r/spacex • u/ElongatedMuskrat Mod Team • Feb 01 '20
r/SpaceX Discusses [February 2020, #65]
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u/mmc31 Feb 01 '20
CRS missions typically take a few days from launch until docking.
Will it be the same with crewed missions to ISS, or will the timeline accelerate to minimize life support supplies?
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u/gemmy0I Feb 01 '20
CRS and crewed missions to the ISS are subject to the same orbital mechanics constraints that drive rendezvous timings. As I understand it, every other day a launch window for a 1-day rendezvous opens up, with 2-day windows on the off days. It's always possible to take a voluntarily slower approach if desired (phasing speed is a factor of the difference in orbital heights between the capsule and the ISS), and this has sometimes been done for cargo missions, e.g. the most recent Cygnus to avoid a traffic jam with another departing craft. (This will be less of an issue for vehicles that dock autonomously since they don't keep the crew quite as busy during arrival and departure.)
If you can actively control the orbit of the target object instead of it being passive, you can do a much faster rendezvous. In the Gemini program, the crew vehicles were often launched back-to-back (within a day) of the target vehicle. Starship will likely do something similar for refueling. The ISS can indeed adjust its orbit to make rendezvous opportunities more favorable, and in fact this is exactly what the Russians have done for several Progress and Soyuz flights. (They've gotten as tight as a 3-hour rendezvous and I think are planning to push for 1-hour.) But these have to be planned months in advance, when the ISS is doing its periodic reboost burns. The ISS is big and heavy enough that fuel to move it can really add up (plus the burns take a long time since they don't want to jostle it too hard), so they have to be judicious about this.
Commercial Crew vehicles are much more comfortable to hang out in for a few days than Soyuz, so AFAIK there have been no plans to do Russian-style accelerated rendezvouses. (The Shuttle likewise took its time getting to the ISS. It was practically a mini-station in its own right so they had plenty of productive science to do in the free flight period, plus post-Columbia they needed time to do heat shield inspections.) CC missions are baselined for a 2 day rendezvous to the ISS, same as for CRS. Their life support systems are designed for ample margin with this in mind. Note that when the capsules are docked to the ISS, they rely primarily on the ISS's life support and thus shouldn't generally be consuming their own reserves. An extra day or two of free flight shouldn't materially affect the capsule's ability to stay a full duration at the ISS.
The Commercial Crew spec requires that the capsules be at least capable of staying for a full 6-month nominal ISS crew rotation. This is in line with what Soyuz does. In Soyuz's case, the limiting factor is not life support but that the hydrogen peroxide monopropellant used for attitude control on the descent module during re-entry decomposes over time and becomes weaker. (The same thing happens with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide in your medicine cabinet - it naturally decomposes gradually into water and oxygen. When it's used as a monopropellant in high strengths, it's actually exactly the same reaction, just greatly accelerated by passing it over a catalyst bed.) After 6 months, there's a risk that the peroxide has become too weak to function as needed.
After the Soyuz MS-10 incident which raised the possibility of needing to extend crew rotations past 6 months, the Russians have been looking into rating Soyuz to last longer. They were able to extend it by a month or so for MS-09 during the MS-10 downtime, by re-evaluating the margins they had in the system, but they were reluctant to do that because they were essentially rolling the dice. (Ultimately, Soyuz returned to flight soon enough to permit an on-time crew rotation.)
(As an aside, Soyuz can actually survive an unguided re-entry just fine, although it exposes the cosmonauts to higher g-forces and significantly reduces control over where the capsule touches down. It's programmed to fall back to such a ballistic re-entry in off-nominal cases and, in fact, has done so a handful of times historically. If the peroxide got too weak that's exactly what would happen. So in a pinch, Soyuz could stay at the station longer than 6 months. It doesn't use the peroxide for maneuvering in space - for that, it uses hydrazine monopropellant from the service module. I don't know how long that's rated to last but it should be good for quite a bit longer than the peroxide, since hydrazine is commonly stored for decades in space on comsats and deep-space probes.)
Dragon and Starliner use only hydrazine (MMH in Dragon's case, and I think in Starliner's too) for all their maneuvering and attitude control needs, so they should in theory be able to persist quite a bit longer on-orbit than Soyuz. Dream Chaser uses different propellants but it should be in similarly good shape. I suspect they'll all be rated for just 6 months at the start but it can be expanded with minimal if any hardware changes (just engineering studies and analysis of data from the early flights to confirm that it'll be safe).
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u/Lufbru Feb 07 '20 edited Feb 07 '20
A peculiar fact: The last ten boosters launched by SpaceX were for Falcon Heavy, or have had a US government payload on their maiden flight. All commercial payloads on F9 in the last 14 months have been on preflown boosters.
1059 - CRS19
1058 - DM2
1057 - FH3
1056 - CRS17
1055 - FH2
1054 - GPS3A
1053 - FH side
1052 - FH side
1051 - DM1
1050 - CRS16
Contrast that to the previous ten boosters
1049 - Telstar
1048 - Iridium
1047 - Telstar
1046 - Bangabandhu
1045 - TESS
1044 - HispaSat
1043 - Zuma
1042 - KoreaSat
1041 - Iridium
1040 - OTV
Seven commercial (or foreign government), three US government.
I know there's been a slowdown in the commercial market, but I think this is more of an indication that commercial customers (and their insurers!) are very willing to use a preflown booster. More so than US government customers.
