ISRO Launch Fail, STARSHIP !!!, Premature Fairing // May 18th 2025 SHOW EDIT. #spacex #nasa #rocket

We have no idea what's happening. I'm really excited about that possibility and what we might be able to do with it. Everything is ruined because the only part of this bloody rocket that works is going to be thrown into the Gulf. And I'm not happy whatsoever. Tomorrow begins right now. Good morning. How's everything up in the sky? [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] Hello everybody. Welcome to Tomorrow. Thank you for being here with us. We have a interesting show for you today. And because we're such gear heads, it's quite a bit of rocket updates, couple of rocket failures, a few accidents, and quite a few updates as well. So, uh, we're going to be talking about all of that and nerding out quite a bit today. Uh, joining me today is our own Jamie Higin Bothotham, who was able to join at the last minute and I'm very pleased about. We also got Ryan Kaitton that is with us. We've got our, uh, ever faithful dua and Jared Head, and my name of course is Space Mike. and we're going to have a lot of fun today. Thank you for being here. So, yeah. Um there have been quite a few uh interesting things. I figured that we would start today with uh the most recent thing that happened. Uh yesterday, ISRO launched their PSLV rocket um carrying a uh satellite for the the Indian government, but unfortunately it wasn't able to reach orbit. The PSLV rocket uh as a reminder is a four stage rocket that has also has some uh strap-on solid rocket boosters and everything performed normally for the first and second stage. But unfortunately there seems to be what they call an observation with the third stage and it appears that it did not perform as expected. um and they their altitude quickly dropped and the fourth stage was able to separate. Um so the third stage didn't explode and destroy the payload, but because of the altitude it was at, the fourth stage didn't have enough power to uh get it to where it needed to go. Um this is quite unfortunate. This is only the third time ever out of 61 launches that this particular rocket has failed. um the first two times uh were early early on in the development of the rocket. So uh they've had nothing but success with this particular rocket. It's considered the the workhorse of the uh Indian Space Research Organization. So little unfortunate to see this uh this setback for them. I figured that video Yeah, I figured that we could pull this up. Um let's go to uh there we go. And let me start playing this for you. So, initially you guys getting the audio coming through on that? Yeah. [Music] See? Yeah. The initial uh launch and everything in the first couple stages of flight uh as I said went normally and things were looking like it was working well. Um that shot is beautiful. Sorry to interrupt but you can see the vapor code around the top of the vehicle. I mean that's just incredible shots. It is. It's nice to see the the video quality uh slowly improving as well with the these ISRO launches. So yeah, really nice to see. There was a handful of other pictures that I saw um of of someone at the pad. Um I wasn't able to get the full ones, but it looked like they were able to capture quite a bit of the um uh uh the second stage separating from the first stage and the strap-on boosters uh flying away. So, um yeah, once again, the first stage and second stage performed uh as expected and uh where they were supposed to to to go. I'm going to move forward just a little bit more. This was about the part where um they started seeing uh uh anomalies after the it separated from its uh second stage and the third stage was starting its ignition. Uh as another reminder as well, um the PSLV is quite a strange uh rocket that uh I like to call the leapfrog rocket. Uh kind of both of them are like that. Uh the first stage is well of course the solid rocket boosters on the side of course are solid fuel. Uh the first stage though is a liquid fuel stage. Um and then or excuse me, no I have that backwards. The first stage is also solid in the core. The second stage is a liquid stage that uses hypergolics. The third stage goes back to being a solid rocket fuel. And then the upper stage, the fourth stage is liquid again. And it's a monor propellant type of fuel that they use for that. So that's why I call it the uh the leaprog rocket to be able to go back and forth. And I'm going to go just a little bit further to their graph here. Uh this is right about where they started seeing the problems and seeing the a drop uh in uh their altitude and seeing things not on schedule or at least not on their flight plan of what they were expecting. So unfortunate to see um they're still looking into what the causes of this were. Um they might have had I mean for all we know that we so many people have been having problems with the nozzles lately that it could have just been a uh um problem with the um the the nozzle because it looks like the the third stage did ignite but then something happened not too long after to have it start losing altitude. So hopefully once they are able to do their investigation, if they were able to get more telemetry data, they will release that to the public. Um this is a statement here. Um I'm not sure exactly who this is from, but uh this is from India today. Oh okay. So according to India today and it looks like this is a quote from uh Dr. Sharm anyway. So yeah, India India's PSLV61 mission intended to deploy their advanced uh EOS09 Earth observation satellite failed minutes after launch Sunday morning due to a su suspected flex nozzle malfunction in its third stage propulsion system according to initial analysis. So yeah, what is up with this? Everyone's having such bad luck with their nozzles. I think this is also kind of the curse of the EOS satellite because the two previous EOS satellites have failed to get to space. One of them on a uh GSLV Mark II which is you know infamous for being unreliable and then another one on the SSLV which is a relatively new vehicle for for Israel to be operating. So this is now the third EOS satellite that is not managed to get to its final orbit because of a of a rocket failure. And then all three of them are on different rockets. So, I think this I think the the common denominator here is the EOS satellite. I'm not sure if anyone would want to launch them in the future. They might be this might just be the satellite that's