A few days after the company currently reiterated its plan to conduct its first orbital launch attempt as early as July, SpaceX shipped vacuum-optimized Raptor engines to its Starship plant in Boca Chica, Texas, for the first time.

As early as March 2021, CEO Elon Musk confirmed that he had set a goal for SpaceX to attempt the first orbital launch of the interstellar spacecraft no later than the end of July-at a distance of about four and a half months. Fifteen weeks later, although the possibility of an orbital launch attempt in July has actually been reduced to zero, SpaceX Chief Operating Officer and President Gwynne Shotwell reiterated that the company is still the "Starship's first orbital launch attempt." Shot in July".

As of late June, to achieve this goal, SpaceX will need to combine many extraordinary engineering and rocket technologies in record time, or try some very unorthodox corner cutting.

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell (Gwynne Shotwell) stated that the company is still "photographing the first orbital interplanetary flight in July." #ISDC2021

This is! It seems that we can use this version of Raptor Vacuum to get an Isp of 378 seconds, so it can exceed 380 seconds in some future improvements.

The launch pad and launch vehicle hardware required for Starship's first space shot are far from ready to fly. On June 24, Musk unexpectedly revealed that SpaceX’s super-heavy booster prototype, which is currently in the late stages of assembly, is not actually the booster for Starship’s first space launch attempt. In other words, even though SpaceX’s Boca Chica plant is scattered around dozens of rings in various working conditions, the company has not yet begun to assemble the 65m (~215 feet) tall large booster required for the first orbital launch attempt.

Using Super Heavy Booster 3 (B3) as a ruler, assembly can easily take 9 to 10 weeks-from when the process actually starts. In other words, if SpaceX starts stacking Booster 4 from today, it is unlikely that the rocket will even be completed before the end of August. Unless SpaceX takes an unprecedented shortcut, completing the booster is only part of the process of preparing for flight, and B4 still needs to be qualified for flight, which may involve at least one low temperature verification and static combustion test.

In the best case that SpaceX began to assemble today, it succeeded in halving the assembly time of Booster 4 in one fell swoop, and completed the second super-heavy stealth through the qualification test within a week. The orbital flight test booster is still not ready in August. Install Starship before mid-term (probably another unprecedented first time).

Completed the full test firing of the Raptor vacuum engine at SpaceX's rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas pic.twitter.com/0GPSdSifnn

This will give SpaceX five to six weeks to fully assemble the Starship S20, a process that has not yet begun. Just as Musk said that the interstellar spacecraft SN15 has undergone "hundreds of improvements", Musk also said that Spacecraft 20 and its subsequent spacecraft will undergo another batch of upgrades to allow the interstellar spacecraft to enter orbit. Starship SN15 stacked and assembled very slowly for nearly four months, although this slow assembly may be attributed to the fact that SpaceX is busy testing Starship SN8 to SN11 and is effectively waiting to see if any other major changes may be needed.

Although most of the S20’s upgrades are a mystery, the ship’s thrust dome-discovered during Boca Chica's work earlier this month-has confirmed that the prototype will be the first installation to be equipped with a Raptor vacuum engine. A prototype of the hardware is required. This may mean that the S20 will also be the first interstellar spacecraft to attempt static launch of six Raptor engines*, which may generate more thrust than the Falcon 9 booster. On June 27th, such a vacuum-optimized Raptor (RVac) arrived in Boca Chica for the first time, indicating that a relatively new engine may be ready to begin integrated Starship testing.

*Update: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk stated that the Raptor Vacuum delivered to Boca Chica on June 27 was actually designed for the Starship S20, which seems to confirm that the prototype will be equipped with a complete 6 Raptor engines.

🚀Starbase TX, launch site. Progressive aerial photography from 2018 to 2021 pic.twitter.com/amw863xdQM

Of course, in addition to Starship and Super Heavy, SpaceX also needs to do a lot of work to get the rocket's first orbital launch facility into operation. SpaceX will need to complete and activate at least one or two custom propellant storage tanks, wrap these three or four tanks with three to four huge thermos-like "shells", complete thousands of feet of insulated pipes and wiring, and complete A huge "launching station", which is installed on the hexapod "launching rack"; equipped with a series of power, avionics, hydraulic system, refueling equipment and pipelines for the table; completed a 145 meters (about 475 meters) Ft) "integrated tower", and use real boosters or interstellar spacecraft for the first fit check and stability test.

Only in this way can SpaceX attempt the first space launch of an interstellar spacecraft. All in all, it may not be impossible for SpaceX to complete all the above tasks in less than five weeks, but it is safe to say that the chance of this happening may make the lottery blush. In any case, if Starship reaches orbit at any time before the end of 2021, it will defeat simpler “next-generation” rockets such as Ariane 6, ULA’s Vulcan and Blue Origin’s New Glenn, despite the coordinated development and The uncertainty is much greater in the funding situation.

The newly revised electric vehicle incentive plan is built by President Biden...

Apple has hired former Tesla autopilot software director Christopher "CJ" Moore to develop...

Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) fell more than 5% at the opening of the market on Monday because Elon Musk...

Delhi, India has decided to abolish subsidies for electric vehicles,...

Tesla China seems to be ready to drive down deliveries in the fourth quarter of 2021. Giga's recent video...

Copyright © Tesla. all rights reserved.