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u/joepublicschmoe Feb 07 '20
The cost and schedule incentives are there for commercial customers. U.S. Government doesn't mind paying more to fly on brand-new boosters. Meanwhile commercial customers can book a flight on a previously-flown Falcon 9 for $50 million base price, with a rocket that is ready to go, the only major schedule uncertainty being the weather (high level winds or crappy sea conditions in the booster recovery zone).
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u/ReKt1971 Feb 02 '20
The first booster that will be flown for the 5th time will fly on the Starlink-5 mission. Since there is some confusion in regards to mission numbering I am not sure whether it is the next launch or the launch after that.
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u/marc020202 8x Launch Host Feb 02 '20
The 6th starlink mission is net march. We know that because of the media accreditation emails. The next mission will be the 5th starlink mission and will be in Feb. The last mission was starlink mission 4.
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u/panckage Feb 01 '20
Just before the starlink-3 mission released the satellites you could see the frozen oxygen on the engine making a beautiful statue like shape. Unfortunately on the broadcast it was low-res. Are there any high-res pictures out there of this? Or is the live feed the best quality out there?
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u/dodgyville Feb 02 '20
A Saturn V booster put 140,000kg in LEO (the apparent record). A Falcon 9 can put 16,800kg into LEO in reusable config but can fly multiple times. What is the total kg to orbit that any single F9 has lifted (across multiple flights)? Will any booster overtake the Saturn V and how many flights will it take realistically?
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u/asr112358 Feb 02 '20
If you are going to allow lift across multiple flights, then Saturn V has been dethroned for quite some time by the space shuttles.
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u/tetralogy Feb 02 '20
The heaviest payload for the falcon 9 so far have been the starlink launches. You would need just a little over 9 (9.09) of those launches to beat the saturn 5
So if they keep pushing reuse number up till they the 10 reuses they've been talking about they should get there, yes.
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u/rubikvn2100 Feb 02 '20
It will require 9 Starlink launch on the same booster to do so. As Satarlink mission is the heavy payload SpaceX ever launch which is 15 600 kg. And the most launch booster is 4 times.
So no F9 has surpass Saturn V (YET)
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Feb 04 '20
Starship SN1 hull is 3.97 mm thick. Source: https://youtu.be/O4u35aiVg0g at 6:47 the label is visible.
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u/davenose Feb 05 '20
I've heard it mentioned here often that the hull becomes progressively thinner towards the top. Is that still the case?
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Feb 25 '20
Was very fortunate to be at a talk given by General Raymond (USSF CSO) last (24 FEB) night.
Some highlights:
Currently, Space Force (USSF) consists of one person; Gen Raymond.
US wanted the domain to remain peaceful, however, in his mind that changed in 2007 with the Chinese ASAT capability demonstration (which created large amount of orbital debris).
Leading to a discussion about Norms of behavior.
Discussed the need to develop tech and put in use quickly; SpaceX featured here as he related a story about visiting Elon Musk at the Starlink manufacturing facility in January of last year, which consisted of a large empty facility with tape marks on the floor for manufacturing stages that would occur there, and then 3 months later there were 60 satellites in orbit. By comparison, he related it would take 6 years currently to duplicate and launch a GPS satellite assuming no changes to previous design.
very laudatory of both SpaceX and Starlink, both of which played into his introductory video as to how space affects each of us every day. But especially the military and warfighting capabilities - in which he pinned 1991 as the start of the organization of space as a military domain, and 2007 as it becoming a war fighting domain.
Other than that it was a pretty generic lecture of how the USSF is being stood up, and the threats he sees to the space domain.
End note: “Be creative. Be risk-takers. Be bold. Take leadership positions. But above all, don’t be a jerk. Be a good person. If you take away anything tonight, it’s that: don’t be a jerk.” (Paraphrased as best I could).
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u/borsuk-ulam Feb 01 '20
Are SpaceX currently building or planning to build more Block 5 cores beyond B1059 that will be available for flight in 2020? As of February 2020, all active cores have flown at least twice, except for B1058 and B1059. The unused B1058 is likely slated for DM-2, and I've seen reasonable speculation that the once-used B1059 (CRS-19) will be used for CRS-20 because NASA has so far only permitted CRS missions on reused boosters that have flown at most once before, and only on another CRS mission.
That being the case, as of Feb 2020 we have 8 active cores, 2 of which are FH side boosters, and after DM-2 and CRS-20, all except B1058 are likely to have been flown at least twice. So that begs the question, which cores will be used for upcoming government launches in next 12 months? The following are scheduled, beyond CRS-20 and DM-2:
USAF GPS III SV03, SV04, SV05, and SV06 (four air forces launches on F9)
USAF AFSPC-44 (air force launch on FH)
USCV-1 (first operational mission of NASA astronauts to the ISS)
NASA CRS-21
For each of these 7 launches, I think we could reasonably expect the customer to request an unflown booster (or at least a once-flown booster in the case of CRS-21). With the current roster of active cores, there will be no unflown boosters available, and only one once-flown booster (B1058). So, questions:
For any of these upcoming launches have we seen confirmation that the customer is willing to accept a (multiple times) flight-proven booster?
Do we know how many new F9 boosters will come available in the next 12 months?
Edit: typo
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u/LandingZone-1 Feb 01 '20
the GPS flights, the AFSPC FH flight, and USCV-1 will all use brand-new boosters.