cursed. That GSLV one that was back in what 2021? Was that when that one happened? Yeah. So, the GSLV Mark I fail was 2021. The SSLV was 2022. So, it's been, you know, three odd years, three, four years since since the last failure with an EOS satellite. But it's just, you know, every every time an Israel launch goes wrong at the moment, it seems to be related to to to an Earth observation satellite, which is kind of funny. Oh man, that is pretty funny. But yeah, 2025 just seems to be the year for having nozzle problems. It's unfortunate. I mean, but to think about what you're asking a nozzle to do. You're you're asking it to harness all of the fire and direct it in a direction and you're you're it's providing all of the thrust. Like everything that the rocket is doing, all of the movement that the rocket is doing is is coming from the work of that nozzle. That's a huge thing to do. They're not easy. Yeah. From the chat room, Hoopa Ball says, "At least it didn't hit Pakistan." Yeah, my my microphone fell. Uh oh, you okay? What were you gonna say, Jared? I was just gonna say, you know, this is a series of radar imaging satellites that India uses uh for a variety of things, both military and civilian applications. So, um, so there are there's currently four of these satellites that are operational on orbit, uh, with six, uh, that have attempted launch and I guess now two that have been lost during those launches. Yeah, certainly very very interesting. Uh, Aravel had a question here. Um, do they have strap-on boosters of different sizes? And the answer is yes. Um I believe that they are using um two different sizes right now for for the PSLV. And um from my understanding, the SSLV um their small satellite launch vehicle is using a derivative of uh the larger of the two sol strap-on solid rocket boosters that they use for the PSLV. Um that's the core stage of their small SSLV launch vehicle, the small satellite launch vehicle. So, um, this one, this particular launch, uh, used the smaller of the two strap-on boosters, and not sure when they're going to be using the the larger ones again. Sean says they said deployable nozzle, so it's more complex. I I believe they said flex nozzle. Um, yes. So, the the nozzle on the third stage, to my knowledge, is uh as Mike said, it's uh the there's four stages to the PSV, a solid stage with strap-on boosters, there's a liquid stage, there's another solid stage, which is the third stage, and then the fourth stage of the liquid stage. So, the third stage is solid, but it has a gimbling nozzle to my knowledge. And that's different from the first stage cuz the first stage nozzle doesn't actually gimble itself, but they control the the the gimbal of the of the of the exhaust by injecting gases out of the nozzle into the stream of propellant to try and say if you if your propellant is coming out like this and you inject gas this way, your propellant is going to be forced more to this side of the nozzle causing your vehicle to turn. So that's the uh how it's done on the first stage, but the third stage is different. The third stage has an actual uh like the shuttle boosters for example, the actual nozzle physically gimbals. So that's physical hardware that's moving in there. And that appears to be what what has occurred uh with the nozzle on the third stage that has has malfunctioned in a manner which has prevented the third stage from continuing on its nominal trajectory. But it still appeared to keep going because as as Mike said, the fourth stage separated. The fourth stage kept trying to like got as far as it could have. So the the third stage except for the nozzle, the rest of the stage seemed to be doing exactly what it was meant to be doing, you know, kind of identical to to what happened with the second stage on Fireflies last. It kept going just without the extra bit of the nozzle. And to kind of help Go ahead, Jared. to kind of help visualize that a little bit. You see the um solid rocket boosters with the the nozzles that are kind of extending out to a little bit and then what looks like a little small solid rocket booster. I believe that that's that system that you're talking about where they do the the venting there in order to to control the the the essentially the gimbling of that cuz Yeah, exactly. That's like the extra storage tank bolted onto the side to carry the gas in order to in order to do that steering. Mhm. And it doesn't separate it. It stays uh connected to that core stage the entire time until the core stage itself is separated. Gotcha. All right. Yeah. And just wanted to to let you know that on that third stage with the solid motor, the I looked it up real quick just because I was interested in it, which is that the thrust vector um control systems actually used for pitch and yaw. and it's actually only plus -2 degrees which isn't much but is certainly enough if you've got the oomph behind it like that does. The roll control is provided by the reaction control system of the fourth stage of the rocket. So uh the the guidance navigation control when during the third stage burn is a collaboration between the third and the fourth stage. So um we'll certainly have to see what comes up with that. And then also um this is a note here too which is at the fourth stage on the rocket uh used to have a uh a nobbium alloy nozzle um but it was expected to be replaced by a silicon carbide coated carbon carbon nozzle at some point um in the past year. So, this, you know, if we're talking nozzles, so it seems like everybody's been having fun with nozzles over the past couple of weeks. Um, yeah, there's a possible brand new nozzle, maybe second, maybe third flight of that nozzle. Um, who knows? Yeah, from my knowledge too, they only did a um like a a test a ground test of that nozzle for the first time just this year and are also working on like a 3D printed version of that as well. Something something I find kind of interesting and convenient too about that four stage as as you mentioned Ryan how uh that's what's uh using the reaction control systems. It's using the same fuel so they don't have to have like a separate system for it. Of course, there's helium to to keep it pressurized, but um they don't have to have, you know, extra tanks. Um there's essentially just able to use the fuel that is the primary fuel for that four stage in order to operate those reaction controls. So, uh pretty pretty cool system that they have for it. and all of these