Wow! SpaceX's Next-Generation Starship Factory Is Taking Shape! - SpaceX Weekly

This week at Starbase, another tank meets its demise at the orbital tank farm, glass installation begins on the Starfactory building's feature facade, and Booster 13 heads to the Massey Outpost to begin its test campaign while work continues on the new flame trench. Meanwhile, over at Cape Canaveral, SpaceX reaches a new milestone with its 300th successful landing of a Falcon 9 booster, as launch and recovery operations continue full steam ahead.
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[@jameswilson5165]

Nice shot at the returning booster and the ascent of another Falcon in the same frame.

[@getnoob3945]

They certainly have an industry going on don't they?

[@craneman2201]

what an exellent recap again! appreciate all the great work you do with your team.THANKYOU!!

[@FrankBenlin]

After 300 booster landings they can start selling seats for a quick trip to space.
Thanks, Lab.

[@squintytoast6211]

dont get to lurk as much as i'd like these days.... these updates are awesome! rock on, Lab! 🤘

[@SHOE53]

Nice video update one of the best on TH-cam.

[@mrmeany2u780]

Very nice update. Thank you. It still kills me every time I see Hoppy in these. How far and fast SpaceX has moved is beyond amazing.

[@MrKellymcilrath]

Another great SpaceX Weekly, Thank you Lab Padre!!!!

[@Richard-fx6go]

Great recap, thanks Lab.

[@arnoldsmith5754]

thanks for the great update

[@MrGaborseres]

Thank you 👍

[@saintuk70]

Nice one, as always. Thank you.

[@Liberty4Ever]

I love these weekly updates. We are truly living in the future. Can't wait for Starship IFT-4.

[@johnrday2023]

Thanx - good photography and commentary - and good editing - (not as much jumping around).

[@59seank]

Thanks LabPadre team!

[@oldmanstumpie1061]

So much activity. Thanks LAB and team 👍👍

[@bobboo1319]

Thanks Lab

[@texan-american200]

Dang... Musk has a thing for massive amounts of glass being installed in this place, the Gigafactory, the Starlink factory, etc...

[@HarryNicNicholas]

that workforce make beavers look lazy.

[@ESowder24]

Can’t wait to visit starbase soon !

[@JohnMaun]

Again, excellent recap. Thanks Lab.

[@uuzd4s]

Excellente Sir Padre ! 😊

[@johncampbell9216]

Just had an interesting thought...
If SpaceX built a mini tower at the test stand, they could use it to catch the Starship instead of the launch tower. This can protect the main launch tower from any mishaps during catch testing.
It *could* also serve as a way to impress/attract future customers, by landing a starship just an hourbor so before launching another... Giving those passengers a front seat view of another launch.

[@bobjoatmon1993]

That's actually a pretty good idea

[@datamatters8]

Do you mean by mini-tower only one tall enough to catch the booster or the ship? Aren't they already building a 2nd launch tower? It seems to me they need a 2nd launch tower so it can be ready to perform the booster catch around 20 min after the launch from the first tower. They need the 2nd tower for the catch incase the first tower gets damaged during the launch (e.g. damage to the chop sticks or its power system). This way they can do any pre-launch testing of the catch hardware on the 2nd tower at the same time they are doing pre-launch testing of the booster+ship on the 1st tower.
It also means that if any serious damage occurs to the orbital launch platform (putting it out of action for weeks or months) on the first tower they can keep launching using the 2nd tower with the risk that there is no backup for the catch if the 2nd tower gets damaged during a launch so they will have to ditch the booster in the gulf.
It's true that a mini-tower would save some money with shorter height and does not need the spin up support for the outer ring of booster engines but it still needs the plumbing support for de-tanking the leftover method. It is an interesting idea in that if the 1st tower is damaged during launch and they fall back to a one tower operation a mini-tower would protect them against booster loss if the 2nd tower also sustains launch damage while the 1st tower is out of action.

[@johncampbell9216]

@@datamatters8 Tall enough for the booster I'd say, as that's what's going to be tested first.
It wouldn't require half of the infrastructure of the launch tower, just catch arms.
And it can still be used for the ship. Just add a crew gantry.
Not sure you'd require any detanking infrastructure though as the ship can self-ventilate (it needs to on hard pad landing anyway).
The point, as I'm sure you've already grasped is a tower suitable for landing only, requiring much less complexity than the launch tower.

[@bobjoatmon1993]

@@datamatters8 the way I'm visualizing it, with a standard one or two fill size launch towers, having a short Starship catching tower could speed up launch cadence quite a bit. Think about it, maybe you'll see it too.

[@johncampbell9216]

@@datamatters8 A mini tower at the test stand would benefit as a) the test stand already has plumbing. b) there is less infrastructure to damage with a test stand/mini landing tower if there's a mishap.
The launch tower is where the most complex systems are. It is built specifically to take the weight of the full stack and to service the stack for launch, so it's strength is greater, its systems very much more complicated.
For the cost of one full launch stand, you could build two landing catch stands with test pads.
That way, you launch the stack from the main tower, then catch the booster AND/OR a ship with the two mini towers.
This plan builds redundancy into the ground systems for the same cost as two full launch towers. Kinda like having a second runway at an airport.

[@Jay-em9hb]

Thanks!

[@garypio2241]

They may find that they shouldnt have removed the water tanks because they were a great sound barrier

[@joansparky4439]

nice

[@Ch33ziTzsk8R]

So ship32 is the last of version 1 starship, what about the boosters? Is the 14th shbooster the last of those test campaigns?

[@alancadorette3447]

really wonder how much savings they get for reuse

[@bobjoatmon1993]

Huge savings, as can be seen by the increase in space companies when prior to reuasbility it was basically just government launches (with some telecommunications satellites too)

[@squintytoast6211]

the cost of booster and fairings are something like 60% of cost of rocket. so reuse would save most of that. hard to find solid numbers but is more than 20M per launch.

[@user-rx7hv3zi9g]

👍

[@godagon97]

300 vs. Zero. Just think about that.

[@antonybastin3432]

👍👍👍🇮🇳

[@BTSensei]

⭐🙂👍

[@saskcanada94]

I wonder why they went through the work of fixing the tanks and now they ate wrecking them

[@iamaduckquack]

They fixed the 2 because they needed to survive the next launch, at that time. Now they're no longer needed and so are getting removed.