It's Happening! Booster Catch Arm Tested At High Speed! - SpaceX Weekly

This week at Starbase, Booster 13 is cryo tested, Ship 30 is brought to the launch site and we see our first glimpse of testing for a potential booster catch attempt. All this, while crews continue with the rapid pace of construction on the new office building, parking garage and Starfactory expansion. Meanwhile, over at Cape Canaveral, Falcon 9 fills in for a delayed Ariane 6 program by launching a pair of Galileo satellites, as teams stay busy with launch and recovery operations for SpaceX's Starlink program.
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[@MrKellymcilrath]

Thank you Lab Padre for another Great Spacex Weekly Update!!!

[@HighPeakVideo]

Great to catch another LabPadre catch-up!

[@atptourfan]

Best weekly review. So detailed with time and captions.

[@FutureAIDev2015]

SpaceX looked at NASA and Congress and said, "Fine, I'll do it myself."

[@lowellbrown1122]

lol for real 😂

[@ThatOpalGuy]

Do what?

[@clubsternuon1545]

Thanks for consistently cleaning the rover cams and providing these information packed updates for us !

[@ThexBorg]

The pace of construction is amazing. Thanks as always padre.

[@atptourfan]

I also have to say I appreciate the clear, technically accurate language used to describe events in these weekly updates. I find I’m learning the proper names of equipment and construction techniques just by enjoying the video. Thank you, LAB and team!

[@WG-tt6hk]

Just like SpaceX, Lab Padre is the best at what they do.

[@Liberty4Ever]

Another week and another couple of Falcon 9 launches as Starship development churns along and Spaceport continues to grow. This is how humanity makes it to Mars. We are living in the future and it's great. There is so much bad news everywhere else these days, but these weekly SpaceX updates never fail to make me happy and hopeful. Thank you so much, LabPadre!

[@trevorpickup3820]

Great channel, no unnessary content, keep it up one off the best.

[@StereoSpace]

Thanks!

[@CodyIsDumb]

Thanks!

[@guyrovella8402]

Great Update! Just one thing: When showing the tower arm movement it would be helpful to say when the video is showing x1 speed. Since almost all the other video is sped up it's hard to tell. Thanks.

[@phunkydroid]

None of it was at 1x speed.

[@goodwinhull2751]

Lab's weekly update has become my favourite. Just straight facts, no fluff. Great job!

[@shawncarr8407]

I love SpaceX and their determination to prevail! Lol Keep Moving Forward.

[@klaus6178]

thanks for the catch up

[@dnarnhoj]

Best weekly update on SpaceX progress you can find anywhere!

[@tikidan7418]

Wow! Awesome update. Thank you!

[@allen1414]

A excellent recap Of the week's events,thank you Lab and team... !!

[@JohnMaun]

Great update.

[@barometricfunk]

I love watching the progress of Mega Bay 2. Everything is being set up for stretched Starships in the coming years. It’s made me realize more than anything that once V1 Starship is done and flown, High Bay is coming down.

[@hydrorix1]

What I love most about this channel is that it was there before there was a there there. 🚀

[@danapeck5382]

Another great episode, many thanks

[@festeradams3972]

I'd find it doubtful that they'd try a capture until at least 2 or 3 good booster "landings" are successful. they aren't going to want to risk the tower. As for the chipstick's "wobble", that will depend on how fast they will be required to actuate in actual use. A damping Mass actively driven at the arms end might be effective, but would increase the arms weight and mass and quite possibly increase actuation time depending on the power of the arm actuators. Probably some compromise there...

[@atptourfan]

Completely agree. That was typical Elon pushing the timeline. They will have stage zero readiness for a catch by flight 5, but absolutely will perform 3 or more flawless simulated catches in the Gulf before risking their ONLY launch tower in a critical first year where they vie to push their flight cadence to the max.

[@PowerScissor]

Elon has a long history of demanding things to happen when all the engineers think more time is needed. They can lose their job by saying NO too often. So, I wouldn't be surprised at all if it hapoens way before logic says it's ready. You haven't been paying attention if you doubt it will happen before properly understood data is carefully collected to ensure a perfect catch.

[@Vytirix_RBX]

WOW, those chopsticks are moving fast! And at that size, it almost seems impossible! But that’s SpaceX for ya. Making the impossible possible.

