only enough fuel for the Starship(s) to takeoff from mars. Myself, I think the far more important mission for SX is the moon. We absolutely cannot afford SLS and their problems continue daily. The Super Heavy alone, with its greater capacity, could step in and be used to launch the Orion capsule and still put us on the moon by 2024. My preference would be to use the Starship for that purpose but probably not before 2026. Some skeptics might say we are at war and the first battleground is the moon. I think that is our most important destination.
People often miss one important detail: Starship (the upper stage) is NOT supposed to start from launch pads. So they have to develop a launch pad for Superheavy that is more resiliant by amplitudes. But these Starship-launchmounts basically are prototypes for interstages that will be mounted on top of Superheavy! You will not have tons of concrete or a large flame diverter on top of the booster, still you want to reuse that instantly so you must not burn it up like on single use rockets where you don't care. Also Starship might have little margin to have a coasting phase where hydraulics can push away the upper stage like on F9 (also how would you hydraulically push it like 20m ? ). So the top of Superheavy might get super toasted once Starship lights its 6 raptors on ascent, what they really have to figure out is how to cope with that.
Just do it like how historically rockets have always done it: decouple a stack (booster), wait a few seconds, then fire several smaller engines to increase the gap in between each stage. You can see this at work with a ton of different rockets, just look up rocket footage and I'm sure you'll find some.
@@bluntcabbage6042 Lol, no need to tell me about this. Yes, there where reverse thrusters since the apollo era and stuff. However, you can see the upper stage plume interacting with the interstage in most footage of larger rockets. And the thing is, SpaceX wants to relaunch these boosters, not after refurbishing a half year later, not after checking them over in a week, but they want them to just go again within the hour. This is a different problem. Also, several Raptors would be way more destructive on the interstage than a single Mvac engine might be. You are lighting several hundret tons of thrust there and you basically don't even want that to push your booster out of direction!
@@A.Lifecraft If you knew about small separation engines, why ask the question to start with? Separator engines are nowhere near as powerful as a Raptor and would only serve for a few seconds to give a greater distance between the two stages. Additionally, even after the engines stop burning, the two stages will continue to drift apart at a considerable rate.
It's essentially a non-issue, even for reusing rocket bodies. The tech exists and has been readily available for years.
@@bluntcabbage6042 I did not ask a question. I assumed that SpaceX is purposefully doing testlaunches from simplyfied launchmounts to collect data on how to do things under less optimal conditions. Basically the same they did from the beginning by building an orbital rocket in the open. I stated Starship will barely ever launch from a normal launchmount, the thing that comes closest will be the interstage of Superheavy and that could be optimized through data they collect now.
Bonjour. Super vidéo 👍 et surtout c'est la première fois que je vois un créateur de contenu sur TH-cam être aussi pertinent, intelligent et très réaliste dans sa démonstration et sa logique. Félicitations à toi 👏. Ça change de tous les idiots qui s'émerveillent devant les vidéos qui (c'est vrai) en mettent plein le vue, sans pour autant prendre le temps de réfléchir ...
this was a well done presentation of a serious problem- I suppose Starship initially might bring it's launchpad as a lander-module, attached after orbital refueling operation- which might at least provide a measure of predictability for a safe return
How will the crew determine that the ground is suitable for a landing, and the presumed take off ? Mr Armstrong had to manually intervene after using the mark 1 eyeball. Recent launches have shown that concrete was blasted from the pad. Armouring up the base of the ship, from an engineering point of view is straight forward. On the Moon, or Mars, at lift off , the surface around, and underneath the feet could be sufficiently eroded away or undermined by the exhaust gases , so as to make the vessel tilt. How much off, perfectly vertical can SpaceX launch from an alien surface. (We have already seen that it can fall over). Will the crew have to manually deploy some sort of ground shield after landing? Landing pads would have to be built eventually. Beefy bum and space concrete ? Personally I think what SpaceX is attempting is brilliant. And what they have already achieved is fantastic. Just very little info on the above.
The Starships legs will eventually have a self leveling feature. But that's and issue that is a long way down the road.
Actual landing LEGS instead of landing FEET would help mitigate this it a degree.
I does make sense they are using the simplest possible landing gear at the moment. No point in wasting resources on them yet as they expect to lose some early prototypes. They are incrementally adding complexity as it's needed and legs will come when they start being confident about having safe speeds at the landing phase.
I dont think we are ready for manned missions to Mars, but I like the attitude of SpaceX.
Manned deffo not, Unmanned stuff stuff to set up stuff there maybe
The launch site issue needs to be dealt with in small scale before just ignoring it until later. A basic system similar to the basic tank/engine units from earlier tests that launches, lands, refuels and launches again from un-developed sites similar to what would be found on the moon and Mars. If they can't work it out in small scale then they are not likely to make it work in large scale.