different things that they're testing is going to definitely help them out in the future when they introduce their next generation launch vehicle, which is supposed to take over for both PSLV and GSLV eventually at some point. So, um they're making a lot of progress on stuff. Unfortunately, the thing I'm most excited about, their Gagan human space capsule, uh has been uh delayed yet again. uh we still might there still might be a chance that we see a uncrrewed test flight of that uh at the end of this year but if Burgger's law is a thing which we has been proven over and over again to definitely be a thing it's probably going to slip into the first quarter of next year but still rooting for for all of their programs and progress that they have going on. Wait, what's Burger's law? Burger's law is that if something slips into uh Q4 uh the fourth quarter of a year, uh it's more than likely that it's going to actually slip into the first quarter of the following year. All right. Jaime's law is if it slips to quarter 4 and you haven't done a static fire, then it's slipping an additional year. That's my law. Yeah, we've seen that happen before as haven't we? Yeah, quite a few times. What if you don't do a static fire is not a part of your normal process? Uh I guess this is for this would be for new vehicles only, right? If you can't wet the vehicle, if you haven't been able to figure out how to wet the vehicle and you think you're launching in quarter 4, um you're not launching next year. You just aren't. Right. static fire and wetting the vehicle are two different operations though. Understood. But uh Okay, that's fair. That's fair because you could wet the vehicle without actually making fire. Oh, I got to I got to work on this law. All right, fair enough. I'll put a pin in that law. I'll get back to it. Well, send it back to Congress. Veto by DA. We'll send it back to the focus group. Man, it didn't even make one. It had it had one critique and it fell apart. Yeah, that's not a You're welcome. That's that's laws are well held and understood like you know like that's no that's that's wrong. Uh uh if you want to excuse yourself. Yeah, we don't want to want to get Jamie in any trouble. And Ryan, I figured that you would kind of help us. There's been uh quite a bit of confusion and a couple of weird signs that we've been seeing. What's what's going on? Tell us tell us what you what you've been observing. We have no idea what's happening. Uh that's pretty much that's that pretty much sums up the next 30 minutes. That's our show, folks. Thank you very much. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next week. Uh so, as you may recall, a couple of weeks ago, uh SpaceX attempted a six engine static fire of ship 35. That's the upper stage for the next flight of Starship, the ninth flight of Starship. Something clearly didn't go quite right because A, it ended after 30 seconds. We were expecting about 60 seconds. B, there are a lot of bright flashes, and C, SpaceX never confirmed anything to do with the test afterwards. Uh, so they rolled the ship back to the yard, did some modifications, we assume, rolled it back out to the Massie test site, did another six engine static fire. This time it ran for 60 seconds. Looked much, much cleaner. That was emphasized by the fact that SpaceX followed it up with a uh a following tweet saying basically it went well. We're gearing up for the ninth flight of Starship. Here is nothing to see here. Nothing to see here. I'm just let that roll through. Beautiful test. Beautiful test, right? Looked wonderful. Beautiful initially. The fact that they even released this beautiful footage tells us that everything went well with this test as well. Yeah. Well, let's just say at least the indication SpaceX had at the time were that it went well because initially there was a road closure set up from the Massiey's test site bypassing the production site directly to the launch site. So we were expecting SpaceX to roll the ship from Massie directly to the launch site which at that time the booster for this flight booster 14 had already rolled out to the launch site and been stacked on the pad. So the booster was on the pad, the booster was ready. They removed the alignment pins from the mount that they used to make sure that they so they when they're lowering the booster into the mount, they don't damage the booster. Right? These pins help them wiggle the booster into exactly the correct position, they remove them. And they usually only remove them when they're not planning to destack the vehicle. Right? So they remove the alignment pins when that booster the next time the booster will leave that pad is under the power of its own engines. But then that closure was rescinded. It rolled to the production site and it's been hidden away inside Mega Bay 2 ever since it got back to the production site. So that's the first red flag. The second red flag is that suddenly we've seen a Raptor vacuum engine leave the mega bay. And to our knowledge, the only vehicle inside the mega bay right now with raptor vacuum engines is ship 35. So perhaps something on that second six engine static fire didn't go quite as expected and SpaceX only found that out after they'd, you know, edited the video and released a public statement saying everything went well. So, it hasn't emerged since. And the the thing that's even worse is after they stacked the booster on the pad, removed the alignment pins, and took the booster transport stands, they move it about on, they moved that back to the production site. They then took that transport stand and took it back to the production site, removed the booster from the pad, and the booster is now rolled back to the production site and is hiding in Mega Bay 1. So, both of the vehicles are back at the production site. The launch site is empty and nobody knows what's going on and that's that's about it in terms in terms of the hardware. So what what's happening? What what are you doing SpaceX? Can you just give us some answers please? I like this comment from Aravel. Someone sat on the confused media button. Yeah. Got to keep them guessing. Got to keep on guessing. But the the worst part is that's only the hardware because then we got even more regulatory nonsense this week. Yep. So, as you can see on my screen share, there was a uh the re-entry marine hazard in the Indian Ocean was updated uh which to start on May 26th central time. Uh May 27th UTC. As you may