SpaceX Delays Flight 13 Further, Flight 14 Testing Starts! | Starship Update

[00:03] yet so far. We'll go into what SpaceX is doing to repair Booster 20. [music] And 20 rolling back to the production site wasn't hard enough, Booster 21 has rolled out to Massey's to start [music] its testing campaign ahead of Starship's

[00:17] 14th flight. Plus, over in Florida, the first Starship launch tower at Space Launch Complex 37 is almost at full height as it grows beyond the seventh and much more coming up in your Starship update.

[00:45] on the pad 13, in a moment. But first, let's take a look at future vehicles currently being built and tested. Inside of Star Factory, we can see the nose cone assigned to Ship 43. While it was pretty easy to assume which flight a

[00:57] vehicle would be assigned to, with ship reuse possibly becoming a reality in the not-too-distant future, those predictions are becoming harder and harder. Should SpaceX stick to a sequential plan, Ship 43 could fly on

[01:09] flight 16. But even with ship reuse, that does not remove the need for more ships. The final step that takes place with a nose cone inside the Star Factory is stacking it onto the payload bay. We can see that this step has now taken

[01:22] place for Ship 43. And while Ship 43 remains inside the Star Factory, Ship 42 stacking process. One of the final stacking steps for ships is the installation of the methane and liquid oxygen transfer tubes. Again, looking

[01:36] inside Star Factory, we can see that the transfer tube installation jig has now received the three methane transfer tubes. These three tubes will deliver liquid methane to the three Raptor vacuum engines. Before Ship 42 can be

[01:48] lifted onto the jig, it will need its second-to-last barrel section installed. The jig itself still requires the fourth liquid methane transfer tube, which will supply the three center Raptor 3 sea level engines, as well as the liquid

[02:00] the liquid oxygen header tank to those same three sea level engines. The liquid need its own transfer tube running to the aft of the ship as it already has the transfer tube section located inside the methane tank. This section routes

[02:15] the propellant into the transfer tube that supplies the three Raptor sea level engines. The transfer tubes are all vacuum jacketed. This helps reduce propellant boil off as the vacuum acts as insulation. You can experience a

[02:27] similar effect yourself with our tumblers at shop.nasaspaceflight.com, allowing you to keep your cold drinks cold and your warm drinks warm. With all did not want to be left out of the action. Earlier this week, the booster

[02:40] cryo stand was rolled to the production site to pick up the next booster for its cryogenic test campaign. While Ship 40 was still on top of Booster 20, more on that later, Booster 21 rolled out of Mega Bay 1 and rolled towards the

[02:52] Massey's test site. With the tank farm at Massey's coming to life, B21 was nitrogen. Just like when a ship undergoes a cryogenic test, the booster push against the aft section of the booster to simulate the forces from the

[03:07] Raptor engines. This validates the aft section of the booster can survive these engines for real and heads to the launch site for static fire testing ahead of launch. If Flight 13 goes to plan and Booster 20 performs a soft water

[03:20] splashdown in the Gulf, Booster 21 could be the first Block 3 booster to be caught. SpaceX could then decide whether Booster 21 stays at Starbase or whether they want to transport it over to Florida on Barmark 31 and use a booster

[03:33] launch from the Space Coast. While SpaceX is now flying when they don't have to deal with booster engines refusing to start up, that doesn't mean work on the test tanks has come to an end. Booster 18.3 is the booster forward

[03:46] test tank allowing SpaceX to qualify the integrated hot stage ring and the grid fin mounting points. Although it has not undergone cryogenic testing for some time, SpaceX appears to have found a new role for it as we've now seen teams

[03:58] testing the grid fin motors. Testing the strength of these motors will give SpaceX a better understanding of how much authority the grid fins have when subjected to the enormous aerodynamic forces they experience while steering

[04:10] They'll be able to pair this data with considering the booster never dropped below supersonic speeds on the way back to Earth. Make sure to subscribe if you want to see a flight 13 can get a bit

[04:23] further in the list of test objectives. Looking just beside B18.3, we can see the extensive scaffolding has gone up around the booster liquid oxygen landing tank. It is currently sitting inside the old nose cone jail, which was previously

[04:36] used for structural testing of Starship nose cones. SpaceX now appears to be repurposing the facility to carry out a series of structural tests on the closely, we can already see one of the load directions that will be tested. A

[04:49] ring has been installed on top of the landing tank, which will allow SpaceX to downward loads [music] to the structure. Once the landing tank has completed its test campaign, SpaceX will be yet another step closer to

