Well well well...what do we have here??
To support the expected increase in launch cadence at Starbase, SpaceX will eventually need to produce their own commodities. Liquid Oxygen (LOX) and Nitrogen (LN2) are the highest priority given their extremely high consumption rate relative to Methane.
To put it into perspective, per @VickiCocks15, leading up to Booster 14's Static fire there were
122 LN2, 171 LOX, and 55 CH4 offloads to the Orbital Tank Farm.
If LOX and LN2 can be produced on site, it reduces commodity resupply related traffic by up to 84%.
SpaceX previously had an Air Separation Plant capable of producing these commodities at the Sanchez site adjacent to the production facility. But, there were two major problems with the ASU that caused it to be ahead of its time.
First, there wasn't an adequate power supply to allow them to produce LOX and LN2 in quantities that would eliminate the need to purchase from 3rd party sources that require an 8 hour round trip for each load.
Second, it was installed 2 miles from the Launch site which meant it still required tankers to transfer loads between the two facilities. While this is much better than the 8 hour turn around time they would otherwise require, its was still incredibly inefficient.
This ASU was eventually dismantled in November of 2023 to make room for other operations that needed to be moved to the Sanchez Site
With that said, for the last 13 months I've been on the lookout for indications that SpaceX will construct another Air Separation plant at the Launch complex sooner, rather than later.
In the most recent flyover from @RGVaerialphotos I finally located components for an ASU (1st image posted above) which have been staged at the Port of Brownsville.
Of course there is always the possibility that these are not intended for SpaceX but that would be a pretty insane coincidence. Its significantly more probable that this is the exact same equipment that was previously installed at the Sanchez site and is now returning.
After-all, selling this equipment for a loss, and then buying another one 12 months later (when you already knew you were going to eventually need it) would be a major L for the supply chain manager responsible for fixed asset purchasing. Given what I have observed over the past few years, I think this person/team is far too good at their job to make a mistake like that.
Back to the point...the biggest question is whether or not there is enough space to install such a facility within the current footprint of the launch site.
Other than what is already present, it will have to compete for space with the future water deluge tank farm which will be about 3 times larger than the current system for Pad A. This ASU will require a larger footprint than it did previously in order to support a 10x higher production rate.
On that note, we will have to continue to wait for additional developments in the coming weeks that will shed some more light on this situation.
But if this turns out to be true, this will add a ton of complexity to the Orbital Tank Farm. There will be a lot more overlapping operations/processes going on here once both launch pads are fully operational in ~ 2026.
Not only that, but between the New Starfactory, future Gigabay, Dual Launch Pads, ASU/Tank Farm, and Massey's test site, the power consumption at Starbase will increase dramatically over the next few years.
The scale of this operation is truly impressive considering how small the total footprint is relative to what you would expect for a Space Port that will eventually be capable of launching 50-100 missions every year.
Anyway, time for me to get back to work, more on this later.
Well well well...what do we have here??
To support the expected increase in launch cadence at Starbase, SpaceX will eventually need to produce their own commodities. Liquid Oxygen (LOX) and Nitrogen (LN2) are the highest priority given their extremely high consumption rate relative to Methane.
To put it into perspective, per @VickiCocks15, leading up to Booster 14's Static fire there were
122 LN2, 171 LOX, and 55 CH4 offloads to the Orbital Tank Farm.
If LOX and LN2 can be produced on site, it reduces commodity resupply related traffic by up to 84%.
SpaceX previously had an Air Separation Plant capable of producing these commodities at the Sanchez site adjacent to the production facility. But, there were two major problems with the ASU that caused it to be ahead of its time.
First, there wasn't an adequate power supply to allow them to produce LOX and LN2 in quantities that would eliminate the need to purchase from 3rd party sources that require an 8 hour round trip for each load.
Second, it was installed 2 miles from the Launch site which meant it still required tankers to transfer loads between the two facilities. While this is much better than the 8 hour turn around time they would otherwise require, its was still incredibly inefficient.
This ASU was eventually dismantled in November of 2023 to make room for other operations that needed to be moved to the Sanchez Site
With that said, for the last 13 months I've been on the lookout for indications that SpaceX will construct another Air Separation plant at the Launch complex sooner, rather than later.
In the most recent flyover from @RGVaerialphotos I finally located components for an ASU (1st image posted above) which have been staged at the Port of Brownsville.
Of course there is always the possibility that these are not intended for SpaceX but that would be a pretty insane coincidence. Its significantly more probable that this is the exact same equipment that was previously installed at the Sanchez site and is now returning.
After-all, selling this equipment for a loss, and then buying another one 12 months later (when you already knew you were going to eventually need it) would be a major L for the supply chain manager responsible for fixed asset purchasing. Given what I have observed over the past few years, I think this person/team is far too good at their job to make a mistake like that.
Back to the point...the biggest question is whether or not there is enough space to install such a facility within the current footprint of the launch site.
Other than what is already present, it will have to compete for space with the future water deluge tank farm which will be about 3 times larger than the current system for Pad A. This ASU will require a larger footprint than it did previously in order to support a 10x higher production rate.
On that note, we will have to continue to wait for additional developments in the coming weeks that will shed some more light on this situation.
But if this turns out to be true, this will add a ton of complexity to the Orbital Tank Farm. There will be a lot more overlapping operations/processes going on here once both launch pads are fully operational in ~ 2026.
Not only that, but between the New Starfactory, future Gigabay, Dual Launch Pads, ASU/Tank Farm, and Massey's test site, the power consumption at Starbase will increase dramatically over the next few years.
The scale of this operation is truly impressive considering how small the total footprint is relative to what you would expect for a Space Port that will eventually be capable of launching 50-100 missions every year.
Anyway, time for me to get back to work, more on this later.
yes