[@philippedouat6355]

Merci pour la vidéo

[@SHOE53]

Nice camera work got some great shots.

[@Gargamel-n-Rudmilla]

I think SpaceX need to get the Tesla suspension design engineers in, to sort out how to fully dampen the arms.

[@AmassiveOverLoad]

For that wobble on the chopsticks, they could use something like that on a motorcycle steering system to assist with high-speed wobble

[@JoeDaManTheHC]

👀🐔👀🐔 I like the fast pace, no B.S. information videos. 😁

[@Antuan2911]

5:00 --> May I propose: As it seems, "Chop-sticks" beams should be stiffer horizontally, but even now they can fix this. They can install some horizontal steel wires to external side, to stress-up these beams so not to wave horizontally at sudden stops. These wires will automatically extent or contract to follow the movement of beams and must be always in tension. The cables must be in some angle with main beams to be able to hold them. So, maybe will need also some smaller horizontal beam around the base of each main beam, going outwards.

[@richieward6348]

I think they will wait untill the second tower is ready before trying to catch the booster

[@jeremycovelli]

yep.. I think the testing of the arms is so they can use the same newer design on the new tower. No way they will risk a catch before tower 2 is up and running.

[@dancingdog2790]

...but Elon thinks they will. You're fired!

[@bigronimal06]

Good idea. That way if there's a failure they can continue tests.

[@bigronimal06]

TBH I think finishing Tower 2 at Boca Chica and the 3rd at Cape Canaveral would be the minimum before trying ANY such test. As we seen recently things can still go wrong on pinpoint landing. My personal opinion would be to at least make the ship itself with landing legs on land. Having no abort system in a situation like that is insane. At the same time...we must take these risks to become interplanetary for the eventual survival of our species.

[@MTP2020]

Elon already said flight 5 as long as flight 4 does a successful virtual landing.

[@i31215]

Go SpaceX 🚀

[@MRMIKE276]

They should stick a couple Draco thrusters on the chopstick arms to cancel out the rebound

[@johnrday2023]

Great to watch yr regular updates of Starbase - so much taking place! The parking garage sure will help workforce parking - but seems to have small footprint for 6 story garage ! Why is there delay in erecting steel at eastern end of ths new office bldg?? C'mon ITF-4 !!!

[@lanimulrepus]

Usual good job...

[@Kriya_raj]

My cuzn was driving one of those tugboats!

[@kensutherland5270]

keep it simple, maybe try a very big damper rod between the arms, a hydrawlic damper would sort out that wobble during arm move

[@sallygaillard7335]

I am a little confused about the doors going in the high bay 2. Could you show us how they work in the space and still leave the large opening for the ships

[@JesseBusman1996]

OMG 🤩

[@spacemanmat]

Won’t be surprised if they trim the catching arms down, it would reduce the inertia greatly.

[@TheCritterWindow]

I think any Catch testing done now is for the new tower. The new tower will make the first catch attempts. Cant blow up the only launch tower. I have said this since the first of the year. We will see.

[@wingssoon]

Oh Boy! So many new goodies 🚀

[@williamdhughes6039]

Im only recently getting intrested in space flight so if this is a daft question please keep the sniping to yourself 🙂 Would it not make sense to test the catch arms for potential recovery by sending a (test) booster by itself on short low alt hops rather than after an orbital flight. Carrying less fuel, less weight etc. Thank you in advance

[@norinokia2307]

The booster will be almost empty by the time it lands since this is the last portion of it's flight. There is no need trying to squeeze in a test flight for catching if they can just try catching on a more valuable full flight profile.

[@DanielRichards644]

no, because then you are wasting a launch (which they are only allowed a handful of times a year currently) to test catching only, by the time the booster is in position for a catch attempt it would have the same (roughly) amount of fuel and with that the same weight so no reason not to do a full on launch and work on every aspect of the flight profile giving you tons of more data then a hop would get you.

[@williamdhughes6039]

Cheers folks a lot of sense made by you both. How limited are spacex in terms of launches per year? Im guessing its both licences as well as turn around of vehicles availble? Pretty cool just getting into it as its like binge watching a good show all at once

[@DanielRichards644]

@@williamdhughes6039 5 orbital and 5 suborbital last I heard in like 2022 when the PEA (Programitic Environmental Assessment) came out.

