SpaceX has scrapped the lone prototype of the Florida-built spacecraft in 2019, surprising very few.
Beginning a few months after work on Starship Mk1 began at SpaceX’s production facility in South Texas, a separate team in Cocoa, Florida was tasked with building a similar prototype of Starship Mk2. Not much is known about Mk2 relative to its much-hyped brother, but unofficial photos and videos taken over the course of 2019 suggested that SpaceX had effectively completed most of Starship Mk2 by the end of last year. However, he built dozens of miles and several waterways away from a hands-on test facility, actually testing a prototype spacecraft assembled at Cocoa’s SpaceX facility was always going to be an uphill battle.
To ensure the cost and effort that would be required to transport something as large as a vertical spacecraft from Cocoa, Florida to Cape Canaveral, Mk2 would need to be able to offer something invaluable during testing. Now, eight months after Starship Mk1 was destroyed during one of its first real tests, sadly that was not the case and SpaceX has chosen the simplest route forward: scrapping Mk2 where it is.
In November 2019, SpaceX installed Starship Mk1 on a test bench in Boca Chica, Texas, and began a series of tests. The ship passed an initial pressure test at room temperature on the 18th but failed spectacularly during its first cryogenic test test, which SpaceX said it “pressurized.”[d] systems to the max. “Excluding Starhopper, Starship Mk1 was almost as prototype as SpaceX could have feasibly built and the fact that it survived any length of time under cryogenic loads and pressures was quite impressive.
Soldiers together almost entirely in elements on the Gulf coast of South Texas, the total success of Starship Mk1 (and its similar brother Mk2) would have flown in front of almost all the principles of modern aerospace production. As noted in a Teslarati article describing the disappearance of the spacecraft, the production apparatus Mk1 left much room for improvement.
“[Videos of the failure implicated] the solder that connects the LOX dome to the cylindrical body of the Starship LOX tank, pointing to a faulty solder joint as the most likely source of the failure. While that hardware failure is unfortunate, the loss of the Mk1 will hopefully guide the improvements to Starship’s design and manufacturing procedures. “
Teslarati.com – November 20, 2019
That is precisely what SpaceX did, and was probably already doing, in response to the failure of Mk1. Just two months later, SpaceX successfully tested a steel Starship tank built in upgraded facilities with upgraded methods and reached pressures of 7.1 bar (~ 103 psi) before failing, likely a 50% or better improvement over Mk1. A second tank completed weeks later in late January 2020 reached 7.5 bar, a leak emerged, was repaired, and finally shot to 8.5 bar (~ 125 psi) before failing. According to CEO Elon Musk, that would technically be enough for a spacecraft to orbit humans with an industry standard safety factor of ~ 40%.
Finally, SpaceX recently demonstrated that a large-scale two-tank ship prototype built with the same methods and facilities as those test tanks could achieve the same results, completing a ~ 7.5 bar (~ 110 psi) cryogenic test test with Starship SN4 on May 10.
Simply put, the methods SpaceX used to build Starship Mk1 and Mk2 were already proven redundant more than six months ago and were further buried in May 2020. In addition to serving as a museum piece, the fate of Starship Mk2 was sealed: the only real question was how and when it would be discarded. For now, SpaceX’s Starship program will be stationed almost exclusively in South Texas, where it appears to be in good hands. Starship SN5 is currently expected to attempt its first wet dress rehearsal (WDR) and static fire tests no earlier than July 17 (today) at 8am CDT (13:00 UTC).
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