Let the countdown begin. After less than two weeks of work in the Mega Bay, SpaceX's Super
Heavy Booster 7 has just rolled out to the launch site. This time, B7 appears with its full set
of 33 Raptor 2 engines, 20 of which are the outer rings and with 13 in the center. Yes,
you didn't hear that wrong. Not one is missing. And this could be the final time it rolls ahead
of launch. In just a short amount of time after arriving at the launch pad, SpaceX lifted the
B7 to the orbital launch mount. Interestingly enough, this process is carried out by the
chopstick arms. This is also the first time lifting anything other than their own weight
after installing the new hydraulic pistons. It seems that SpaceX wants to complete the
previous delayed operations due to a major hydraulic failure on Mechazilla. The result
is clear. The next phase of the static fire test campaign will be on the to-do list. SpaceX
upgraded everything, including both the OLM and chopsticks for this historic static fire
happening this week. SpaceX has test windows scheduled on August 24th and 25th, showing that
the company intends to perform at least one more static fire test in the coming days. Not only B7,
but SpaceX's crews are also working on Ship 24 as they prepare for more testing prior to the
orbital test flight. As Zach Golden said, SpaceX is currently upgrading suborbital pad B with
additional blast shielding slash flame diverter panels, which is highlighted here in yellow,
similar to the ones found on the orbital launch mount. And with the rebar in place and each of
the flame diverter panels installed, workers then filled in the void with concrete. Once completed,
it should be time to get back to business. And it looks like it's going to be a busy week for SpaceX,
because over in Florida, the Starship tower is awaiting the installation of its seventh segment.
Elsewhere at SpaceX's facilities on Roberts Road, additional progress can be seen with the
chopsticks as the landing beams have been added. You can also see workers working on the adjacent
carriage section while the QD arm sits nearby, possibly awaiting the installation of piping and
conduit. The steel for the 8th and 9th modules of the launch tower appears to be largely complete.
The 9th module, however, is still awaiting the crown block and pulleys needed to run the chopsticks
lifting cable. It also appears that workers have begun installing the JIB bases back onto the
concrete pads. This could be a sign that the assembly of another tower will begin in the
near future. Huge thanks to LabPadre and Zach Golden for sharing these amazing updates.
Now, launching his Moon and Mars rocket to space for the first time has long been on Elon Musk's
to-do list, and the world's richest man confirmed Monday that it remains priority one for this year.
In a tweet, Musk called Starship to orbit one of two main goals this year. The other is the
wide release of full self-driving for Tesla vehicles, a long-awaited feature for the fleet
of electric cars that doesn't yet have approval from regulators. When Musk first introduced his
ambition to build a huge spacecraft capable of taking humans to Mars at a conference back in
2016, he hoped to send the first interplanetary explorers to the red planet in 2022. Things have
clearly fallen behind schedule, but Musk has always been the first to admit that his timelines
tends to be toward the overly optimistic. On the other hand, the FAA has yet to issue a launch
license, which will essentially be the final green light SpaceX needs to send Starship to space.
However, there was a sign that things are moving forward in July when the Federal Communications
Commission granted the company an authorization for radio communications for the mission.
Notably, the radio license indicates that it goes into effect on September 1st,
so we know when the earliest possible date that Starship will fly again could be.
Now, it all comes down to the FAA and SpaceX's testing protocol. With the delay of Starship,
SpaceX says it has revised plans for its next-generation Starlink Gen 2 constellation
to allow the upgraded satellites to launch on its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket. In January of 2022,
SpaceX chose to solely pursue the constellation optimized for Starship, strongly indicating that
the company believed the rocket would be ready to support Starlink launches in the near future,
or at least around the same time the constellation receives its Gen 2 FCC license. With the benefit
of technical Starlink Gen 2 satellite details and renders provided by SpaceX and the CEO
in the second quarter of 2022, a single Starship Gen 2 launch using the current satellite,
rocket designs, and carrying 54 satellites could potentially deploy around 7 to 8 times
more usable bandwidth than a Falcon 9 with Starlink version 1.5, meaning that Starship
could achieve similar deployment results with just a few launches per year. In theory, that makes it
at least somewhat easier for Starship to make a major impact, even as SpaceX works to ramp up
the brand new rocket's launch cadence, a task that has almost always taken several years.
However, additional changes made to its Starlink Gen 2 FCC license application in August of 2022
suggest that SpaceX has at least partially tempered that all-in bet on Starship. The most
important modification, developing a different Starlink Gen 2 satellite variant that will be
optimized to fit inside Falcon 9's much smaller payload fairing. According to SpaceX, despite the
seemingly major form factor changes required to make Gen 2 fit, Starship and Falcon 9 optimized
satellites will still be technically identical. The implication is that the satellites launched
on Falcon 9 will still offer the same performance as those launched on Starship, albeit in a
different form factor. Nonetheless, the only thing SpaceX guarantees in the document is that the
Falcon 9 launched Gen 2 satellites won't be more powerful than those launched on Starship,
presumably preserving the applicability of existing analysis on the current Starlink Gen 2
application. It's thus possible that Falcon 9 optimized Starlink Gen 2 satellites will have
to sacrifice some of their performance relative to the unconstrained Starship optimized variant.
With a usable diameter of 4.6 meters, Falcon 9's payload fairing is about 50% narrower than the
payload bay present on early Starship prototypes. Without a major redesign, Starlink Gen 2
satellites optimized for Falcon 9 will likely need to sit vertically inside the fairing,
the standard version of which stands 6.7 meters tall before its conical tip begins curving inwards.
Weighing about 1.25 tons and measuring 7 meters long, Starlink Gen 2's design may only need a few
moderate tweaks to fit on Falcon 9, but they'll have to be stacked vertically instead of horizontally.
Falcon 9's established performance of roughly 16.5 tons with payload adapter included to low
Earth orbit means that the rocket will be limited to around 12 or 13 Gen 2 satellites per launch,
however making the task somewhat easier. If SpaceX can squeeze that many Starlink Gen 2
satellites inside of Falcon 9's existing reusable fairing, it could still boost the efficiency or
total bandwidth per launch of each Starlink mission by around 50% relative to the same
rocket carrying 50 to 60 Starlink version 1.5 satellites. It's no surprise then that SpaceX
appears to be doing everything it can to begin launching Starlink Gen 2 as quickly as possible,
whether or not Starship is ready to help.