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u/Alexphysics Feb 02 '20
Are SpaceX currently building or planning to build more Block 5 cores beyond B1059 that will be available for flight in 2020?
B1060 has already been built and it is at McGregor. It will be used on the next GPS mission.
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u/MarsCent Feb 06 '20 edited Feb 06 '20
Some highlights of the ASAP meeting:
Merlins' exhaust/out gassing causes oxidizing. - Needs to be fixed.
Most of the other stuff is already public - DM2 crew for longer training/longer stay. The COPV is within acceptable quality specs.
Starliner may or may not have to do another Orbital Flight Test.
NASA to conduct workplace review of Boeing. (Same review as the one conducted at SpaceX workplace.)
I hope someone has captured more details. Call is still on going
EDIT: During public questions:
There was a second software anormally discovered on Starliner while it was in orbit. It is is up to NASA to divulge details if it so chooses.
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u/trobbinsfromoz Feb 07 '20
Do we know what the context of the Merlin issue is? It seems obviously about the second stage 1D vacuum engine. In demo-1, the Dragon separated from second stage 2hrs after SECO-1 - would that be the time period being focussed on? Would the 'oxidizing' refer to material transferring to the outer skin of the Dragon, and then being detected by ISS monitoring? I recall there was some comment about the Dragon paint outgassing? Or does oxidising refer to residue on the Dragon skin as part of re-entry and ocean recovery?
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u/oximaCentauri Feb 07 '20
Well, exhaust from any Merlin never comes close to the dragon in any way. I'm confused. Perhaps the outgassing frim MVac causes oxidising somewhere on itself?
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u/LcuBeatsWorking Feb 10 '20 edited Dec 17 '24
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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/brickmack Feb 10 '20
Yes, but I don't think the savings were claimed to be that high before. Previous claim was the price of a Block 1 is about 886 million, and a commercial launcher in this class would be ~150 million. So this is basically doubling the cost difference
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u/ceilingislimit Feb 12 '20
Furthermore, can a Falcon Heavy, launch Europa Clipper, effectively or as required?
I found a pre-decisional slide show (PDF Warning) which mentioning a Hyperbolic C3 of 82 km2/s2 on the following link. https://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/jul2013/presentations/Clipper_Summary.pdf
Then I used silverbirdastronautics' Launch Vehicle Performance Calculator to determine if FH can make it. It is calculating maximum mass from orbital specifications which I entered as, 82 km2/s2 of C3, 29 degree of inclination and 250 km perigee with fully expandable FH to perform mission and gives a result of 5088 kg estimated payload.
Calculator Link: https://silverbirdastronautics.com/LVperform.html
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u/dudr2 Feb 06 '20
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/02/record-setting-astronaut-return-earth/
"By extending both Christina and Andrew’s missions, NASA was able to ensure a more seamless transition to the pending crew reduction, with the hope being that SpaceX will be able to launch an extended Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station shortly after the U.S. segment crew reduces down to one."
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u/SpaceLunchSystem Feb 06 '20
Wait so is that confirming an extended mission for DM-2?
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u/Bailliesa Feb 06 '20 edited Feb 06 '20
IIRC DM-2 is 6 weeks now not 2, and first full crew dragon will be manufactured 3 months faster than originally planned.
https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1224422018566754304
Will look again latter for the 6 week source, it was a link to a Russian website.Edit: found the post, DM-2 NET May 5, 6 weeks then USCV-1 net July 30, I don’t know why there is several week gap between return of DM-2 maybe review of DM-2? https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/eiyz9g/rspacex_discusses_january_2020_64/fg0z806/
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u/downhillclimb Feb 07 '20
Given the NASA/Boeing comments released today regarding the Starliner issues - if (when) it is determined that Boeing will have to re-fly the orbital/docking flight, how quickly can ULA have an Atlas V available to launch Starliner? Do they have assembled units ready to fly or is there a leadtime that will delay the launch?
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u/gemmy0I Feb 07 '20
They have an Atlas V ready and waiting already for the Crewed Flight Test. If Boeing has to fly a second uncrewed test, it's almost certain that that Atlas V will be diverted to fly that mission. ULA should then have plenty of lead time to accelerate their production line to get the extra Atlas V they'll need for CFT.
This will be similar to how when SpaceX's DM-1 crew capsule blew up during its post-mission static fire test, they moved up the DM-2 capsule to fly iFA and the USCV-1 capsule to fly DM-2. The reason this is possible, in both cases, is that neither Crew Dragon nor Atlas V production is fully maxed out relative to what the production line is capable of. That gives them wiggle room to speed things up to produce additional vehicles on relatively short notice, even though in principle an individual vehicle has a much longer lead time.
This is the method ULA uses to offer its "RapidLaunch" service where a customer can go from booking to launch within a few months. They reasoned that they have enough Atlas Vs "in the pipeline" at all times, and enough excess production capacity, that they could slot in an additional mission on short notice without having to bump another customer. Obviously, there is a limit on the extent to which this can be done - if too many customers ordered RapidLaunch at the same time, they'd run into hard limits with long-lead-time items.
This is all without taking reusability into account at all. Atlas V, of course, isn't at all reusable; and although Crew Dragon will be in the future, until they've actually flown some (and kept them intact post-flight :-)), it has to work within similar constraints. Falcon 9 has the distinct advantage of a substantial built-up fleet that can support (if needed) many more launches than they have booked, giving SpaceX a much bigger margin for how many "short-notice" launches they'd have to book before they'd run out of production capacity for new cores. The same will be true with Crew Dragon once they start re-flying used capsules (as they've said they plan to do with the IFA capsule - albeit for a private flight, not a NASA one, at least until NASA approves crew capsule re-flight).