Another issue is that putting the fueling ports in the engine bay drastically increases the chances of those ports being damaged rendering the craft either largely useless of perhaps even destroyed.
Its a good idea to tackle problems on earth and want the problems to tackle less trouble later it does make sense in the long run . Spacex will figure it out . What's one more problem. That's what spacex is good at.
Great video! Love how you explain it
What I didn’t hear about is the fact that the thrust required to land and take off from Mars is much less than on Earth. Less thrust, in much thinner atmosphere. That is what needs to be tested.
The terminal velocity for the skydiver maneuver on Mars is much higher. Raptor engines will need to fire earlier and for longer.
@@avid0g Is that based on actual calculations of coefficient of drag in the thinner Martian atmosphere and under the lower gravity of Mars? Or a guess because the atmosphere is thinner?
I admit that intuition suggests you may be right, but I’ve been surprised by unexpected results in math and physics.
@@thinkingoutloud6741
Less than 1% density/pressure of Earth sea-level. Still, the aerobraking removes over 99.9% of interplanetary velocity.
This was a very enlightening presentation. Now I finally understand what is going on with the rapid Starship prototyping. Thanks. Oh...by the way, very good sales technique as well.
sound energy lol, it disperses the rocket thrust yes.... and dampens the sound yes. The sound is not what heats the water, it is the huge flames shooting out of the rocket. :-D
The pressure wave peaks compress water vapor back to liquid and the low pressure between peaks allows that water to vaporise again, converting latent heat. Thus, the dangerous acoustic volume is reduced.
A cone shaped structure directly beneath the rocket engines with a high volume water nozzle at the tip + curtain of water encircling the perimeter of the launch mount. I think that would survive even superheavy.
Watch 3:00
I guess Spacex will build infrastructure on Mars in the following order:
1. Power production/solar panels
2. Landing pad
3. Isru fuel production and storage
4. Fresh water production
5. Food production
6. Crew habitation
7. Starship maintenance and repair facility
Or am I totally wrong? Is there any documentation on this?
So glad I chose to study engineering. SpaceX is a dream come true.
Very excellent insight... I think each one of those topics will be resolved further down the pipeline of Thee SpaceX iteration Program. Elon, I'm sure will keep the manufacturing process here in the US to improve the over all processes in making a great space-liner. Keeping and growing STEM employment opportunities here in Texas and the states at every opportunity... There will be much to learn and improve in Manufacturing Starship Liners, Crew-ships, Moon Mars landers, Starship rotating Station keeping gateways, etc.... Prep Landing craft, possibly prep pads to protect against electrostatic charged regolith that sticks to everything on moon landings... Lunar Raised landing thrusters may not stop all the regolith serious issues on initial landings...
Very informative, from a different angle.
Please be regular on your uploads
Your videos are really got
Added detail on Super-heavy launch at sea would help. How large does the vessel need to be? Where are they building it now? Is there any more details?
“PrimalSpace” more like PrimalSpaceX
Yeah so may spacex videos
But spacex is more intresting than astra,blue origin and virgin galactic
He does what work...
@@baen. kinda not really.
@@joeyknight8272 I don't see why "kinda not really"
@@baen. Its not about spacex being more interesting, it about the views he is getting from spacex videos... spacex is the hot topic these days and people will click on it more. More views = more money for the channel.
Love the content but wish you had a way to support yourself without the embedded ads. It's worst than tv with the product placement
TH-cam premium subscription removes all ads and still supports the platform/creator.. worth it imo
@@jotham123 Been thinking about that but I doubt the content providers can/are going to have a separate video without the ads for curiosity stream, blinkist, etc, etc, etc. It's a blight in the whole youtube ecosystem.
@@bruceritchie7613 yea not ideal
@Yt-drew how about no
Keep in mind that at its core, Starship is designed to eventually not need prepared launch and landing facilities. Yes, they need a secure mount for testing, but just as important is learning to build the engine area to not be destroyed by engine thrust debris. I have to believe that whatever happened with the static fire tests was as important to the end goal as the actual flight itself. SpaceX absolutely cannot design this vehicle to only launch with hardened flame trenches, etc. That just won't work on the lunar or martian surfaces
All I will give you is electromagnetic frequency will dilute sound wave problem, magnetic grid will solve the suspension ,will have to incorporate internal rows of magnets, LEVITATION .
Common sense and concise video - thank you.
The location of Pad B next to the wet lands is going to be interesting during the Static Fire Testing and Launch of SN9 🚀
I heard that for traditional state space operators the cost of keeping launch pads is the bulk of expensive.