or may not be aware, the 26th is a federal holiday in the United States, which means SpaceX can't close the beach on that day, which means that the new no earlier than date is effectively May 27th, local time, May 28th, UTC. We're still waiting to see if the other air notices and local notice to mariners follow with shifting to this date. And to make this even worse, to make this even worse, the updated launch license was released by the FAA and it removes the clause that allows SpaceX to return the booster to the launch site. and NSF reached out to the FAA and they confirmed that in the current license SpaceX is not allowed to return the booster to the launch site, ruling out a catch on the next flight, which means everything is ruined because the only part of this bloody rocket that works is going to be thrown into the Gulf, and I'm not happy whatsoever. That's it. Thanks for watching. See you next week. Tell us how you really feel. Ryan on the soap box. Oh man. Yeah, we were all looking forward and hoping for a potential Starship launch next week, but now that's doesn't look that's going to happen. And I wonder too cuz Elon was saying that he was going to do a live broadcasted update about uh Starship and, you know, getting back to the factory and hopefully getting things back on track. I wonder if that's going to be delayed a little bit as well closer towards that launch if they get the the the the licenses that they need for it. But man, even the even the the uh early indications that we have seen for their uh notices to airmen is a much much bigger uh keepout area than what we have seen before. Actually, I should pull that up so I can u show you what we're talking about here. Yeah, and I was going to say if if I was looking at the FAA licensing correctly, it looks like they're basically doing a preemptive closure of the airspace um around the Bahamas and Kirk Turks and Kaikos there. So, um, which is something that has not been in place and and I know that it's annoying, but it's probably better to just have it closed, period, uh, than it is to make everybody, you know, run away or fly away from an an airspace or or turn around ASAP as soon as they can, you know. Yeah, I've brought that up on my screen share. So, the last couple of flights, you may remember, aircraft have had to divert. They've had to turn around. Those were in response to what are called debris response areas. So these areas are not published beforehand. These are air traffic controllers and then if a mishap occurs, those are then uh activated by the local air traffic controllers. might uh recall uh some videos uh from channels like Bass Aviation of the San Juan ATC going uh debris activation debris response area has been put in effect from this point to this point to this point to this point between time A time B get out of my way. Uh this time around the FAA is clearly showing the uh uh clearly enacting uh presumptive notices uh just I presume to me make sure they don't have to activate any of these debris response areas. And so uh uh pilots and airlines also have access to that information and they know not to be in this location at the time of launch. And this is predicted to off the top of my head disrupt over 175 flights. Uh I think it's something like uh 70 plus airways are going to be impacted. And the airport of the Turks and Caos Islands, Providenti uh is being going to be completely closed off. It's going to be closed during the the time of of of the launch. But that that airport isn't exactly, you know, London Heathrow. So that's shouldn't be that big of an impact. Only a couple of flights expected to be impacted from that closure. That is quite a narrow uh gap that they're threading there between Florida and Cuba. I mean, it depends how narrow. It's all It's all relative, I expect. Right. You know, I wouldn't want to swim it. the No, but the potential for anomalies and and debris outside of that range, I think, is is greater than what it looks like it should be or is is less than what it looks like it should be. Either way though, it's still encouraging to see them getting, you know, getting ahead of the game and and, you know, just in case. I'm okay with that. And actually, I did want to bring up this comment from Joshua Collins that uh does make a lot of sense. Um, it makes a lot of sense that it's the first time reusing a burst a booster. So, you want to make sure that it can get through ascent again and do a pinpoint landing for a second time, you know. So, good point. You know, even though that booster has flown well and the booster is the only part that's uh working right now, it is the first time that they are reflying this. So, with that with that in mind, I do kind of understand why um at least the FAA doesn't want them to attempt to do a catch of this again just to make sure that it will work for for the second time before before doing that. So, Zach needs to update the Expressions of Ryan t-shirt. We need a uh Starship isn't doing what he wants block. the only one that says slightly different. Yeah, but I mean it's similar to what they did with Falcon 9, right? The original Falcon 9 boosters, they used them twice, maybe three time, like three times. Like, wow, they're using this booster three times in a now. They've done like 28 flights on one booster. Who cares, right? I mean, so fingers crossed that that kind of attitude isn't too far away with Starship because this is meant to be, you know, rapidly reusable, hopefully more than once. If I may, uh, uh, maybe people don't care about this as much anymore, but if I can hijack this for a second, something that I'm really excited about is, uh, the changes that they're making to the core of Falcon Heavy and planning on flying it as a single stick version without, uh, the boosters on the side and doing multiple launches of that and landings of it before they use that core for the Falcon Heavy configuration. And I'm really excited about the possibility that they will actually be able to ramp up Falcon Heavy flights and be able to recover not just the boosters, but also the core stage of that as well and hopefully keep ramp it up and and do more things with it. You know, we're all excited for Starship and definitely want to see it flying all the way into orbit and start deploying payloads and do the the the inspace propellant transfer demo and start doing the lunar missions and eventually the Martian missions. But I would love to be able to see