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There's a link in the show notes SpaceX plans to have two orbital
towers down at Starbase in Texas for the launches of their
Starship vehicle. Super heavy vehicle, about 400
feet tall, the most powerful rocket in existence right now.
Now, right now, SpaceX can launch Starships about five
times per year, but they don't really want to do that.
They want to have a lot more launches than five per year
because they need to test the rocket for the upcoming Artemis
missions and also for Starlink missions in the future and also
some other cargo missions to the moon and beyond.
So what do they do? Let's take a look real quick at
this. This is from our Technica.
This is Eric Berger. Eric is awesome.
SpaceX seeks A waiver to launch Starship at least nine times
this year. Last year they did.
We're at 2 right now, two Starship launches all together.
So if they could squeak out nine launches, it's been it's months
between every single launch between IFT 1, IFT 2 and now IFT
3. It's been a few months.
But if they could do three, you know, three within this time
frame, like right now IFT 1, IFT 2 and if IFT 3 could be in March
of this year, they'd have April, May, June, July, August,
September, October, November, December.
So they'd have that many months. Could they get that many
launches in that many months? One launch per month about, I
don't know. That's a that's a pretty risky
bet to take 9 launches in about as many months.
Could they do a turn around of one launch per month?
Could they build enough boosters fast enough?
Could they have enough Raptor engines for one launch per
month? Do they have enough ships for
one launch per month? At this point, they don't have
as many built as there are months left in the year.
So there's a possibility that they can get this done.
They're going to have to ramp up production, ramp up launches,
but I believe they could do this.
So let's get it a little bit of the minutiae here.
Space like nears its first Starship launch, 2024, possibly
as soon as within three weeks. So sometime in March, they know
that they're going to be doing this launch from Starbase.
During a press availability this week, the administration of
commercial space transportation at the FAA, Kevin Coleman said
the agency is working with the company to try to facilitate the
Starship launch licensing process.
This is huge, if this actually happens, so looking at a pretty
aggressive launch schedule this year, he said.
They're looking at, I believe, at least nine launches this
year. That's a lot of launches.
If you're doing modifications and doing them one by one,
that's a lot of work. Could SpaceX be hiring a bunch
more people too? We're going to see in the near
future if they're going to be hiring more people.
We know there's going to be another orbital pad there too.
So they're going to be launching these things and also building a
pad, possibly. Let's take a look at that in a
little bit too. We've been talking to SpaceX
constantly around the clock coming together and trying to
figure out how we do this. We're invested with the company,
so we'll work with them to get them back going as soon as
possible. So basically he's saying we're
going to get them flying again so they can continue building
and fly more rockets in the future.
SpaceX decided to launch and attempt to land a Starship
vehicle in Texas about five years ago.
The company had to undergo an environmental review of the
site. So I want to ask you this
question too, and I want to know what you think down in the
comments. So SpaceX is going to launch IFT
3 soon, and it's going to be sometime in March probably,
according to Elon Musk. And if the FAA is working with
them, and it seems like they are, could they possibly launch
a rocket in March and then another one in April?
Are they really, Are they that close?
I don't think they're going to be able to do a turn around that
quick. So in my opinion, it's going to
be late April, more than likely May that they get another rocket
off if this one goes as perfect as it should go, IFT 2 or IFT 3.
If it goes better than IFT 2, then it seems like they'll have
all the systems in place to get an IFT 4, IFT 5, etcetera,
faster than what they've done before.
So all the regulatory hurdles that are in place right now
could kind of be relaxed a little bit.
And then the FAA would work with SpaceX to get 9 launches for
this year, which would be incredible.
So that's my question. Do you think they could pull it
off nine months with 9 launches? They have about nine months left
to get 9 launches in. So we'll see.
We'll see. But I don't think they're going
to be able to do 9 launches. I think that's a very optimistic
goal for SpaceX. And I'm not trying to be
pessimistic here. I'm just saying these things are
gigantic. They're hard.
Things happen all the time. Like the booster right now was
moved back to the High Bay so it could get some work done on it
before the IFT 3 launch. And the the ship is on the
suborbital pad right now, just hanging out.
So maybe there's going to be some work done on the on the
booster and on the ship in the near future.
So if that needs to happen, the timelines can slip pretty
quickly. Now that being said, Suborbital
pad B could be becoming Orbital pad B SpaceX has always wanted
2. Count them 2222 launch towers at
Starbase, Texas. That was their vision from the
beginning. Two launch towers so they could
do everything they need to do from Starbase.