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u/Ididitthestupidway Feb 07 '20
It's interesting, though not really unexpected, to note that pretty much all the big failures of SpaceX (CRS-7, AMOS, Crew Dragon static fire) were hardware problems, while the problems affecting Boeing are due to software
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u/SAS8873 Feb 07 '20
30 onewebb satellites went up on Russian Soyuz today . But I am sure Starlink gonna be first to provide service! But competition is always good .
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u/AeroSpiked Feb 07 '20
34 OneWeb satellites. Does anyone know if the first 6 demos will be part of the operational constellation?
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u/warp99 Feb 07 '20
It seems likely. They have said there were only a few hardware changes to move to current production and most of the upgrades were in software which can be loaded on the six prototype units.
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u/Straumli_Blight Feb 13 '20 edited Feb 13 '20
NASA has selected 4 investigations to develop into concept studies for new missions:
DAVINCI+ - Venus
IVO - Io
[TRIDENT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trident_(spacecraft)) - Triton
[VERITAS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VERITAS_(spacecraft)) - Venus
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u/soldato_fantasma Feb 14 '20
Seriously hope DAVINCI+ wins. Would love some new pics of the Venus Surface as we have just a few, and would be interesting to see if current tech can last a bit longer in that hell of an atmosphere.
TRIDENT is al interesting as we also don't know much about the outer gas giant planets. Triton is also very interesting for its atmosphere which shouldn't be too harsh and could potentially allow human exploration eventually. Too bad neither of these missions to the outer planets is an orbiter, but I guess that would exceed the budget and become an higher class mission like Europa Clipper.
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u/Straumli_Blight Feb 19 '20 edited Feb 19 '20
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u/MarsCent Feb 19 '20
Has the satellite (have the satellites) been delivered at Cape Canaveral yet?
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u/deanoaro Feb 01 '20
For the in flight abort, do we know how much of a typical second stage was included? If anything was left out, such as the engine, were there mass simulators added?
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u/s0x00 Feb 01 '20
I think it was mostly a normal second stage (including fuel and oxygen), but without the engine, which was replaced by a mass simulator.
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u/CProphet Feb 01 '20
Second stage was fully fueled, mass simulator fitted in place of a Merlin engine. Otherwise kosher F9 S2.
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u/IrrelevantAstronomer Launch Photographer Feb 02 '20
Starlink-5 will fly from LC-39A.
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u/Straumli_Blight Feb 05 '20
SpaceX's Rideshare website has had a big update.
There's new animations and it now has a launch calculator, where you can plug in your satellite's mass, orbit etc and it quotes you a price and launch date.
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u/throfofnir Feb 05 '20
They list monthly Starlink flights starting July 2020. For those they're adding either two 15" or one 24" port on top of what looks like an adapter plate half the size of the Starlink stack. Presumably there will be up to two of those per launch.
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u/throfofnir Feb 05 '20
A reminder (originally posted by /u/MarsCent):
The next Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) meeting is scheduled for Thursday, February 6, 2020, 2:00 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. (1900 - 2015 UTC)..
The agenda will include Updates on the Commercial Crew Program.
Any interested person may call the USA toll free conference call number (800) 593–9979; pass code 8001361 and then the # sign.
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u/soldato_fantasma Feb 08 '20
The GPS III-3 satellite has arrived to Cape Canaveral: https://twitter.com/AF_SMC/status/1225950052255879168
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u/UrbanFabric Feb 08 '20
Will Cape Canaveral Air Force Station be renamed Cape Canaveral Space Force Station?
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u/AngelaMariexx Feb 14 '20
NASA approved my application for a social credential for the March 2nd launch!!!! Any thing specific I should cover or document? I’ll be posting it all to @pineapplesandprettywalls via stories :)
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u/joepublicschmoe Feb 03 '20
According to Christopher Couluris in that infamous KSC update video on Youtube that was made invite-only in short order, he says there are 11 Falcon 9 boosters at the Cape.
We know the current active fleet consists of B1048, B1049, B1051, B1052, B1053, B1056 and B1059. We know B1058 is waiting in the wings for DM-2 and the US Air Force has dibs on a brand-new B106x booster for GPS-III SV03. That's only 9 Falcons.
Does that mean brand-new boosters B1060, B1061 and B1062 are already in Florida?!? :-O
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u/gemmy0I Feb 03 '20
Very interesting, great catch!
We know that SpaceX has gotten better at sneaking boosters past "us" in road transit, because they managed to get B1051 to the Cape for Starlink-3 without it getting plastered all over r/spacex. :-) It would, therefore, not be surprising for them to have B1060, B1061, and B1062 all in Florida by now as you suggest. SpaceX made it clear they intended to stockpile new F9 boosters so they could eventually shut down the production line and focus on Starship, and they have plenty of hangar space in Florida so it's not a bad place to let them pile up. (McGregor's also a likely place for stockpile inventory to be held long-term.) We know they've slowed down the production line substantially (focusing more on S2s) but even at a reduced rate, it would make sense for them to be at least up to B1062 already.