Falcon stay as a workhorse for not just SpaceX, but the United States in general for many many years to come. And if they can can get these tweaks figured out with Falcon Heavy to make it a lot more I don't want to say profitable, but but cost-effective for them to not have to keep throwing away the core stages of Falcon Heavy. That's I'm really excited about that possibility and what we might be able to do with it. So that was all. What are those for those who are ask for unpopular opinion? Maybe Boach Chica is very risky launchpad as it passes over lots of islands and that narrow band. They need to get a Florida launchpad ready, but it's risky for other launchers. Well, they're in the process of doing that, right, Ryan? Yeah. I think the I I I I I have doubts that Florida is a is a is a safer location to launch from. Right. Bokh Chica is designed to be their research and development facility. So I I I understand what Data was getting at earlier, but that that that corridor that the needle they have to thread so to speak, I think it's bigger than it it it looks on the map. Um, also they have very beefy flight termination systems now. It's been massively upgraded, like 2x upgraded since flight one or even beyond. So, personally, I'm not really too concerned about that. Um, but like Mike said, they are working on on building up Florida capabilities right now. We can see at their Roberts Road facility at the Kennedy Space Center, they're building the launch mount for launch complex 39A. SpaceX says they want to get the first launch out of there at the end of the year. I have my doubts. I think 2026 is the more likely option for a 39A Starship launch. But either way, that's going to, you know, the first Starship to roll past the VAB. That is going to be like incredible. That is like spectacular. That's going to be like top 10 spaceflight moments ever. That's just going to the imagery. It's going to be iconic. But I I it seems like Bokh Chica has what a a degree of inclination v variation that's that's c that's possible without going over land like that doesn't that seems like that's a huge limitation on where they can launch to uh it is but I also kind of until they're well it but that's that only serves a purpose until that you're you're done with done with research and you're basically in space is by the time you you hit your next land land mass. Yeah, but that's that's the whole point doesn't start off in Seattle. Every Airbus flight doesn't start off in these are research and development facilities. The that's apples and oranges. uh if you're if you're looking at the capabilities of a launch site, the the downrange uh sorry, the the inclinations that you have at your at your availability are are restricted by what's downrange and you have to have your vehicle in a safe and predictable uh trajectory by the time it reaches the next land mass or populated center. And that's the reason why Vandenberg can only go south and and west. And that's the reason you've got a hole in Florida's uh launch inclination capabilities. You can go up to the north and you can go up to the down to the south, but there's a space in the middle that you can't reach. Um so Bokhica has like one degree of going between Florida and Cuba that it can hit that. How how useful is that going into the future? Limiting. Depends on the missions. Yeah. Um in terms of Starling operational missions, they're going to if they want to do Starling operational missions from Bokh Chica, they're going to have to do huge includation changes in orbit just because of the of how how the Star constellation works, right? they go to 40 odd, 50 odd, 60 odd, 70°, not 26° or whatever the the the the latitude is of Bokh Chica. So either either they go to either they only launch missions going to 26 degrees from Bokh Chica or they do inspace inclination changes which are very expensive in terms of propellant. But then again, Starship is the most powerful rocket ever made. So it also depends how big your payload is. So, I don't know. I don't know. C Can I Can I pitch a a delusional bad idea? What if they do a um Nothing I can do will stop you. What if they do a pointto-point flight first uh from Bokeh Chica to one of the Caribbean islands like the Bahamas and then launch wherever they want from there? They already have. Just in bits. They already have. Just in bits. Oh my gosh. Well, they they can't they can't cross populated centers that way though. And yeah, Nathan, uh, isn't Bo Bokeh Chica also closer to the equator, which makes it more efficient place to launch from? I mean, that was the whole point from from the get-go, right? Was to make it take advantage of the Earth's rotation and closer to the equator and all that. I I don't think it is. I don't Looking at the map, I don't think it is. Closer. It is barely. It is closer barely. It's it's it's an incredible. Yeah, it's that's nothing. So, yes, it will it yes, it will be more efficient, but you also have a more restricted launch inclination. It's barely more efficient. And you know, at what point does does that even matter? Because the transport missions have shown not everyone wants to go to a perfectly equatorial, most efficient orbit you can possibly reach, right? Many want to go to SSO. Many want to go to polar. Many want to go to retrograde. You know, launching east is not the only thing. Launching from the equator is not the holy grail of rocketry. That's that's that I maybe maybe this is a Ryan hot take, but I think the whole we have to launch to the east thing is incredibly overrated and people pay way too much attention to it because it really I don't think it really matters. Jared, was there it only doesn't matter. It only doesn't matter if you have the the delta V to support going the other way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're getting a little hung up on this, but uh uh Jared, was there something that that you wanted to share before before we move on? Yeah. I was just going to say you have to thread the needle between Florida and Cuba and then the western tip of Cuba and the Yucatan Peninsula. And those are some very narrow needles in order to thread um at least with early this early on in the Starship program. I mean nowadays we have Falcon 9 that overfly Cuba during polar launches, right? We just basically make sure it's offshore of Florida enough and then whoever's downrange, they could deal with it. Um at least it seems like the attitude sometimes. So