Super Heavy Booster 5 Down to Final Assembly Details

Last Friday, November 19th, workers at SpaceX Boca Chica lifted the liquid methane tank for B5 and put it on top of the oxygen tank, marking the last of the major assembly steps in readying the ~225 foot tall rocket for testing.  A team of welders has been doing final assembly since then.

Two days earlier, Elon tweeted this upskirt photo of B4 after the installation of heat shielding between the Raptor engines.  The tweet simply said, “12 million pounds of thrust at liftoff.” 

This will be the most powerful rocket launched in human history.  Then it will be upgraded with an additional four engines to a total of 33.  I calculate the additional four engines will raise the thrust to 13.7 million pounds.  

Teslarati author Eric Ralph points out that B5 is being assembled differently than B4 and is coming along faster.  Refining processes while in motion is how SpaceX works, though, so not surprising in the least. 

Once Booster 5’s two halves are welded together, only a few things will set it and Booster 4 apart. In recent weeks, SpaceX’s slow progress on Super Heavy B4 relented a bit as technicians began closing out the booster’s raceway (a conduit for plumbing, wiring, and avionics) with basic covers. More importantly, SpaceX also began reinstalling Raptor engines and installing heat shielding around those engines for the first time. In the photo Musk published on November 17th, that heat shield is easily visible and there are signs that it will ultimately enclose the entire outer ring of 20 Raptor Boost engines above their nozzles.
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Super Heavy Booster 5, on the other hand, has taken a slightly different path through assembly. Unlike Booster 4, which first rolled out as little more than a giant steel tank with Raptors half-installed, SpaceX appears to have installed most of Booster 5’s external plumbing, wiring, equipment racks, and maybe even the start of its Raptor heat shield during assembly instead of after. Perhaps as a result, SpaceX has taken more than ten weeks to stack Booster 5 versus 2.5 weeks for Booster 4. But given that Booster 4 still doesn’t appear to be complete some 18 weeks after its assembly began, there’s a chance that Booster 5 will ultimately take 4-6 weeks less to reach initial test readiness.

It looks like B5 could conceivably be ready to test before B4 is.  I don't see them rolling it to the launch area because there's nowhere to put it.  There are two test stands: one still has B3 on it, the other has B4.  The Orbital Launch Pad is said to be nearing the point when a fully loaded booster can be mounted and do a full static fire of the 29 engines, but isn't there yet.  

Let's pretend the FAA gives approval on December 31st, like the schedule shows.  That means they can launch as soon as they want.  The first week in January?  There's a lot to do, a lot to test before they try to put that thing into orbit.  Flounder said it best.