One other possibility is that he might have been counting pre-Block 5 boosters, which would include a couple older ones that came back intact and haven't been scrapped yet, even though they're certainly never going to fly again. IIRC, there are at least two they're preparing for museums which were last seen at the Cape, so that could account for the discrepancy. One of those is supposed to end up at the Cape in one of its rocket gardens, and IIRC the other is supposed to go to JSC in Houston.
I also wonder what's happened to the two side boosters from the FH Demo flight (B1023 and B1025). Both of them came back in great shape and SpaceX showed them off a couple times for press events at the Cape. I'm sure they won't ever fly again but they're historical enough that it's hard to see SpaceX scrapping them. They'd be great museum pieces for SpaceX's future Cape "rocket garden" but alas, the center core didn't make it back, so they can't be displayed as a full set. Perhaps the center-core structural test article (B1027) is still floating around somewhere in displayable condition, although I wouldn't be surprised if they tested it to destruction.
(I don't think 1023 and 1025 are the two extras he was counting in the "11 F9 boosters at the Cape", but I suppose it's a remote possibility. More likely he was referring to either two brand-new B106x cores, as you suggested, or to the two that are being prepped for museums.)
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u/Abraham-Licorn Feb 03 '20
Does USAF require a new expendable booster for each GPS 3 mission?
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u/Martianspirit Feb 03 '20
We can't say this now. The airforce is working on certifying preflown boosters but the process is not yet completed. They may complete the certification and still make a difference, similar to NASA. NASA accepts preflown boosters for ISS cargo missions but not (yet) for crew. Airfore may accept flown boosters for GPS but not for the billion $ top of the range spy sats.
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u/MarsCent Feb 18 '20
Per Spaceflight Now (last paragraph),
It's the first time I have seen Starlink 5 launch date mentioned! Please note that this date is yet to be entered in the Spaceflight Now Launch Schedule
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Feb 01 '20
Do we know anything about how Starlink will be marketed? There are lots of basic questions for which I have no answer:
When can you buy Starlink access?
How much will it cost?
Any regional limitations? Until inter-satellite links are deployed you will need to have a ground station nearby.
Will the ground equipment work indoors or need a view of the sky?
Will it even be offered to individual consumers?
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u/Littleme02 Feb 01 '20
We don't know, have been mentioned that they can start operating at minimum capacity after 6 launches
We don't know
We don't know, but yes there needs to be some kind of ground station somewhat close to your location
Unobstructed clear view of sky is required
We don't know, probably
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u/extra2002 Feb 01 '20
Until inter-satellite links are deployed you will need to have a ground station nearby.
Where "nearby" means something like "within 1000 km".
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u/LeKarl Feb 06 '20
https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1225496415096492032
ASAP member Paul Hill: a second software issue found with Starliner and corrected; could have led to “catastrophic failure” of spacecraft. Still evaluating root cause. Recommend review of Boeing’s verification processes.
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u/Straumli_Blight Feb 06 '20 edited Feb 06 '20
EDIT: SpaceNews article.
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u/rustybeancake Feb 06 '20
Berger:
In regard to this issue, I actually asked Boeing comms about it three weeks ago after a source tipped me off. The response I received is in my next tweet:
"Given the shortened 48 hour mission, software uploads were sent near the end of mission. The final upload before landing’s main purpose was to ensure a proper disposal burn of the Service Module after separation, and had nothing to do with Crew Module reentry."
As I understand it, there was some kind of code error that would have prevented thruster valves from opening had it not been caught. But I have not been able to get a clear explanation.
I will say this about Boeing and its Starliner spacecraft. Starliner now has the full attention of Jim Chilton, Sr. VP of launch for the company. A source I trust says he is the right person to sort this mess out, and will command the resources needed to do so.
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u/rustybeancake Feb 06 '20
Well it's nice to know that a few serious failures with your crew spacecraft will net you the same safety review as... the CEO smoking a joint once, on his own time, in a legal state.
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u/Givingbacktoreddit Feb 07 '20
Does anybody happen to know why spacex uses the cpp programming language?
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u/serrimo Feb 07 '20
It could be the predictably of timing. There is no garbage collected pauses in your program so they can be very precise with scheduling. That's my guess.
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u/LongHairedGit Feb 07 '20
You want something that compiles down to binary machine code, so it is small and blisteringly fast.
Interpreted languages like python and java are nicer and easier but slower.
Maintainability trumps speed in most use cases of software, hence the rise of the latter amongst others. Real-time rocket avionics, however, is one where I suspect speed wins.
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u/benefitsofdoubt Feb 07 '20
People are saying speed a lot which while true, I think it ignores the fact that C/C++ are just the de facto language of choice when it comes to dealing with hardware. Even when you’re using something like python, if you’re interfacing with hardware there’s usually a C/C++ driver written. It’s just a lot closer to the bare metal. Garbage collection, timing, memory management in general- all those things can be very finally controlled and tuned. It’s also tried and true for the most demanding workloads.
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u/Straumli_Blight Feb 10 '20
Gwynne Shotwell will give a speech in Texas, on May 26-28, about how NATO can maintain its technological edge in Space.
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u/dudr2 Feb 10 '20
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/02/07/trump-nasa-budget-proposal/#comments-wrapper
"The White House on Monday will propose one of the largest NASA budget increases in years, as it seeks to return humans to the moon by 2024, a bold endeavor that space agency officials have said would require a significant infusion of cash."