um and then also the long-term plan is to put Starship in Florida, right? So what's the I don't Bokeh Chica has always seemed more like the research and development kind of side of things as opposed to as opposed to the truly future operational side of things. Um so I don't know. We'll see. And then also I just want to say Starbase um and Cape Canaveral to kind of uh you know throw them both out there. Cape Canaveral is about 28 degrees north in latitude. Starbase is about 25 degrees north in latitude. So, if you really wanted to actually do it, you'd call call up Arion Space and be like, "Hey, can we actually use your launch pads because you're not you're not using them very often." So, we need a Star Base mount uh uh down at at French Gana. Yeah. Then we can have some more Rumble in the Jungle. Yeah. I mean, I've always I feel like they're pumping too much into it for Bokeh Chica to just be an R&D center. I mean, they've gone all the way of making Starbase an actual city uh within Texas. So, um I could be wrong. I mean, it might just be the future Starlink launch site and that might be all that they end up doing with it. But I have a feeling that they're they're pumping so much into that area that it's it's got to be more than just an RD facility. But you never know. Plans could change at any time. But we're not privy to that. Elon is not known for being conservative with spending money. Yeah, there is that. And conservative with uh with with staying where you want with design, right? Because composits are where it's at. Oh man. So, I wish wish wish that there was some video and there probably is, but we're probably never going to see it. Uh, for this next thing, uh, Gilmore Space is trying to launch a a rocket, an orbital rocket from Australia. Oh my god, I heard about this. And how hilarious, how freaking hilarious. Like, was there was there Hang on, hang on before you tell it. Was there a payload on this? A real payload? The more like the the top secret wheel of cheese type of payload. Okay. So nothing that nothing that was going to be like functional in space. No, just a jar of Vegemite. This was literally just the test flight of this rocket to make sure that everything worked on it. Okay, continue. Continue. Uh so from what they said, um they were doing some pre-flight uh uh checks and they had an unexpected issue. They had an observation. Uh no observation. Yeah. No fuel was loaded. Nobody was hurt. The ground uh wasn't damaged. What happened is their payload fairing deployed out of nowhere when they were doing all their pre-flight checks on this thing that they were hoping to launch this week. They've gotten the regulatory approval for it from Australia and everything. And for anyone who's played Kerbal, this is exactly why Scott Manley tells us to check your staging. Do Do you think someone hit a wrong button or do you think there was like a problem with the configuration? Some sort of electrical short or something? Can you imagine being the person who accidentally hit the button that disengaged the payload fairing on the ground? Can you be you will never live that down. Or was this even something like um like back in the day the Russians had a handful of their uh launch escape systems that accidentally took off when they were just doing tests on the ground because they had started up a system of doing tests and there's a possibility I have no idea I don't have any info about this but just my assumption is that there might have been some sort of timer of like okay we have started this count and somewhere around the t plus 330 seconds or something like that I'm just throwing numbers out. This is supposed to deploy and nobody forgot to turn that off or something else or like what you said, somebody just accidentally hit the button and No, no, Mike, your your your scenario is far more realistic. There's probably not a deploy fairing button, right? Let's be honest. It's in space. Yeah. Yeah. Too soon. Too soon. It's Oh, man. If anyone with a boob, you mean Mike? No, no. If anyone wants to know my space bar story, um, after dark. Um, so I assume that's what you were referencing. Space Mike. Actually, I was just talking about Kerbal. That's how you you do stages is is hitting space bar after dark. And I'll tell you a uh how I screwed up an Elon event with a space bar. Um, so uh no, you're probably right. It's probably an auto sequencer, right? Like there there is no deploy fair. There's no stage step button, right? None of this h there's it's all automated. All these rockets are automated. Yeah, exactly. So, you're probably right. They probably were running a test sequence. They probably forgot to comment out or null out in the sequence the fairing deploy. And then the flight computer was like, "All right, well, it's time. It's time." And and some somebody removed the shunts to be able to make them active. H yeah I mean it depend I wonder because they're not explosive right it's just uh mechanism I don't know how they're doing it but the but the the most common way is explosive in which case you have shunts to keep everything grounded and give electricity a simple and quick path from one side to the other that doesn't go through the initiator and when you are ready for launch. The one of the last things things that is done is to remove those shunts and then your your uh deployment system is is active and capable. It are explosive uh yeah they are. Is that still the common way of doing it? It's the way we did it. Well, I mean that's not a great example. The only I only know of that and then like uh separation always worked. I only know of that and then like uh the the spring-loaded method similar to like the the interstage uh portions, but those are the only two that I know of. And I have no idea which one Gilmore Space is using. Yeah. like like ULA uses them inside of a a rubber balloon and so the explosion is is captured inside of an envelope, but the change in pressure on the inside of the envelope basically pushes everything apart. Uh I'm not sure how SpaceX does it, but uh it's VO had had a a shape charge inside of an aluminum extrusion that was captured inside of a balloon. So you would uh yeah, like an airbag. It would it would pop the airbag and push the extrusion apart and break the extrusion. Man, these companies make me sad if this is actually how they're doing it. You gave me just gave me flashbacks of uh the Glory space uh spacecraft that uh the payload fairing didn't