Starhopper improvements, failed hover test, Starship updates for Boca Chica and Coco, first details on Starship and Super Heavy redesign and launch pad construction and a CRS-18 update. My name is Felix and I am your host for today's episode of What About It. We have a huge dump of information for all your SpaceX knowledge needs today. From Starhopper to Starship, Super Heavy Falcon 9 CRS-18, everything will be covered with small and large bits of information so let's dive right in. Starhopper improvements. I'm pretty sure many of us have seen last week's Starhopper Static Fire Test in Boca Chica and many of us still remember it and gulped in flames and it was what I speculated with you in last Thursday's episode. Fuel in Starhopper's case methane leaked in all sorts of places after the Static Fire. It did not cause any major damage to our beloved piece of hardware and fuel leaks are an easy thing to stop. SpaceX immediately began necessary work to seal these leaks and ensure nothing like this would happen again. For example, the Exas hatches have been welded shut so they shouldn't be any leaking there anymore and the RCS thrusters have been tested again. SpaceX uses three different systems to control their rockets. Grid fins, thrust vector control and reaction control thrusters. The hopper has no fins and it won't get any as it most likely won't fly high enough for them to make any sense. What Starhopper does have though is thrust vector control meaning the Raptor engine can gimbal to redirect thrust and it has cold gas thrusters for the reaction control system. Both systems have been tested before and Lab Padray made a nice video about Tuesday's RCS testing. Thank you. Failed hover test for Starhopper. Then came the big moment. Starhopper was supposed to fly for the first time. The goal? To get hopper up in the air to 20 meters height, move sideways and back to the landing zone and then land safely. SpaceX thought of everything. They even had a proper live stream in very good quality from a ground based and a drone cam nicely done. And Kate ties from SpaceX whom we've seen many times on Falcon Launch broadcasts even did a commentary. Thank you very much Kate. The countdown was just an approximation but at two minutes, SpaceX did the regular Go-No-Go decision pull for every team involved and all was go for launch. When the countdown hit zero, Raptor ignited properly only to be shut down roughly after a burn time of around three seconds. Everything looked nominal though and there was some nice and controlled methane venting after shutdown. No unexpected flames like at the static fire so the leak ceiling worked perfectly. Well done SpaceX. But what about it? Why didn't we see Starhopper perform a proper hover test? The answer came via Twitter from Elon Musk himself. Apparently the propellant fed into the combustion chamber was too cold. This led to a higher than expected chamber pressure inside the Raptor engine. To understand this, you have to know that the propellant in this case methane is cooled down to make it denser. The cold of the propellant is the denser it is. Now if the propellant is too cold, too much of it can be transported into the combustion chamber by the pre-burner pumps. And that's what happened. The system shut down when the pressure did not normalize after these three seconds. So Starhopper pulled the safety brake to prevent more damage from happening. The hopper is fine and didn't take any damage so in theory we should see another attempt being done tonight on July 25th. It is time Starhopper. Just show us what that future looks like. Starship updates for Boca Chica and Coco. So the orbital prototypes in Boca Chica Texas and Coco Florida have grown quite a lot by now. While we were mainly focused on Starhopper, the ring stacking has continued. There now are eight ring segments stacked on each Starship prototype. The Boca Chica Starship is about to get a bulkhead. It's already been taken out of the shop for lifting and flipping. These bulkheads are needed for two reasons. Stability and separation of fluids inside the rocket's body. Coco Florida is building one of these right now. So pretty much the two Starships are now at the same stage of construction. Elon still says they will fly within the next two to three months so they better be fast. The Coco Starship already has structural problems as most rockets get their stability from pressurized tanks inside and the Coco Starships internals aren't finished yet. You can see they tried to stabilize it for now. Let's hope that does the trick. Structures at both sides are growing as well. The wind barrier in Boca Chica already has a roof and will be covered soon. It's impressive to see how fast the construction crew in Boca Chica is building this thing in the soaring heat of Texas. At least it's always a