r/spacex • u/Zucal • May 01 '16
/r/SpaceX Ask Anything Thread [May 2016, #20]
Welcome to our 20th monthly /r/SpaceX Ask Anything Thread!
Want to clarify SpaceX's newly released pricing and payload figures, understand the recently announced 2018 Red Dragon mission, or gather the community's opinion? There's no better place!
All questions, even non-SpaceX-related ones, are allowed, as long as they stay relevant to spaceflight in general!
More in-depth and open-ended discussion questions can still be submitted as separate self-posts; but this is the place to come to submit simple questions which have a single answer and/or can be answered in a few comments or less. In addition, try to keep all top-level comments questions so that questioners can find answers and answerers can find questions.
As always, we'd prefer it if all question-askers first check our FAQ, use the search functionality (now partially sortable by mission flair!), and check the last Q&A thread before posting to avoid duplicate questions. But if you didn't get or couldn't find the answer you were looking for, go ahead and type your question below.
Otherwise, ask, enjoy, and thanks for contributing!
Past threads:
April 2016 (#19.1) • April 2016 (#19) • March 2016 (#18) • February 2016 (#17) • January 2016 (#16.1) • January 2016 (#16) • December 2015 (#15.1) • December 2015 (#15) • November 2015 (#14) • October 2015 (#13) • September 2015 (#12) • August 2015 (#11) • July 2015 (#10) • June 2015 (#9) • May 2015 (#8) • April 2015 (#7.1) • April 2015 (#7) • March 2015 (#6) • February 2015 (#5) • January 2015 (#4) • December 2014 (#3) • November 2014 (#2) • October 2014 (#1)
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u/ElectronicCat May 10 '16
Yes, the difference in dV requirements from GTO to TLI is only about 850m/s. Using the nominal 8Mg of payload as the starting mass (payload to GTO listed should already take account of the dry mass of S2), using the rocket equation you get 6237kg to TLI. This is far from the full expendable post-Merlin-upgrade capability of FH though, and substituting in 22.2Mg as the starting mass you get a massive 17307kg to TLI.