deploy on a ULA launch and the whole thing was just lost. Actually, stuck inside of a shell. Yep. Help. Same thing happened to Israel on one of their launches. I think that was different with the Glory launch. I think that was actually related to this uh big the big uh metal quality control scandal that had happened like a decade ago, something like that. So, I can't remember it exactly, but um I know Glory and then there was another payload on the same type of rocket that had a similar issue with the payload fairing. It turned out that that's uh that it was it was related actually to the the uh company that provided the metal lying about the quality of the metal. Yeah. The sub for it. So that's all I remember was that they you know fired and got rid of their sub sub and then didn't have any problems after that that I know of. Let's be let's be clear. The future fian deploys is the rocket chomper. Absolutely fom. Absolutely. I'm sorry. Hang on. Hang on. I forgot. Ryan, what is the noise the chopper makes again? Um, that's a great question. You don't remember your own question answer? That's a great question. You don't remember your own question, Ryan. That's that's a it's a it's a really in it's insightful. Um, I remember the question. The question that I asked was what does the the fairing mate? So, I remember that. So, the answer I'm not sure what you're trying to get on to here. So, what was the answer, Ryan? I I can't remember exactly what you what you answered with on that occasion. No, no, no. I want to know what the correct I can tell you is that the uh the the the correct answer uh was uh perfectly related to the to the noise that the the fairy closing actually made. See, it was it was the correct answer. I'm calling shenanigans on your questions. I'm calling shenanigans. Yeah. that question of when yeah the Australian question like how do years work different upside down like what's going on here like how did you what's every question you write from now on Ryan is going to be scrutinized from here to the end of from here to infinity so don't listen to these guys Ryan I think you've been doing an excellent job except for that very subjective and and matter of opinion what sound does it make subjective whatsoever it's factual baseball. No. Here is proof that he's not doing a good job. Look at that score I've got. That's not a good job. He's not doing a good job. I disagree. I thought you got one today. No. Ryan doesn't even have a score. So, how how does how's Ryan able to even have an opinion about this? So, that would be funny if on here we gave him a score. Like, first off, I love that he's just like very disappointed in us. He's like, he's judging us super hard on the right side of the screen. I mean, following his ey line, it looks like he's disappointed in you specifically. That's photo of me. I swear to God, that photo of me is so serious. That's like not how I am at all. I love that both you and Da are wearing sunglasses. I think that's fantastic. We should get Mike in sunglasses, too. That just be I need to retake this. Yeah, I need to retake this. Shoot. And we're going to have to get the chat in sunglasses, too, man. instead of the googly eyes. That can be done. Ryan, we should put you in sunglasses as well. And I get Jamie in sunglasses. I think I've inadvertently moved the show to After Dark. I'm sorry. Didn't mean to do that. All good. All good. Next quiz question. How many sunglasses does the Tomorrow Crew own? I own so many. So many sunglasses. We need one of your big obnoxious Disney pair or something or something like that. I know you have at least one. I have no Disney sunglasses. I don't have a lot of Disney swag. I have some uh Disney shirts and that's about it. Hey, store idea. We need some tomorrow sunglasses. Oh god. It'd be like It'd be like the 2000 sunglasses with like T and then the M and the R make out the sunglasses and then the M. Oh my god. I'd wear that. and wear that in a heartbeat. You wouldn't be able to see anything because like you need the O to be the eyes, but it's way off on the side. That's one eye is fine enough. Oh man. That is great. So I I don't I don't know how Gilmore is doing it, but I can share someone trying to bring us back to the actual show. Love it. Yep. Yep. Yep. That's my job. Well, I found a I found a couple different ways. The one of which is a this is a a section like a top down cross-section of a band that goes around the outside of the vehicle or the outside of an interface. And you have a bolt that has two uh uh a seam that has a series of bolts and these captured uh stainless steel oval tubes. and they are uh returned to round by explosive or air force and that shears the bolt and releases this band. Um you can put that seam wherever you want, but it has to be a straight seam. Um there's another one here with that that same Can you zoom in? Yeah, thank you. Envelope is inside of an extrusion. So you can see here that the extrusion is actually connected but it's a a a smaller uh smaller uh span smaller width. And with the expansion of that uh metal tube or with with an explosion or an air air pressure on the inside, it actually shears the those two pieces. So it will separate one side from the other. One of the downsides to this is that you have to bolt this uh this seam to your composite fairing or whatever it is all along its perimeter. And uh there are many many many many many small bolts. Don't ask me how I know. Um another variation on the theme is something like this where you've got something that that expands and pushes away a thin wall. The thin wall can be one piece or two pieces, but it breaks that and and that permits the the two pieces to be separated. And finally, uh, similar to the first the first band, if you have a a separation, uh, device on just a a real thin strip of metal that can take this cleat and clamp these two pieces together, kind of like a Vband clamp and used or used for other uh, aspects of connecting fluids. it uh it keeps tension around that band and keeps the the the the V kind of keeps a clamping force between those two pieces. Once the band is removed, the clamping force is removed and the two pieces can separate up and down. Interesting. Reminds me the the last one especially kind of reminded me of the O-ring diagrams that they had for the space shuttle solid rocket boosters. Different system but kind of similar. What is interesting do? Well, anyway, is that is that Jamie trying to