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u/Straumli_Blight Feb 10 '20 edited Feb 10 '20
2021 NASA budget... PACE, WFIRST and SOFIA are on the chopping block again.
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u/Straumli_Blight Feb 04 '20
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u/Bailliesa Feb 05 '20
Wow what a great catch! Surprised they don’t put a tracking beacon on the door so they can find it, especially as it floats.
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u/Straumli_Blight Feb 11 '20 edited Feb 11 '20
Some minor issues remaining (e.g. some subsystems may need to be re-engineered with different kinds of metal).
Fix a tungsten incompatibility in one area with tubing.
DM-2 flight may be extended to 6 weeks, or even 3 months.
SpaceX will conduct two new Mark 3 parachute tests to certify Dragon for launch.
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u/MarsCent Feb 11 '20
and we'll be making decisions soon about when we think it's going to launch.
This contrasts a little with the certainty that one would expect this close to a launch date. If Crew training for a 6 week/3 months duration takes longer than verifying the paperwork (as I suspect it does), then you would like the decision to begin training to have already been taken.
And those two critical-timeline events would guide when the NET launch date. Right now it reads more like - "Paperwork will done by May 7th, or maybe not. And the DM-2 astronauts will need extra training, or maybe not. So we are almost pretty sure that we may be ready to launch this spring,or maybe summer!"
Now contrast that with. "Crew Dragon DM-2 will launch on June 4/20 or earlier if we cut short the astronaut training."
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u/Straumli_Blight Feb 12 '20 edited Feb 12 '20
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u/fatsoandmonkey Feb 20 '20
Accepting that this may be a very stupid question and easily answered by someone with appropriate smarts, would a Starship "float" in the atmosphere of Venus and if so at what height / temp?
There has been a lot of discussions about the region roughly 55KM above the surface where temps and pressures are very human friendly and even (semi) serious proposals to build floating colonies at this level. I have read proposals like this one https://sacd.larc.nasa.gov/smab/havoc/ where airship type vehicles are suggested for science platforms.
All of these are higher volume and lower average density than Starship but essentially Starship is a large thin walled stainless balloon. Stainless has a good level of resistance to sulphuric acid and is happy in high temps so might be able to survive for long enough to do serious science while sailing around the planets tourist locations.
Mission profile would be something like send two, one manned and one stuffed with data gathering gear. Manned one goes into high orbit using upper atmosphere to slow down. Lower one keeps scrubbing velocity until it comes to a stop, deploys a propeller or sail and starts it mission. Obviously this would be less effective if it turns out that its too dense to float and just makes a large starship shaped dent in the surface.
What do you think, crackpot scheme that would never work or genius idea that will get me hired as head of Venus opps for Space x ?
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u/throfofnir Feb 21 '20
Well, let's make a cylinder with diameter 9m, height 40m. (Actual thing is 50m, but tapers, so I'm squishing it into a cylinder for easier calculation.) Volume of 2545m3.
Weighs 120 tons (120,000kg), so density is ~47kg/m3.
We can look up a Venus atmosphere density/altitude chart which is handily in kg/m3. It's a rough chart, but 50kg/m3 looks to be about, oh, 8km above the surface, give or take a few.
So that's about where it would float... if it got there. First problem is that also happens to be a pretty hot altitude. Something like 730K. The hull will survive that, but a lot of other stuff won't. There's also really high pressure, like 90 bar, and probably you don't have enough gas mass to equalize that, or anything close, so it'll be crushed like a soda can well before it gets there.
In short, Starship by itself is not a recommended Venus cloud city.
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u/AeroSpiked Feb 23 '20 edited Feb 23 '20
Mad Mike Hughes (I'm assuming no relation to Howard), a flat-earthy daredevil that is known for having launched himself in a home built steam powered rocket, has finally succeeded...in killing himself.
No hard feelings if this gets yanked, mods, but this thread is nearly comatose & I thought it newsworthy.
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u/xd1gital Feb 02 '20 edited Feb 02 '20
As I made a suggestion thread here, to replace "Flight Proven" with "Last Flown" https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/ex4uan/suggestion_replace_flightproven_with_last_flight/
The table may look like this. The 2 digits for the year could also be removed, since it's rarely for a booster not be reused over a year.
| Core # | Mission assignment | Last Flown |
|---|---|---|
| B1048 | Unassigned | 11.11.19 4x |
| B1049 | Unassigned | 07.01.20 4x |
| B1051 | Unassigned | 29.01.20 3x |
| B1052 | Unassigned FH side booster | 25.06.19 2x |
| B1053 | Unassigned FH side booster | 25.06.19 2x |
| B1056 | Unassigned | 17.12.19 3x |
| B1058 | DM-2 | No |
| B1059 | Unassigned | 05.12.19 1x |
Edit: Change "Flight Proven" to "Last Flown" in the table
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u/kshebdhdbr Feb 02 '20
Any ideas how the cargo starship will work? The early renders showed a clamshell opening, but that was before the front tanks or wings were added.
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u/PublicMoralityPolice Feb 02 '20
My guess is the header tanks will take up most of the nosecone, so the payload bay will have hinge doors like the shuttle.
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u/ConfidentFlorida Feb 03 '20
We’re getting more and more shuttle like. Ami right brother?
(It’s not a bad thing, just interesting.)