[05:02] optimizing the booster's landing pad, during which it plans to ignite 13 Raptor 3 engines just as shown on the flight 13 mission patch. You can pick up that design on a t-shirt, hoodie, or if you spend plenty of time out in the sun,

[05:14] shop.nasaspaceflight.com. Two plugs in one video, we've probably at pad one, we saw another major milestone this week as the prefabricated launch mount were lifted into their final positions. This marks a different

[05:30] construction approach from the one SpaceX used at pad two and LC 39A. At those sites, the A-frame structures were fully assembled before being lifted into place alongside the completed flame trench, where they remain today. At pad

[05:42] one, however, SpaceX has taken a different approach. Rather than waiting for the flame trench to be finished before assembling the A-frames, teams sections and then lifted those sections into place once the flame trench

[05:54] foundations were sufficiently complete. It will be interesting to see just how much time this approach saves over the course of construction. So, how long do you think it will be before pad one is ready to support another Starship

[06:06] launch? Let us know in the comments. Now, what's up with Starship flight 13? two days before the launch attempt, booster 20 was rolled out and placed onto the launch mount. Less than 24 hours before launch, SpaceX finally

[06:19] rolled ship 40 out to the launch site after loading the 20 Starlink V3 before they burned up in the atmosphere around 20 minutes later. Everything was around 20 minutes later. Everything was looking good for a lift-off at 22:45 UTC

[06:32] or 17:45 local time, and the countdown had progressed almost flawlessly apart from a brief hold at T-60 seconds. Yes, you heard that right, T-60 seconds, not T-40. What happened to the T-40 second hold? During the countdown, SpaceX

[06:46] announced that the planned hold point had been moved up from T-40 to T-60. This change allows them to carry out the final pre-launch checks slightly earlier in the countdown, helping to spread the workload more evenly before lift-off.

[06:59] They can still recycle the countdown clock back to T-60 seconds if a hold is called before the deluge system activates. However, once the deluge is fired, any hold automatically becomes a scrub as the countdown can no longer be

[07:11] recycled. SpaceX says they have around 5 to 8 minutes of available hold time before a launch attempt has to be called off. Although Starship flight 12 would launch attempt they managed to hold and recycle the countdown for nearly 10

[07:24] minutes. Once the hold at T-60 seconds was cleared on flight 13, the countdown resumed smoothly. The detonation suppression system activated to prevent any unwanted ignitions beneath the pad followed by the flame trench and top

[07:36] deck deluge systems. Finally, 29 of booster 20's 33 Raptor engines ignited according to the on-screen telemetry, before the onboard computers triggered an automatic abort, shutting the engines down. The last time SpaceX experienced

[07:49] an abort like this was during Falcon 9's Starlink Group 10-2 mission in 2024. Starship launch before. While it's reassuring to know that Starship can safely abort even after engine ignition under launch conditions, ideally we

[08:03] would never have needed to find that out. And to be clear, we have actually seen a Starship abort after engine ignition before, just not during a launch attempt. Back when Booster 9 was conducting its 10 engine static fire,

[08:15] the test was aborted just over a second after ignition because of an issue with the pad deluge system. That rapid abort caused damage to the engines because they were still in their startup sequence when they were shut down. As a

[08:27] result, those 10 engines would not fly on Booster 19. However, SpaceX later repaired, and they are now installed on Booster 20. That type of abrupt shutdown is known as a hard shutdown. This involves immediately closing the valves

[08:41] This can create pressure spikes and shock waves as fast-moving propellant suddenly slams into closed valves, potentially damaging turbo pumps, injectors, and/or plumbing. This situation appears to have been

[08:54] triggered by the vehicle rather than a pad issue, the engines that had given time to shut down in a more controlled manner, avoiding a hard shutdown and also preventing any damage to the launch pad. The actual reason for

[09:08] the abort was that the vehicle exceeded its engine out criteria. Starship can tolerate up to three engine failures during startup, but once a fourth engine criteria were no longer met, and the system automatically aborted the launch.