zoom? Me? No. Oh, messed up. Is that me who messed that up? Hope not there. I'm fix. I got it. Okay. Sorry about that. This is why we don't add objects into dynamic scenes. Let's move on. We've broken this. Something that uh um I know that DA missed is that Rocket Lab did have a uh successful launch this week of their Electron rocket. They did the uh second out of two uh synthetic uh uh aperture radar satellites for IQPS. Uh second of eight. Uh they have eight of those missions that they're going to be doing. a couple more I know they have planned for this year and then you know going moving into next year. So that's great. Um I also thought it was interesting actually before that uh we also had the uh re-entry of the third Varta spacecraft that had a um we thought I thought initially that it was having some uh sort of uh material growth experiment because it was for u the US Air Force. But it turns out that it was essentially a um not a data relay tracker, but uh a positional tracker um to probably related to some of their point-to-point cargo transporting type of stuff um to make sure that they could be able to have a strong steady signal for those types of missions that they want to do in the future. So, that's great for I believe it was a navigational sort of system test that they were doing, right? I'm sorry, I couldn't find the words for that. Aside from that, there was also uh another launch of the the Zuku rocket um which is the uh methane powered rocket that a private company in in China is doing. Everything went uh perfectly well with that and they're already working on their next bigger version for it. And something that we can look forward to for later on this month is that uh I know Jared is excited about this. We later on this month, uh, China is planning on launching the Tion Wan 2 mission, which is their asteroid sample, uh, return mission. So, um, that's going to be, uh, uh, exciting to see that get get uh, launched off. Yeah, good luck to them. And hopefully we uh, get those samples back and we do a little bit of sharing. So, would be nice. Sharing is caring. That's right. I do find it actually really interesting that they have shared quite a bit of science data. Um, in fact, there's not enough time to get into it right now, but there's some really interesting stuff that they have been p publishing about uh the samples that they got back from the Chonga six mission and the materials that the far side of the moon is made out of. And it's wildly different than what anyone was expecting and kind of changing our model of how the moon was was formed. It's still pretty close to the model that we have now of some Mars- sized object hit the Earth, you know, early in the the development of the of the solar system, but that there was a lot more transfer of materials from that object and from the Earth, and a lot of it ended up on the far side that we didn't get samples of previously from the near side, the Earthfacing side of the moon. So, um, we can't go to the far side. Interesting stuff. No, the far side's where the alien base is located. We're not allowed on that side. You just got to stay away from that particular crater crater. Right. Right. Right. That's right. That's right. It's the entrance into because the the moon is hollow and the aliens live inside the moon. Right. That's why Yeah, that's right. It's not a hollow earth theory. It's hollow moon theory. That's where the aliens live there. Yeah. But on a serious note though, it turns out that the the water ice that everyone is so, you know, interested in getting and the the helium 3 materials looks like they're a lot more widespread than we thought and not just relegated to the craters that are permanently shadowed. Like you literally could grab some from anywhere and be able to harvest water from it. It's nuts. Yeah. So that should uh that should help uh provide some some ex no elbowing of everybody as we try to get resources on the moon. So you know you pick your area, we'll pick ours. We'll we'll and maybe we'll meet up every once in a while. Play some tennis or something. I don't know. So So despite all their other secrecy, props to China for sharing that information with the world. Yeah, greatly appreciated. So with that sharing or bragging yes, it's a it's a it's we could call it a a humble brag. It's allowed. Come on. It's allowed. I'm right. Like come on. Yeah. First country to launch from the far side of the moon. I think that's uh I think that's impressive enough to warrant bragging, right? I mean, we did it when we landed on the moon, planting an American flag in front of everybody. Oh man, big thank you to uh Dave Avery who just gifted uh Five Tomorrow memberships. Uh so for those of you if you're here that received those uh memberships, we will be starting our uh membersonly after dark in just a little bit. And with that, uh I think we should go ahead and thank a lot of our uh members who uh have signed up. We've actually got uh quite a few new members who signed up since last week. So, uh, big shout out and thank you to Shawl, uh, ABAMD, which I think is pronounced ABA MD is how I want to say that. Also, Kell, welcome back. Thank you for signing up again. As well as Nerdologist, and Derek Richardson, Sputnik Geyser, I love your username. Toast, Toast, Chickens, Par, CHL, and Allen C. So, thank you to all of you and to everyone who has signed up for uh our member support. And in our suborbital systems, uh we also have a new member, Chibi, who uh last week was able to tell us a little bit of a story in the after dark about how uh he might have been responsible for why uh Duta missed a shuttle launch. I didn't see Is Chibi back? Are are we gonna I didn't see him in the chat room, but if you are watching Chibi and you have your camera stuff worked out, please join us. uh and uh tell us the whole story of what what happened with that umbilical cable. But thank you as well to all of our consequences. Thank you. Big support. Uh thank you as well to all of our suborbital and escape velocity members. You can sign up for as little as a dollar a month and it keeps the show going. So thank you to everyone for all of that support. Uh thank you for watching our show. That is uh uh it for today and you will be getting the link if you have signed up for our membership to the after dark show which will be starting momentarily after this. So thank you again everybody and we will see see you next time. Man, I thought [Music]