Wednesday, April 13, 2022

Update on Starbase on Kennedy Space Center

I've been trying to find updates on the progress of SpaceX's effort to duplicate Starbase Boca Chica on the Kennedy Space Center, but have been having trouble.  I think it's a bit more difficult for independent journalists here than in south Texas; over there they can set up remotely controlled cameras and run them all day, as Lab Padre does.  While the KSC isn't a no-fly zone, small plane flyovers are more expensive and can't provide the continuous coverage that ground-mounted cameras can.  

NASASpaceflight.com covers their work at KSC, apparently roughly monthly, and while airborne, they also cover other activities on the Cape, especially Blue Origin's build out.  This video was posted yesterday.  

Teslarati has a brief story today on the work at KSC but while they have this video embedded, the most recent photos they post and Tweets they link to are from mid-March.  

The Orbital Launch Integration Tower (OLIT) appears to be very similar to the one at Boca Chica, with more differences in its build and assembly than the design.  The OLIT has eight segments plus a concrete building those segments mount on top of; you can see in the video that three segments are complete, a fourth has been started, and the base has been started out near Pad 39A.  Twitter user @Furqan263 compiled a chart of the status of all of the major components of the OLIT back during the build in Texas.  This is his chart at the completion of the OLIT in Texas; you can ignore the bottom lines about when the various sections were started, ready to rollout to the pad and when they were stacked.  It gives a good overview of the assemblies and steps involved.

The main difference between the Texas and Florida towers is that on the first one, they would build one or two segments and transport them to the launch complex, while on the second, they're apparently building all of them and transporting to the Pad 39A complex at once, saving on road closures and probably interfering less with launch operations as well. 

This work is going to take a while.  Nobody has seriously suggested anything could launch from the new Starship pad before 2023, I just get impatient with wanting to see progress.

In this screen capture of the Pad 39A area during last Friday's Ax-1 mission, the orbital tower base can be seen left of the existing launch tower, and behind it - toward the ocean in this view.  The angle of the shot makes it impossible to see that the Orbital Launch Mount - the new pad - has begun construction as well.



2 comments:

  1. Well, Texas. You know you're welcome here, dude. Seriously. We have cookies!

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  2. Watching progress at Boca Chica lately is like watching grass die, we are all waiting for the PEA to be released granting/denying launch privileges to SpaceX. The way things are going it will be late May or early June before they twist the tail on Starship. B7S22 or B8S24 will go then, and I want to see that PEZ dispenser Starship (built into B24 so far...) spit out a mass of Starlink satellites!

    In the meantime it's a case of Hurry Up And Wait.

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