On Thursday night (Feb. 10) at SpaceX's South Texas Launch Site (or "Starbase"), Elon Musk took to the stage to deliver what his company, SpaceX, billed as a "update on the design, development, and testing of Starship" — the "it" to which Musk was referring and of what he further described as "really some some wild stuff" — the first fully-stacked Starship, which consisted of a prototype spacecraft of the same name mounted atop a mockup of its even taller "Super Heavy" booster.
The steel-skinned vehicle was positioned atop its launch pad as though preparing for flight, glistening in the night sky's spotlights that illuminated it.
"This tower, from design to construction, took 13 months," Musk added, referring to the Starship's launch and "catch" gantry tower. The tower's arms had just been employed to pinch the spacecraft like a pair of chopsticks and then raise it above and down onto the launcher the night before.
When the Super Heavy returns from launching a Starship into space, Musk claimed he had even grander intentions for the structure.
"We're aiming for rapid reusability, which is why the booster is going to take off and then fly back to the launch tower and aspirationally, land on the arms, which does sound insane," Musk said, explaining the "catch" part of the launch and catch tower. "If it does come in too fast and shear off the arms, then I guess it will be 'a farewell to arms.'"
"It is really worth emphasizing the whole launch system, which is basically stage zero, is, I'd say, as complex and difficult as either the booster or the ship," Musk said. "It is a very difficult thing that requires a lot of hardcore engineering. The tower and the launch system, which I call 'stage zero,' is really as important as stage one or stage two."
After a recent environmental review of how Starship launches might affect the surrounding area, particularly the crowded Boca Chica beach neighborhood and the nearby Brownsville borough, SpaceX's ability to utilize the tower where it stands depends on the FAA's approval. Musk said SpaceX may have to relocate operations to Florida and NASA's Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, where the FAA has previously approved its use, if the FAA requires a more stringent environmental evaluation.
"Our worst case scenario is that we would be delayed by six to eight months to build up the Cape [Canaveral] launch tower and launch from there," he said.
The first Starship heading for Earth orbit, on the other hand, might be ready to fly as soon as the FAA approves it in the next few weeks, according to Musk.
"I think we're close to having the hardware ready to go," Musk said. "Right now, we're tracking to have the regulatory approval and hardware readiness around the same time. Hopefully, in a couple of months for both."
Musk's presentation was too similar to a SpaceX media event in which he showed out the first Starship mockup in 2019. Aside from describing the upgrades made to the rocket's Raptor engines, of which there are 33 on the booster and nine on the Starship, he didn't reveal much else, except that he went into more detail about the Starship's ability to be refilled (refueled) in orbit and the upgrades made to it's Raptor engines, of which there are 33 on the booster. The design of the new Raptor "version two" (V2) has been simplified.
"The V1 kind of looks like a Christmas tree spaghetti pile — a lot of 'fibbly' bits. V2 is greatly simplified while also increasing thrust at the same time," Musk said.
