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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

On February 28, SpaceX's SN01 Starship [wikipedia.org] prototype imploded and exploded [teslarati.com] during a pressurization test. A day later, Eric Berger from Ars Technica visited SpaceX's facilities [arstechnica.com] in Boca Chica, Texas. Some highlights from the story include:

• SN01 was not destined to fly, only to serve as a platform for static fire testing. Elon Musk had previously tweeted [twitter.com] that the wrong settings were used on the welding equipment used to build SN01.
• SN01's failure has been attributed to bad welding on the thrust puck, which is welded onto the bottom tank dome of Starship and connects the Raptor engines to the rest of the rocket.
• The quality team raised concerns about the thrust puck to an engineer who did not act upon them. They have been instructed to contact Musk directly with design concerns.
• SpaceX went on a hiring spree in February that doubled its workforce in Boca Chica to over 500. The goal is to build a production line for Starships.
• SpaceX aims to build a Starship every week by the end of 2020, with a goal of building one every 72 hours eventually.
• SpaceX engineers have built an in-house x-ray machine to look for imperfections in welds.
• Construction costs for a single Starship could eventually drop to as low as $5 million.
• The Boca Chica site will operate 24/7, with workers alternating between three and four 12-hour shifts per week.
• A 20 km flight is planned for this spring, and an orbital mission could happen before the end of 2020.

In other news:

• SpaceX to Raise Hundreds of Millions of Dollars Through a Funding Round That Will Value It at $36 Billion [wccftech.com]
• SpaceX Could Earn $30 Billion Annually From Starlink, 10x Of Sending ISS Supplies – Elon Musk [wccftech.com]
• SpaceX's latest Starship test was uneventful and that's great news for its flight debut [teslarati.com]
• Astronauts capture SpaceX cargo capsule with robot arm for final time [spaceflightnow.com]

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