Don't have to worry about Kennedy Space Center for a
while. They can do everything from
Starbase until they start launching humans on these things
or start launching these things from NASA property at Kennedy
Space Center, possibly for the first Artemis mission.
It seems like a good PR stunt to get them launched from NASA, but
if they need to, they can do these launches from Texas
because it's already built out. No reason to go to Kennedy Space
Center and waste resources there before the launch is just keep
building up Texas and keep getting it to a better place.
So this is suborbital pad B is now going to be orbital pad B,
and that's according to vixy. Vicky Cox, 15 on Twitter.
Or X if you will. And SpaceX reiterated the permit
application on 12 February 2024 with modified project plans
requesting to fill a .16 acre wetland to construct a second
orbital launchpad which will replace the current suborbital
launchpad and test stand. So currently it's just a test
stand, right? It's just, it's just right here.
That's it. There's really not much there.
But it could be a orbital launchpad, which would be
fantastic because if they're going to refuel Starship, they
have to send up possibly anywhere between 10 and 20
tankers for Starship to refuel before it gets to the moon.
And these are refuel. That mean it's a complex thing.
It's a very complex thing. Could SpaceX do it with two
pads? Better than one pad?
Two pads are better than one. So this is the other question
that I want to ask you. Orbital pad A, orbital pad B at
Starbase, do you think they're going to catch the booster or do
you think they're going to be expendable for the NASA
missions? Do you think they're going to
have boosters ready to go? They're going to have 10 to 20
boosters ready to go and expend them in the Gulf of Mexico.
Or do you think they're going to get the landings nailed before
the Artemis program? Because if they don't get the
landings nailed, you know, what are they going to do?
Will they have 15 boosters just ready to go?
I don't think that's the case. I think what's going to happen
is they're going to be able to catch these things before the
Artemis program, Artemis 3. So which pad?
This is the question, Which orbital pad do you think they're
going to catch on 1st? I'm going Orbital Pad B because
there will be modifications, upgrades to it.
They need to catch it. So if if they need to catch it
at 1 tower, I think it's going to be Orbital Pad B because
Orbital Pad A, it's going to be the workhorse.
I think they're going to launch from there.
That's perfectly fine. They launch from there.
Right now they're going to also launch from Orbital Pad B.
But if they can launch from Orbital Pad B, they can land it
Orbital pad B, orbital pad A also they can land it orbital
pad B. Maybe they can catch them at
both. I want to know your opinion down
in the comments below, let me know what you think where
they're going to catch the first booster orbital Pad A or orbital
pad B. So we got a couple questions
here today, but that's that's pretty much it.
I want to show you the the, the plan here.
Space Exploration Technologies published February 22nd.
Project plans you know go into deeper here go a little bit
deeper and you can zoom in if we need to 150% wetland's subject
to this request. So we have tank farm, orbital
pad etcetera here and then we have down here we have a little
zoomed in requested additional wetland impact .16 acres this
little red, this little red one right here proposed wetland
impact. It's not much.
It's really not much. But we'll they be able to do
this and there's a a ground shot of a wetland impact update
summary. So there's the pad.
You can see it there. It's right right next to it.
It's literally like you can take a couple steps across this, take
five or six steps and you're across this whole thing.
The Army Corps of Engineers, will they allow this?
There might be a little impact, an environmental impact study
here, but I think they're going to be OK with it.
It's an industrial zone right now.
Basically, if you look at it, it's an industrial zone in the
middle of all sorts of things going on.
You know, there's a parking lot, there's there's a bunch of
concrete, there's pipes, there's tubes, all sorts of stuff going
on here. It's wetlands.
Of course we have to protect the wetlands, but also we have to go
forward with progress. So what do you think?
What do you think about this too?
I I think Orbital Pad B will be the catch tower to begin with.
Then they're going to take them off.
Orbital Pad B, refurbish it, take it back to the high Bay.
And while that's happening, other rockets are going to come
out and then they're going to launch more over and over and
over. So that's where we're at right
now. It's got to be a wild 2024.
If they get this proposal, if they want it, if they get this
Orbital Pad B proposal accepted, we might see Orbital Pad B
become a thing, start becoming a thing in the next few months
after IF T3I think they're going to start moving in hardware if
this gets approved really quick. So we're going to see, but see,
the other thing is I want to show you this public state
expiration date, January, March 2020 or 25 of 20/24/20 February,
March. So next month, about a month
actually from today, we're going to see the expiration date of
this. So we'll see.
We'll see what happens. But thanks for watching,
everybody. I appreciate your time and take
care of yourselves and each other.
And I will see you in the next one.
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