Unexpected! New Lunar Starship design Leaked, unlike any other...

As NASA worries about the progress of the Starship HLS variant, SpaceX seems to be creating its new Starship human landing system configuration to show a much more refined design that could show where the company is heading. Well, it's a very cool rendering, different from the variant that we're all used to seeing. This interesting piece of news was first leaked by David Willis on X.com. Although their authenticity is not 100% confirmed yet, he has stressed that these renders aren't the work of a random YouTuber or 3D artist. They are official images that were part of the ongoing development process. Following this, we can see three big changes to the Starship HLS design. First off, the solar panels are now being deployed from bays at the top of the rocket. While in flight, they can fan out similar to how most spacecraft do solar panels. Once landed on the moon, the panels lower to be flush with the side of the lander. The inclusion of these massive solar panels make perfect sense given the substantial power requirements for a lunar mission. To sustain life support systems, charge devices, and operate machinery during the journey to the moon, you need a substantial power source. This Starship's sleek design philosophy aligns with Elon Musk's mantra. The solar panels don't rely on complex hinges, reducing the risk of failure. Instead, they appear to extend and fold down from the ship's structure, optimizing efficiency. The second noticeable change is to the landing legs. They are much smaller and look fixed in place. The original design showed larger, possibly retractable landing legs. This new design could mean less weight than having the legs needing to retract into the body. Finally, if these renders are real, it shows that SpaceX has repositioned the thrusters to be in several pods around the lander. These landing thrusters are higher up to reduce the amount of disturbance they will cause on the lunar surface. The last thing you need when you're landing is large rocks flying all around you. Notably, this rendering appears incomplete, with the elevator hatch and airlock seemingly floating without visible attachments to the ship. And while we aren't sure if these are real renders from SpaceX, they are of the same style and quality. The render of the Starship HLS landed on the lunar surface even has the same ground features and background as the original. There is a good chance these renders could have been used for some sort of internal briefing with stakeholders like NASA but never released to the public. I just hope that we will have accurate confirmation from SpaceX so that we could get some clarity. In any case, back at Starbase, Ship 25 was destacked from Booster 9 for the sixth time. This used to be a daily exercise for the Mechazilla, isn't it? But in the end, we're still hoping for the day that it will catch the Starship and we hope that it comes soon. In fact, the Fish and Wildlife Service was also back cleaning up the debris. Texas Park and Wildlife confirmed that the reason nothing was done for a long time was so that they wouldn't disturb birds nesting. They also made it clear that it could take a really long time to pick up every last piece of concrete without stressing the wildlife. Had the regulatory process been completed at this point, the potential of a launch on November 6th, as documentation pointed towards, would have been on the cards. SpaceX showed during the maiden flight of Starship they can move into a launch stance within days of approval. With the final element yet to be completed, a target of mid-November becomes a more viable aspiration. So, we all have our fingers crossed. Next up, after decades of dreaming, the Dream Chaser, built by Sierra Space, is almost ready to fly. Indeed, it is being prepped for transport to a NASA facility in Ohio, where it'll undergo a series of tests to make sure the spaceplane can survive its heated re-entry through Earth's atmosphere. Starting these tests is crucial, demonstrating Dream Chaser's readiness for flights and potentially transforming commercial space travel. Sierra Space is hoping to see its spaceplane fly to the International Space Station, or the ISS, in 2024 as part of a contract with NASA. The first commercial spaceplane is currently at the company's facility in Louisville, Colorado, and will soon make the roughly 96-kilometer journey to the Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Sandusky, Ohio. The Colorado-based company was awarded a NASA Commercial Resupply Services II contract back in 2016, under which it will provide at least seven uncrewed missions to deliver cargo to and from the ISS, and Sierra Space is targeting 2024 for the inaugural flight of the first model of the Dream Chaser fleet spacecraft, named Tenacity, from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. At the company's facility, the spaceplane is finally coming together. We're almost done with everything, Angie Wise, Sierra Space's chief safety officer, shared on Monday. We're finishing all the closeout panels. We're essentially getting it ready for shipping. We've checked out the landing gear. We're going to put everything back in, stow it, and then move it on to the transport fixture and get it out of here. Tenacity will stay at NASA's Neil Armstrong Test Facility for one to three months, during which engineers will test the spaceplane's acoustics of a rocket launch, test the spaceplane's ability to withstand the vibrations and acoustics of a rocket launch, as well as the temperature extremes it will experience during flight. The spaceplane will be placed inside a giant thermal vacuum chamber. For its debut flight, Tenacity will ride atop United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur rocket. The spaceplane is scheduled for the rocket's second mission, although Vulcan is yet to fly for the first time due to several delays. The spaceplane is tentatively slated for an April launch, but that still depends on the rocket's first test flight. And finally, China's Shenzhou-16 astronauts apparently landed with a ripped parachute. China Central Television, or CCTV, aired video of the descent of Shenzhou-16 on Monday, October 30th, as the crewed spacecraft returned to Earth following five months in orbit docked with the Tiangong Space Station. In some of the footage, a patch of blue sky can be seen through the red and white banded parachute. Inside the capsule were Shenzhou-16 mission commander Jinghai Peng and crewmates Zhu Yangzhu and Gui Haichao, the latter pair returning to Earth after their first mission to space. Such a sizable hole, which was visible before a white cloud of vented propellant left the Shenzhou capsule, has not been reported during earlier missions. It didn't, however, seem to affect operations. When it did land, the capsule appears to have tumbled a couple of times before being enveloped in a cloud of sand kicked up by the impact, which Shenzhou capsules soften up by firing thrusters. Even if the 1,200 square meters parachute had failed, the crew would still have had another opportunity to slow their descent. The Shenzhou spacecraft carries a backup parachute should the main chute fail. This would deploy automatically if the re-entry capsule descended too quickly from an altitude of six kilometers to five kilometers. Xiao Limin, deputy technological manager of crewed spacecraft systems at the China Academy of Space Technology, said this past June while discussing the Shenzhou-15 mission. China's space authorities have so far not announced an incident during Shenzhou-16's descent. Parachutes are not generally thought of as the most cutting-edge of technology when considering the intricacies of space travel, but they present complex challenges. Failure can be fatal, as occurred with the Soviet Union's Soyuz-1 mission in 1967, which led to the death of cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. One of three parachutes to slow the descent of Apollo 15 in August of 1971 failed, while SpaceX also suffered a parachute failure during testing for its crewed Dragon capsule back in 2019. Brian Harvey, a noted space writer and historian, also shared that there has been a previous incident involving Shenzhou parachutes. According to Harvey, some reports at the time stated that, during Shenzhou-2, an uncrewed test flight conducted in January of 2001 as China built toward human spaceflight capabilities, the cabin was damaged at the final stage of landing because one of the parachute cords broke free. Harvey said that, after a delay, Chinese officials stopped denying that there had been a hard landing, which resulted from a broken parachute connection. Parachute design and deployment are subjected to extensive testing and quality assurance. If a hole is found in the Shenzhou-16 parachute, China's human spaceflight agency will likely swiftly investigate, especially with the new Shenzhou-17 crew already aboard Tiangong and set to return in six months' time. China is also developing a next-generation crewed spacecraft that's larger and will be partially reusable. That new spacecraft descends to Earth with three parachutes instead of one large parachute, as Shenzhou and Soyuz craft currently do. Well folks, that's it for today's episode, thank you so much for tuning in, and if you want to support us even further, you can go ahead and hop on over to our Patreon through the link in the description below. Sign up to become a patron and get exclusive content. We appreciate your generosity and your passion for space exploration. As always, this is Kevin from Great SpaceX, and until next time, keep looking up!