[@alancoker1459]

Last time i was in a multi level garage i felt claustrophoboic

[@willneal-boyd7161]

5:53 Are the people in the excavators okay while being hit by the purging from the tower? Maybe the excavators are air-tight?

[@bobschneider1544]

Why has only one actuator on the chop sticks been replaced? Are they going to replace the other one before flight 4?

[@TheEvilmooseofdoom]

Does it matter if they do it before or after flight 4?

[@trs4u]

They want to get some RCS on the ends of those chopsticks so they can rocket-punch them to the catch position

[@alancoker1459]

Maybe they could hang a booster mock up and catch it for a test ???

[@DanielRichards644]

hang it from where, the sky? how do you "mock up" something that weighs a 200 tons?

[@alancoker1459]

@@DanielRichards644 They have lifted a booster with a crane before

[@DanielRichards644]

@@alancoker1459 how would they learn anything from that they couldn't learn from grabbing a booster sitting on a transport stand?

[@arnoldsmith5754]

this is another busy update as the next flight gets ready

[@Comin_at_U_Live]

Wondering about landing legs for starship? How big would legs need to be to support a 50 story building? How much would those weigh?

[@akkkbn]

Starship isn't quite that big yet, but legs for either Super Heavy or the ship would be large and heavy enough that SpaceX opted for the catch tower solution, thus saving weight on the vehicles. That said, Starship will have landing legs for a few missions, such as Artemis and the early Mars landings.

[@joansparky4439]

top

[@czarnick123]

Humanity must get to Mars. It is so refreshing to see someone finally taking that goal seriously.

[@MichaelWinter-ss6lx]

There's nothing serious yet. As long as they try without nuclear propulsion, it is rather ridiculous.

[@toastedmatt9387]

@@MichaelWinter-ss6lx ya I love Starship but they either need to use nuclear propulsion to get to Mars quicker, or they’re gonna have to come up with some sort of artificial gravity solution, be it spinning the ships somehow or perhaps short radius centrifuges might get the job done. In general, I feel like we need to be doing more tests of artificial gravity in space to see if it’s viable.

[@Andrew-13579]

I agree. It all depends on what nuclear propulsion can do. I envision Starship as a shuttle hauling things to low earth orbit…tanker, cargo. That and Falcon 9 haul the components of a nuclear-thermal propulsion “truck” to LEO for assembly on orbit. Maybe an initial NTP truck can take some Jupiter-moon mission spacecraft out to Jupiter at a million mph, I’m hoping. Let’s say it can provide thrust for 1/10th g acceleration to 2 tons of spacecraft for 4-5 days, continuous. That should achieve around 1 million mph, or 450 km/s. (If you think that’s a ludicrous speed, the Parker Solar Probe has already reached 176 km/s on a fly-by of the Sun). It could reach Jupiter in about a month! Accelerate 5 days, coast 20 days, decelerate 4 days, use Jupiter fly-by as a brake? Drop the spacecraft into their orbits and come back home for more H2 propellant and more customers. Then it could haul crafts to Mars at a lower speed to keep the one-way duration to about a month or two. More cargo mass, less speed. Maybe, eventually, a large enough one that could haul 2 or 3 Starships out Mars in a few months instead of 6-8. Maybe by around 2038…I hope. Manned flights to Mars? Maybe around 2045? Eventually assemble an LH / LOX generation plant on Callisto and/or Ganymede so that the NTP trucks can refuel out there and bring back extra LH&LOX as cargo to Earth or lunar orbit. Or, just bring back water to be split into LH/LOX using stronger solar power on the moon or in cislunar orbit. Being assembled in space, the NTP trucks could have large high-gain antennas and solar arrays on them, too. Large enough ones might even have crew modules for 2 to 6 months round trips. First people out to Jupiter…and on to Saturn! Far fetched? Maybe, maybe not, by 2050. It depends on what NTP can do.

[@ThatOpalGuy]

Just send all the fanbois

[@czarnick123]

@@ThatOpalGuy This is a massive undertaking for humanity. Try to separate your hate for Musk from an attempt to further life on this planet.

[@NominalOrbit]

9:51 “Media offline” message briefly flashes on-screen for a few frames.

[@phunkydroid]

Why show us sped up footage when talking about the chopstick speed test?

[@hydrorix1]

To be honest, I don't understand the details of the process intended to catch anything. Please enlighten...🤔

[@ricklaser2846]

The arm don´t stop. inertia makes it shake...

