SpaceX Starship SN9 Launch: The Community Gathers

During the week of 25th Jan 2021 - Tens of thousands of eager rocket-spotters have tuned in to Youtube SpaceX related channels eagerly awaiting the latest prototype launch. Over the last 6 - 12 months, a slew of eager shutter-bugs and independent media teams have descended on Boca Chica in Texas to painstakingly record, commentate and analyse the launch and landing attempts of SpaceX Starship prototypes. 

I've enjoyed the narrative, the genuine eagerness and heart-raising joy in the presenters behind the two mail streamer channels: NASASpaceflight and LabPadre (previously BocaChicaGal). The latter having installed a suite of cameras capturing the launch and site activity from a dozen angles, including a "Predator" heat vision camera. Indeed they have got to the chopper!

SN10 stands on station next to SN9. Since this render was made, SN9 had a "Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly". Credit: @Ryanhansenspace

These channels are more focused on live content and narration of the scenes over at Boca Chica fabircation facility. There are also adjacent channels from other operators who focus on the longer term narrative around the SpaceX mission and deployments. On these channels - the presenters have crafted a series of intimate narratives, asking and answering questions from the community around SpaceX design, strategy, official communications, etc. 

There is some great mental work to infer from communications with Leader Elon Musk and people on the ground at SpaceX manufacturing facilities. Some front runners with prolific content creation schedules in this vein are: Tech Vision and Marcus House.

During these peaks in the excitement hype timeline around space exploration, tens of thousands of fans and interested parties engage in this content. They, like me, hope to get a glimpse of tomorrow, with shiny steel-skinned beasts taking humans to distant places in our solar system.

The more immediate successes we can look forward to are successful launch of prototype SN9 this week. Following this, there is the first completion of the SuperHeavy Booster modules and later, the attempt for launch and landing of the complete Starship SNX / SuperHeavy combo as a proof of concept of Ship/Booster design.

Status of Starship & Superheavy Prototypes - as of 23 Jan 2021 - Credit Brendan Lewis (@brendan2908)

You can reach me on Twitter @Ronnie_Writes.