[09:22] Even if there had been no underlying issue with those engines, which we'll would still have ended in a scrub because the abort happened after the deluge system had activated. Once the deluge is fired, it takes several

[09:34] minutes before it can be reset and made ready again. By that point, SpaceX would already have exceeded its available hold time, meaning there would be no opportunity for another launch attempt, even though the deluge system itself

[09:46] Starship could make another attempt after the deluge is fired would be to completely detank and then refuel the vehicle. That would only be possible if there was still sufficient time left in the launch window. In practice, that

[10:00] between two and four hours, which would easily exceed Flight 13's 90-minute launch window. So, the big question is, why did four engines fail to ignite? The honest answer is we simply don't know. So, all we can do is make some educated

[10:15] guesses. For a start, it seems unlikely that the 10 refurbished engines were responsible, as only one of those engines failed to ignite, Raptor serial number 78. Beyond that, it's difficult to say. Any pre-existing faults should

[10:28] have been identified during the 25-second static fire, unless the engine sustained damage during that test or at some point afterwards. As a result of the abort, SpaceX has rolled both the ship and booster back to the barn, so

[10:40] some of them, at least according to the boss, Elon Musk, who said that they will successful flight. Additionally, when the booster was lifted off the mount, Raptors on the booster. You may have seen some speculation on social media

[10:55] about parts being missing, but those parts were not actually present when the attempt. It wasn't damaged by this post-ignition abort. There's also some quick disconnects, but this should not affect anything and is completely

[11:08] normal. Currently, SpaceX appears to be targeting Thursday the 23rd for the next website. There's a chance this extra delay is to allow time for additional engine testing on the pad, although it would be a very SpaceX move to skip that

[11:23] step and go straight to flight. Over the course of the week, SpaceX also revealed some great new views from Flight 12, a few views of the Flight 13 stack, and we also received some interesting Artemis information. Starting with the failed

[11:35] received a new view from a camera mounted on one of the booster chines Alongside that, we also got a view from inside the ship engine bay showing the sea level engines gimbaling out before returning to their normal position. When

[11:49] SpaceX was discussing the Starlink V3 satellites on this flight, which are being flown on the vehicle to test them ahead of becoming operational, we saw typically see during satellite deployments. This view showcased the 20

[12:02] V3 Starlink satellites inside ship 40. When it comes to Artemis 3, SpaceX will launch a modified Starlink V3 with a docking port on the tip of the nosecone allowing NASA's Orion spacecraft to dock with the vehicle. After docking, they

[12:15] will carry out maneuverability tests of both vehicles while they are connected. They also announced that NASA will be installing two SpaceX mini lasers onto the spacecraft to connect it to the Starlink network with the goal of

[12:27] enabling live 4K video from space. Artemis 2 already had impressive views, and now it seems Artemis 3 is only going to improve on that. Overall, it was quite an unlucky first launch attempt for flight 13, but who knows what could

[12:40] despite the engine issues. After all, it is better to be on the ground wishing wishing you were on the ground. And while we're waiting for Starship's next flight from Starbase, what about SpaceX's future operational launch sites

[12:54] missions from the Space Coast will fly from historic launch complex 39A where SpaceX teams have recently been carrying out a range of tests from chopstick movement testing to tank farm testing including the deluge system and hold

[13:07] down clamp testing on the launch mount. Additionally, more storage tanks for the be installed into the tank farm at a later date. The pad here is probably almost ready to support a Starship launch. The only thing it is really

[13:20] once again confirming that they hope to launch from LC 39A later this year, it should not be too long before we finally see a vehicle burst from Starbase to the Cape. The second Starship pad in Florida is Space Launch Complex 37A. This will

[13:35] be the first of two launch pads and towers at SLIC 37. Recently, [music] construction teams lifted the seventh of nine tower modules and placed it onto the tower using the LR13000 crane. This was then shortly followed by its

[13:47] penultimate eighth module. As SpaceX has said, this tower has been constructed remarkably quickly and it will not be long until it reaches its full height. though, it needs all of its different sections. This isn't just the nine tower

[14:01] modules, but also the base and roof. Alongside the construction of the fourth Starship tower, we also spotted what appears to be launch mount parts being transported past the VAB towards Roberts Road. These are likely for the pad at

[14:14] 37, which means SpaceX will be beginning fabrication work for this launch site. As we saw at pad two and 39A, the launch mounts are first constructed off-site before being moved to the launch site for installation onto the four legs that

[14:26] support them. Because of this, we probably won't see the base of the pad at Complex 37 start taking shape until the flame trench has been constructed as the trench structure is what holds up the mount. We're potentially just hours

[14:38] away from the next Starship launch, so make sure to tune into our live coverage starting at L-9 hours with our steakhouse stream and our full on launch you're from the future though and it's

[14:50] made it this far into the video. I've been Ryan Chasing for NSF. Thanks for been Ryan Chasing for NSF. Thanks for watching and goodbye.