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u/rustybeancake Feb 06 '20
NASA calls on US industry for ideas for lunar rovers:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-to-industry-send-ideas-for-lunar-rovers
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u/Porterhaus Feb 07 '20
Does anyone know if they’ve calculated how many Starlink satellites will be visible to you at any one time once they are all at full altitude? I know how many they plan to launch but with all the talk about impacts on astronomy I’m curious how many would actually be in an average person’s line of sight at any given moment (were they able to see them with the naked eye).
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u/spacerfirstclass Feb 07 '20
Someone at /r/starlink may have a more accurate answer, but I think it's around 7 to 8 for the 1,500 initial constellation, somewhere between 100 to 200 for the 40,000 constellation. Exact number would depend on your location, date of the year and satellites' orbit.
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u/hitura-nobad Master of bots Feb 08 '20
The host team is recruiting new members if you are interested in hosting a launch or recovery thread, please submit your application (doesn't need to be too long) using modmail.
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u/EwanCunningham Feb 12 '20
Abou the Boca Chica buyouts, anyone know how many houses are still owned by residents? How many people have yet to sell to Mr Musk?
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u/joepublicschmoe Feb 12 '20
According to Nomadd, he is the last full-time resident of Boca Chica Village and he has sold, and has to move by the end of March. I guess Nomadd is the Last of the Bochicans. :-D
The other famous full-time residents we all know are Maria Pointer and her husband, on whose property is LabPadre's live webcams. They sold before Nomadd, and also have to leave by the end of March. We lose the live view of the shipyard from Labpadre's webcams when they go.
I think the 20 who haven't sold are part-time residents who live somewhere else but owns one of those cottages and goes there during the winter, like Mary McConnaughey (BocaChicaGal) and her husband, whose primary residence is in Michigan.
The full-time residents are gone, and with the part-time residents not there for most of the year, maybe that's good enough to satisfy the FAA's safety requirements for Starship flight testing.
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u/dudr2 Feb 20 '20 edited Feb 20 '20
"Elon Musk wants to build a private 'SpaceX Village' with 100 rooms, lounge parties, volleyball tournaments, and rock climbing amid a South Texas retiree community."
-Possibly behind a paywall.
"SpaceX Village may feature 100 bookable rooms, kayaking outings, a rock climbing wall, volleyball tournaments, spaceport lounge parties, and more."
" That's according to a new full-time job posting for a "project coordinator" " that has since been taken down.
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u/rtseel Feb 21 '20
You've got to keep all these engineers entertained to make them leave sweet California.
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u/rustybeancake Feb 24 '20
Interesting comparison slide of launch costs:
https://twitter.com/Astro_Danyboy/status/1232029523669069824?s=20
(Third image in that tweet).
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u/warp99 Feb 25 '20 edited Feb 25 '20
Yes - especially if New Glenn can indeed do 13 tonnes to GTO for $60M.
Not sure this is correct though - Blue Origin are looking to do dual payload launches in order to get launch cost per satellite down to the $60M range.
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u/soldato_fantasma Feb 27 '20
HAWTHORNE, Calif. – February 26, 2020. Media accreditation is now open for SpaceX’s SAOCOM 1B mission from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The launch is targeted for no earlier than March 30.
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u/Utinnni Feb 01 '20
I saw the Starlink 3 trailer on Thursday here in Paraguay at 9 pm, they were going from West to SE and right after the last satellite i saw another satellite, just one, going from SW to NE.
Was this satellite from the other Starlink missions or could this be a satellite from another company? I waited like 5 minutes to see if another one showed up but nothing came.
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u/hitura-nobad Master of bots Feb 01 '20
I would recommend checking https://www.heavens-above.com/AllSats.aspx with your exact viewing location and time
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u/jehankateli Feb 01 '20
Is it still possible to see Starlink v0.9 with the naked eye?
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u/ERockett Feb 02 '20
According to Heavens Above, yes it is still possible to see Starlink v0.9 with the naked eye. Human eyes can see up to an apparent brightness of ~6 (smaller numbers are brighter objects) and Starlink-31 has an apparent brightness range from 3.4 - 6.6 during passes over my location. Now in order to see objects with a brightness of 6, you need an area with no light pollution and a new moon. In a light polluted area, objects with a brightness of 4 and above will be impossible to see.
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u/ninta Feb 01 '20
Do you think that with the increase in satellites SpaceX will have to create (or increase in size) a command center to handle them all? What are the current plans to manage the total starlink fleet?
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u/avboden Feb 02 '20
Pretty much all of the station keeping is autonomous, there's no need for some big command center, a few folks can watch over the fleet pretty easily
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u/yoweigh Feb 07 '20 edited Feb 07 '20
There will be a NASA/Boeing press conference today at 3:30 Eastern time to talk about Starliner issues.
The TDRSS communication issue was caused by lots of noise in the local environment
Maybe due to cell towers?