[@mrbiff5444]

A Texas tornado could obliterate that new office building and the Star factory in a New York minute....😬😮‍💨...along with the megabays

[@dphuntsman]

A direct hit by a strong enough tornado can obliterate just about anything- as we in Ohio know all too well. More important is for the Boca Chica to be resilient against hurricanes.

[@FrankBenlin]

Parking garages don't get no respect. Looks like a boring old parking garage and not a structure at The Gateway To Mars. Thanks, Lab.

[@Citiz3nInsane]

Hi guys, i love your content but please be careful with your video titles. You create quality content, that's what we are here for, please don't fall in the same pattern as WAI with their clickbait titles.

[@AdrianBoyko]

I find it amusing that there is an audience that’s so fascinated by SpaceX that they want to be kept up-to-date on the progress of the new SpaceX parking garage.

[@akkkbn]

All part of the same Boca Chica operations package!

[@bigronimal06]

Just gotta wonder...when do any of you think the first Starship will make the first trip to Mars? Year only. Aand....GO!!

[@astrogeo1]

That's just as 'easy' to predict as how many weeks from now IFT4, IFT5 .. wil happen, isn't it !? 😁

[@DanielRichards644]

5:58 Poor Excavator got fogged out.

[@ESowder24]

Think they would want to test the catching a booster with a falcon 9 rocket

[@akkkbn]

Neither Falcon nor Mechazilla are remotely designed for something like this. Falcon is constructed of weaker materials than Super Heavy, has no catch points, and is too small to be grabbed by the chopsticks.

[@christophergummer]

First in

[@restojon1]

It's gotta be quite distracting for the techs working on Starship and it's components to have all this building work continuously going on around them all the time.

[@FrankBenlin]

Yep, but they're glad to not be working in tents anymore.

[@robertmartens7839]

You don't really need to keep calling it 'Test Stand B' There is only one test stand. How about calling it 'The Test Stand'?

[@czarcastic1458]

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

[@israelitenet]

Emergency!!! THE ONLY SOTUTION! Baffles will not work to prevent the fuel slushing problem, because the tanks of the starship system are too large. That is the only reason why the starship engines have been exploding every time. The solution: The tanks of Starship and Superheavy need 2 disk valves, expanding the diameter of each tank. One of the disks, the one on top, rotates above the contiguous disk to close the overlaping holes on the surface of the disks; to reduce the Size of the tank by dividing it, before any rotation or acceleration of the rocket. This will prevent slushings and protect the plumbing, if located 10% above the bottom section of each tank. Large telescopic pistons can be attached below the bottom of disk valves to control the fuel pressure as the piston expands into the fuel tank. I have built a model that works perfectly. The second disk valve can be located 10% below the front of the tank, to also protect the front of the tanks from the slushing forces. The gridfins are too flat and too small to be effective enough and will not be able to control the booster. Why is Elon not using four pins instead of three to secure each heat shield tyle? Four anchor points provide far more stability to secure a tyle, not three. Also, each type should be constructed with the bottom half of the brick consisting of an interwoven latice of steal mixed into the silicon, to provide a foundation of strength and durability to each tyle. What is more important than securing the heat shield by providing the maximum stability and strength to each tyle? The interwoven steal mesh lattice mixed into the bottom half of the bricks, and the four anchor points would eliminate the problems of tyles falling off the ship every time there is an engine ignition event. Please get this message to Elon. Thank you. Also, Spacex needs 3 actuators to move the payload bay doors correctly, not two. They have only two now, one at each end of the payload bay. They need one at the center position. Three will guarantee that there will always be enough support to open and close the doors, even if one of the three fails. I know the spacex engineers can see these problems. It is like ignoring the elephant in the room. The solutions should be a no-brainer. Musk needs to hire people who can be trusted and who will not continue accepting bribes from Jeff Bozo to sabotage and cause unnecessary delays to the Spacex Statship program.

[@themagiceye6723]

Is anyone else so sick to death of Elon Muskrat that it's starting to have a major impact on their excitement and interest in Starship development? He just poisons everything at this point.

[@jimmaag4274]

You are part of the problem

[@TheEvilmooseofdoom]

No, but you bitter jealous little haters are getting annoying. Seek help.

[@tigranohanyan3321]

What if catch arm actuator breaks during landing....? No redandancy?