Excellent presentation with a great voice.
At the moment the Raptor engines on the Starship have to be able to gimbal independent from one another (and I dont think that will change) so a structure like the Octaweb on the Falcon Heavy actually wont be possible. They might have to surround each engine with its own protection mechanism which will be a very complex task since there isnt much space in between each engine.
This looks exciting.
I feel like our priorities are mixed up though we should have a idea of making space ports and space buildings and that will allow for us to build a fleet of rockets faster
Outstanding job
3:31 Talking about "traditional launchpads" - while showing the Apollo crawler (which is not a launch pad; it's a vehicle for moving the rocket).
Pretty sure the reason why they're using the side engines on the lunar version of starship is to do with impingement on other objects at the launch site. Because of practically zero atmosphere on the moon debris that's kicked up travels a long distance before it's pulled down by gravity, or if it is travelling at orbital velocity, before it meets a hill or mountain and stops. The only way to regularly land starships near lunar land bases would be to have complicated wall structures or to land them on the opposite side of the nearest mountain, a logistical nightmare.
That was very interesting. I never though about the landing pad and how challenging it could be.
Building a launch pad on Mars isn't out of the question, and something that may very well be worth it for a crewed mission. It might be as simple as bringing a shovel and digging a trench to give the flame and debris somewhere to go other than back up. If that reduces the chance of launch failure by a couple percent, the shovel (which will also be useful for digging down for deeper samples, so it isn't even wasted mass) will be well worth having on the payload. Spending a couple weeks of the mission digging a 30 foot long trench deep enough to divert sufficient exhaust doesn't sound like an ideal use of our astronauts time, but if that is what it takes to ensure they get back home, well worth it, especially on a year long mission.
It might even be possible to have a robot do it, send a mission up one cycle in advance, giving it time for a robotic digger to set it up for takeoff, while a fuel mining and refining robot deploys to fill the tank. Once the tank is confirmed to be filling and the trenches dug, the crewed mission can then launch, land nearby, and know that they have a ride home already in place, plus a plan B in the rocket they landed in.
If it is possible to just make the exterior of the rocket engines and engine bells, and other relevant systems tough enough to reliably withstand landing and launch, great. If not, that still won't stop us from getting to Mars.
Cant wait for starship booster flame. I really like how saturn V flame diverted in 2 ways
this is insane! rocked launching, and then landing it back on same spot! who would come on idea like that? rockets were always in a one way trip :)
Something that tall is not going to fall over on rough terrain? What about the people problems of going to Mars? They are massive. Best of luck!
Well, i guess now we can say its a problem indeed.
It might be better to build spacecraft on the moon. These may be used to land on and launch from our moon and Mars. Another design can be used specifically to transfer payload from Earth to orbit.
0:34
Starship:The first fully reusable rocket
New shepherd: hold my liquid fuel
Why don’t they launch from soil since it’s the same on Mars and is much softer than shards of concrete🤔 Very good video 👍
Because it would blast a hole in the ground and would cause the foundation of the pad to collapse, causing the pad to completely collapse
@@masonmtb7 Wouldn’t that happen on Mars? They land and launch on the same surface on Mars
@@PassportGaming mars surface is not entirely soft soil and contains hard rock. Plus, mars has about 1/3 earths gravity so the effect is minimized. Plus, they will only launch and land from a specific location only one time.
Good point. They don't because that's not something they are addressing right now. It just cheaper right now to not build a proper launch pad. And you're right, they will have to deal with the issue of blasting lots of dirt around on mars just like they would if they tested on earth. Gravity being 1/3 won't make much of a difference because of the large mass of the spacecraft compared to the Apollo LEM. In addition we don't have the technology to detect soil thickness to a usable accuracy from orbit around mars. So finding a hard surface will be impossible at the beginning.
what if they use all engines on minimum thrust then few engines with max so energy spreads around larger areas
great idea
Use heat resistance tiles on the lower launch pad, this is a very small cost effective method right?
To test for landing on terrain, they should launch from Boca Chica, go suborbital and land somewhere in Atacama Desert since its regarded to be mars like location.
Arizona's a lot closer.
Great video, I subscribed. Regarding trying new programs, if they’d not require a credit card for the free trial I’d try it. But you always end up having to contact them to stop or clear the coming charges. Just my opinion.
Seeing this after 2 years is mesmerising. Now that the upside down shower head is here, there is no problem
Love this chanel.
I'm almost certain that they gimbal the Raptors 'outward' slightly, as to not have the flame hitting directly at 90°.
The only channel to actually call this out.
All the others are just Elon fan bois hoping to be noticed by their boyfriend.
Good job. How do they expect to launch a booster with 27 engines? They can barely do it with 3.