CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that SpaceX is already well into the process of building a Starhip launch pad for orbital classes in Boca Chica, Texas.
After much ado about nothing and several days of skirmishes over the question of whether a new SpaceX construction was intended for a water tower or launch site, the debate may finally come to an end. From almost two weeks ago, it was just embarrassing to guarantee that the concrete foundation SpaceX would be working on wild excessive for a water tower, and turns it into a question of whether it would be a suborbital or orbital-class test stand for Starship.
Now, Musk has confirmed – somewhat surprisingly – that the foundation will eventually support an “orbital launch mount” that can host what will eventually be the largest and most powerful rocket ever built.
All the way back in September 2019, SpaceX actually broke ground on a separate runway launch block Starship at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A). Despite rapid progress in the coming months, work on the additions to the Starship of Pad 39A in Q1 2020 abruptly stalled and has yet to begin again.
The launch of the 39A Starship launcher looked very much like a conceptual design released as part of an official SpaceX video from 2019. In a twist that is not much of a surprise to longtime fans of SpaceX, however, the new orbital launcher from South Texas looks nothing like the 2019 pad or the imperfect metalwork at Pad 39A.
In other words, SpaceX – probably led by Musk itself – has substantially redesigned Starship’s Orbital Class launch facilities and / or changed its approach to path generation for the next generation rocket.
Hexagonal symmetry up to the foundation of the mountain range suggests that SpaceX’s new Starship pad design will start with the low minimum required for a sturdy launch pad. SpaceX may change the design for Super Heavy, but Starship’s thrust section is connected to a skirt with six reinforced sections that host landing legs and hold-down clamps. The entire heft of ~ 2m (~ 6 ft) wide steel and rebar columns – soon to be filled with concrete – and piles at least as wide and more than 30m (100 ft) deep indicate a definite structure that fury can survive from Starship’s Super Heavy booster.
If additional adjustments are made, Super Heavy will last as long as the whole of a Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy rocket – including first stage, second stage, and cargo handling. Powered by a maximum of 31 Raptor engines, the Super Heavy Booster will produce more than 72,000 kN (16,000,000 lbf) of propulsion when lifted – nine times the range of Falcon 9, triple the range of Falcon Heavy, and double the range of Saturn V (the most powerful liquid fuel rocket ever to reach orbit). Combined with Starship, the entire stack will weigh approximately 5,000 metric tons (11 million lbs). For the purpose of static fire tests and final checks of cars after ignition, but for lifting, a Super Heavy class launch will have to withstand more than 7200 tons (~ 16 million lbf) of power.
Meanwhile, SpaceX may be just a few days away from the starship of Starship SN6, right next to SpaceX’s ongoing orbital launch construction, while an 80m (~ 260ft) high Super Heavy booster assembly building reached its full height earlier this week.
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