Unexpected! NASA Artemis teams shocking discovery at SpaceX’s Starship factory and HLS progress.

This is insane! NASA officials just revealed an amazing picture that was taken from inside the SpaceX Raptor production tent. The human scale is already an obvious highlight here. However, take a look at this number! This speed is definitely a shock for the entire industry. So let's go ahead and find out the details in today's episode of Great SpaceX. While awaiting government approval from the forthcoming Starship test flight, SpaceX is vigorously manufacturing hundreds of rocket engines for its new rocket. Starship, the largest rocket globally, is presently undergoing trials in Boca Chica, Texas, and represents an entirely fresh design in comparison to SpaceX's reliable Falcon 9. Starship relies on Raptor engines to produce millions of pounds of thrust, and the substantial quantity of these engines on the Starship has frequently raised concerns. However, a lull in orbital test flights has allowed SpaceX to ramp up the Raptor production line. And now, it appears that the firm has manufactured close to 400 rocket engines, according to an image shared by NASA's Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy. She visited SpaceX's facilities as part of NASA's Human Landing System Lunar Lander for the Artemis program. The HLS Lander is a customized Starship second stage, and like the Super Heavy Booster, it also uses Raptor engines for liftoff and landing. In Deputy Administrator Melroy's photograph, she is depicted standing in front of a lineup of fully assembled Raptor engines. In the top left corner of the image, one can spot an engine with the serial number 398 clearly displayed on its nozzle belt. Notably, all of SpaceX's most recent Starship engines are Raptor 2 engines, a significant advancement that, as explained by SpaceX's CEO Elon Musk, streamlines and simplifies the technology when compared to the earlier Raptor 1 engines. NASA and SpaceX have continued to work together closely on Starship development due to the Artemis program's reliance on the HLS Lander. After her visit, Melroy expressed confidence in SpaceX's Starship and Raptor development as well as its Dragon production capabilities. ''Had a fantastic day at SpaceX. It was a productive visit where we were briefed on the HLS program, got a glimpse of Raptor development and witnessed the impressive Dragon production in action,'' she said on X. This visit by NASA also witnessed the Human Landing System prototype nosecone which is placed in the village behind Megabay 1. Starship 26, the prototype that had a simulated de-orbit burn test recently, is also another testament to the preparation of Starship's LS variant. More importantly, if appearing exactly now in a SpaceX environment, she must be doing some serious diplomatic work behind the scenes. This kind of thing may be very complex and she can't just go in there and say what she thinks to the FAA and the FWS. To play this right, she'll have to align NASA's interest with that of multiple new companies and legacy ones, then get them to pressure the representatives and the administration. Many people don't have an idea of how this works, but Nelson is said to know about pulling the right strings and her job will be a part of this. Back with Raptor production, this has been one of the key pain points of the Starship program. At least during the early days of SpaceX's testing campaign, the engine is significantly more powerful than the Merlin engines, which power the Falcon 9 rocket, and it also redirects all of its exhaust gases back into the combustion chamber to improve fuel efficiency and power output. Naturally, this requires highly durable parts and a new manufacturing process. Musk openly acknowledged these challenges in a comprehensive discussion in 2020, where he revealed that the initial Starship tests would employ a reduced number of engines. Fast forward to 2021, SpaceX had achieved a remarkable production rate of crafting one engine every two days, suggesting the potential to manufacture up to 176 engines under ideal conditions where production lines operated around the clock. Staying true to its commitment to rapid production and innovative design, the company doubled this output rate the following year, a fact disclosed by NASA's Deputy Associate Administrator Mark Kurisic during a NASA Advisory Council meeting a few months ago. SpaceX has moved very quickly on development. We've seen them manufacture what was called Raptor 1.0. They have since upgraded to Raptor 2 that, first of all, increases performance and thrust, and secondly, reduces the amount of parts, reducing the amount of time to manufacture and test. They built these things very fast. Their goal was seven engines a week. They hit that about a quarter ago. So they are now building seven engines a week, he said. How impressive is that? What's more interesting, this amazing piece of news from SpaceX came shortly after Blue Origin revealed a mock-up of the Blue Moon Lunar Lander prototype. In social media posts on October 27th, the company showed images of the Blue Moon Mark 1 mock-up, located at an engine manufacturing facility in Huntsville, Alabama. The lander is designed to deliver three tons of cargo to the lunar surface. The first flight of Blue Moon Mark 1 will be what the company calls the Pathfinder mission, designated MK1-SN001. This mission proves out critical systems, including the BE-7 engine, cryogenic fluid power and propulsion systems, avionics, continuous downlink communications, and precision landing, the company stated on its website. Blue Origin said that the future Mark 1 landers, starting with MK-SN002, will be available to carry customer payloads. Blue Origin is one of 14 companies that are part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services Program for uncrewed lunar landings. The company, though, did not state when that Pathfinder mission or future Blue Moon Mark 1 landers might launch. Although this is quite good news from Blue Origin compared to SpaceX's progress, Bezos' company is still very far away. In another important piece of news from the industry, Rocket Lab is poised to embark on an eagerly-awaited privately-funded Venus mission at the end of 2024, drawing upon its extensive experience gained from a previous lunar mission. Speaking at a meeting of the Venus Exploration Analysis Group, or VEXAG, on October 29th, Christopher Mandy, lead system engineer for Rocket Lab's interplanetary missions, said the company has set a launch date of December 30th of 2024 for the launch of the Rocket Lab mission to Venus. Upon arrival, a probe will disengage and descend into the planet's atmosphere, equipped with a SOL instrument, an autofluorescence nephelometer designed to identify the existence of organic compounds within droplets suspended in Venus' clouds. This mission marks the inaugural endeavor in a series conceived by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, all aimed at exploring the potential signs of life within Venus' atmospheric realm. Rocket Lab has been collaborating with MIT and others on the mission, which relies on private funding. The mission was at one time projected to launch in May of 2023, but the company delayed it as it worked on other priorities. The Venus mission is a night's and weekend's project, Peter Beck, chief executive of Rocket Lab said in an interview in April. It gets pushed to the side all the time, but we're still working on it. Mandy said the company is making good progress on the mission. We are getting various components from external vendors, he said, including a thermal protection system for the probe provided by NASA's Ames Research Center and the main instrument from Droplet Measurement Technologies. Delivery of both is expected by the end of the year, allowing assembly, integration, and testing of the spacecraft to take place next year. The present timeline targets a launch date of December 30th, although specifics regarding the mission's launch window were not disclosed by Mandy. An electron rocket will be tasked with delivering the 315-kilogram spacecraft into low-Earth orbit. Subsequently, a sequence of orbit-raising maneuvers will be executed, eventually culminating in a lunar flyby designated to propel the spacecraft on its trajectory to Venus. According to this schedule, the spacecraft is anticipated to reach Venus on May 13th of 2025. Upon arrival, the probe will disengage from the crew's stage and commence data collection during a five-minute descent through the upper reaches of Venus's clouded atmosphere. Following that, the spacecraft will transmit the collected data for a duration of 20 minutes, up until it reaches an altitude of approximately 22 kilometers. At this point, the atmospheric pressure will reach 20 atmospheres, which is the probe's designed limit of endurance. Simultaneously, internal temperatures will approach the electronic component's operational thresholds, which basically means the spacecraft will reach the end of its life. And that's it for today's episode. 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