little bit windy there. And Coco has another structure coming up. Now this one gets interesting as it clearly isn't a wind barrier. It might be a launch structure built for Kennedy Space Center. Elon has recently given out at least some information about Super Heavy on Twitter. Even before the upcoming presentation, there is still no date yet but it should be happening soon now. Elon tweeted that Starship and Super Heavy will have 41 Raptor engines combined. That is a lot. We're talking double the thrust of Saturn V here. That truly would be a super heavy launch vehicle. We might even need a new class for that. Mega Heavy anyone? Now, Pet 39A has been built for Saturn V as you might know. And there were plans for an even bigger rocket in the early days. Nova C8. Nova was NASA's competing design, whereas Fun Brown's Saturn V design was originally started by the Air Force. The largest Nova rocket known as C8 would have had 61,000 kN of thrust. Saturn V only had 35,100 kN of thrust at sea level. And we all know how powerful that already turned out to be. Now a single Raptor engine can put out 2,000 kN of thrust. Multiply it by 35, which would be the number of engines on the Super Heavy booster you left with a mind-boggling 70,000 kN of thrust. And I haven't even mentioned the proposed non-gimbal version of the Raptor engine which could in theory put out 2,500 kN of thrust. This is getting crazy. But what about it? Why am I mentioning this? Let's get back to the structure they're building in Coco. Elon has twittered that a new launch structure will be added on the other side of Pet 39A. Now that's probably because Pet 39A was never built to withstand 70,000 kN of thrust. That would damage the pet at every lift off. And he said that the structure is going to be built off-site. Get what I'm trying to say here? It of course is highly speculative at the moment, but this could be it. The new historic structure with Starship and Super Heavy take off to Moon and Mars. If this doesn't get you excited, here's the next crazy picture. Elon tweeted another very interesting bit of information and according to that, this is what the engine bay of Super Heavy could look like. He said that all these thrusters won't fit into the 9 meter diameter body of Starship. So the outer thrusters will stick out and some might even be in the landing leg structure. This will look like a sci-fi rocket even from below. As Elon stated, the inner 7 thrusters will be able to dimble by 15 degrees. There has to be a fair amount of wiggling space around them. This of course is highly speculative as there is no official info besides Elon's tweets, but this is what it could look like. I am super heavy excited right now. How about you? Big thanks go out to Lucas from KNews.space. Thank you for the nice chat for all the information and for letting me use your animation. Definitely go check out his channel, links in the description. CRS-18 Launch Summary. Yeah, nope. Yesterday's launch got scrubbed due to thunderstorms in the area. I already have this wonderful script about all these nice little things you might not have known about CRS-18 and it would have been so wonderful to show you. Sometimes I mean, I know you'll get it though, as soon as the weather gods have mercy and Falcon 9 soars into the sky. The 45th Space Wing at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, as always, is keeping us up to date with the latest weather forecast. It could happen tonight, but the weather forecast looks as bad as yesterday, so might get scrubbed again. If not, you'll get it on Monday. If it does get scrubbed again, the Russians are first with their docking to the ISS and will have to wait approximately another week for a good launch window. So this again wraps up today's episode of What About It. What are your expectations for future star hopper tests? When will Starship fly? As always, tell me in the comments. The Patreon community has been growing again and I have the honor to read out new names. This week we have special mentions for David M. McNaught and Ivan Desile. Thank you very much for supporting the cause. Thank you for watching this episode of What About It. If you liked what you saw, don't forget to subscribe and like as this helps me the most. Feel free to hit me up on my Patreon page so I can get additional help in doing more and better content as this gives me the time to focus on what I love doing the most, to bring you the latest and greatest about space and science. I hope to see you on the next episode. Until then, have a great time. From star hopper to starship, super heavy Falcon 9's year as 19. And Kate ties from space. And Kate ties from space. We're talking double the thrust of super heavy now. No, we're not. But what about it? Why didn't we see a proper hopper test? Why didn't we star hop? Coco.