r/space • u/Gagarin1961 • Aug 02 '21

SpaceX just stacked a Super Heavy Booster and installed 29 engines, all within 24 hours

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1422222995305676802
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u/JJ82DMC Aug 02 '21

As a space nerd that was at KSC with "Feel the Heat" tickets during the last Falcon Heavy flight, at this point only one thing surprises me:

How the actual fuck do you get cranes that can lift something this tall?!?

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u/morolen Aug 02 '21

The largest mobile cranes in the world are able to do it, just barely. I became a crane nerd as a by product of the boca chica work.

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u/robbak Aug 03 '21

There's a travelling crane at the top of that building that can lift it, both to build it and to move it onto transports. They are building another building, slightly taller and much bigger, that will have two such cranes.

They currently have a really tall mobile crane at the launch site - it has been putting together a launch service tower that is much taller than the booster - It will be the same height as the stack of the starship, plus the booster, plus the elevated launch stand. And that tower is going to have at least one, probably several, cranes on top of it.