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SpaceX has started stacking a new section of the first Super Heavy prototype in the latest sign that work is accelerating on boosters that will soon be tasked with boosting spacecraft out of Earth’s atmosphere.
Mary (aka BocaChicaGal), local photographer and affiliate of NASASpaceflight.com, posted the latest photo from the Super Heavy production activity on January 24, capturing a section of four welded steel rings being twisted inside SpaceX’s “ high bay ”. This marks the second example of visible progress in assembling the Super Heavy booster this week after a full month of relative inactivity – solid proof that the work is starting to pick up speed.
At a height of 81 meters (265 feet), the latest addition to the SpaceX rocket factory in Boca Chica, Texas, was built primarily to support the process of vertical stacking, welding, booster integration Super Heavy, offering a space sheltered from the worst of the often capricious Bocas. Chica environment. SpaceX also uses the facility to complete the final assembly of the spacecraft, taking advantage of its height to house the installation of the nose section.
The prototype spacecraft serial number 10 (SN10), for example, hangs over the last section of Super Heavy booster number 1 (BN1) to reach the integration stage and is virtually complete. SN10 is likely ready to move out of the main bay for SpaceX’s adjacent launch and test facilities at any time, depending on when the company decides the time is right. Meanwhile, Starship SN11 is on track to begin installing the nose section almost as soon as SN10 leaves its place in the big bay.
However, Super Heavy BN1 probably still has several weeks of assembly and processing before SpaceX is ready to begin prepping the booster for what CEO Elon Musk has described as a short jump of 150m (500ft).
At the moment, SpaceX is building BN1 in two separate sections. Recently, the forward tank of the thruster gained another four-ring section, climbing 12 rings high and leaving only one section (the common dome assembly) before the base structure of the first Super methane tank Heavy is over. The rings heading to the Big Bay on January 24 will likely support the start of the Super Heavy BN1 oxygen tank assembly, starting with the lower “ half ” of the booster.
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