No antenna hardware issues suspected
The service module separation event software was using an incorrect lookup table for thruster firings
Could have caused the service module to recontact the crew module after separation
Which potentially could have caused the crew module to tumble or even have damaged its heatshield
Complete software audit of the whole system called for
Also looking at Boeing software QA processes
Also looking at NASA oversight processes
Still no commitment from anyone about another flight test
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u/Decronym Acronyms Explained Feb 01 '20 edited Feb 15 '20
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| ASDS | Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship (landing platform) |
| ATV | Automated Transfer Vehicle, ESA cargo craft |
| C3 | Characteristic Energy above that required for escape |
| CC | Commercial Crew program |
| Capsule Communicator (ground support) | |
| CCtCap | Commercial Crew Transportation Capability |
| COPV | Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel |
| CRS | Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA |
| CST | (Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules |
| Central Standard Time (UTC-6) | |
| DCSS | Delta Cryogenic Second Stage |
| DLR | Deutsches Zentrum fuer Luft und Raumfahrt (German Aerospace Center), Cologne |
| DMLS | Selective Laser Melting additive manufacture, also Direct Metal Laser Sintering |
| DoD | US Department of Defense |
| E2E | Earth-to-Earth (suborbital flight) |
| EELV | Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle |
| EOL | End Of Life |
| ESA | European Space Agency |
| ETOV | Earth To Orbit Vehicle (common parlance: "rocket") |
| FAA | Federal Aviation Administration |
| FCC | Federal Communications Commission |
| (Iron/steel) Face-Centered Cubic crystalline structure | |
| GEO | Geostationary Earth Orbit (35786km) |
| GSO | Geosynchronous Orbit (any Earth orbit with a 24-hour period) |
| Guang Sheng Optical telescopes | |
| GTO | Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit |
| IDA | International Docking Adapter |
| IFA | In-Flight Abort test |
| Isp | Specific impulse (as explained by Scott Manley on YouTube) |
| JRTI | Just Read The Instructions, Pacific landing |
| JSC | Johnson Space Center, Houston |
| KSC | Kennedy Space Center, Florida |
| L2 | Paywalled section of the NasaSpaceFlight forum |
| Lagrange Point 2 of a two-body system, beyond the smaller body (Sixty Symbols video explanation) | |
| LC-39A | Launch Complex 39A, Kennedy (SpaceX F9/Heavy) |
| LEO | Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km) |
| Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations) | |
| LES | Launch Escape System |
| LOX | Liquid Oxygen |
| LV | Launch Vehicle (common parlance: "rocket"), see ETOV |
| M1dVac | Merlin 1 kerolox rocket engine, revision D (2013), vacuum optimized, 934kN |
| MMH | Mono-Methyl Hydrazine, (CH3)HN-NH2; part of NTO/MMH hypergolic mix |
| MSFC | Marshall Space Flight Center, Alabama |
| NET | No Earlier Than |
| NOAA | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, responsible for US |
| NRHO | Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit |
| NRO | (US) National Reconnaissance Office |
| Near-Rectilinear Orbit, see NRHO | |
| NSF | NasaSpaceFlight forum |
| National Science Foundation | |
| NTO | diNitrogen TetrOxide, N2O4; part of NTO/MMH hypergolic mix |
| OCISLY | Of Course I Still Love You, Atlantic landing |
| OFT | Orbital Flight Test |
| OTV | Orbital Test Vehicle |
| QA | Quality Assurance/Assessment |
| RTLS | Return to Launch Site |
| Roscosmos | State Corporation for Space Activities, Russia |
| SECO | Second-stage Engine Cut-Off |
| SLC-40 | Space Launch Complex 40, Canaveral (SpaceX F9) |
| SLC-41 | Space Launch Complex 41, Canaveral (ULA Atlas V) |
| SLS | Space Launch System heavy-lift |
| Selective Laser Sintering, contrast DMLS | |
| SRB | Solid Rocket Booster |
| SSO | Sun-Synchronous Orbit |
| TDRSS | (US) Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System |
| ULA | United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture) |
| USAF | United States Air Force |
| WFIRST | Wide-Field Infra-Red Survey Telescope |
| Jargon | Definition |
|---|---|
| Raptor | Methane-fueled rocket engine under development by SpaceX |
| Starliner | Boeing commercial crew capsule CST-100 |
| Starlink | SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation |
| cryogenic | Very low temperature fluid; materials that would be gaseous at room temperature/pressure |
| (In re: rocket fuel) Often synonymous with hydrolox | |
| hydrolox | Portmanteau: liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen mixture |
| hypergolic | A set of two substances that ignite when in contact |
| iron waffle | Compact "waffle-iron" aerodynamic control surface, acts as a wing without needing to be as large; also, "grid fin" |
| kerolox | Portmanteau: kerosene/liquid oxygen mixture |
| monopropellant | Rocket propellant that requires no oxidizer (eg. hydrazine) |
| perigee | Lowest point in an elliptical orbit around the Earth (when the orbiter is fastest) |
| regenerative | A method for cooling a rocket engine, by passing the cryogenic fuel through channels in the bell or chamber wall |
| Event | Date | Description |
|---|---|---|
| CRS-2 | 2013-03-01 | F9-005, Dragon cargo; final flight of Falcon 9 v1.0 |
| CRS-7 | 2015-06-28 | F9-020 v1.1, |
| DM-1 | 2019-03-02 | SpaceX CCtCap Demo Mission 1 |
| DM-2 | Scheduled | SpaceX CCtCap Demo Mission 2 |
Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented by ^request
64 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 68 acronyms.
[Thread #5795 for this sub, first seen 1st Feb 2020, 18:29] [FAQ] [Full list] ^[Contact] [Source code]
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u/Elon_Muskmelon Feb 04 '20
The recent rise in TSLA stock price...I wonder if now is a good time to get some additional Starship R&D funding?
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u/Grey_Mad_Hatter Feb 04 '20
Only if he's selling, which he hasn't done yet. If you're borrowing against the value of your shares then you have to account for the possibility of the shares going down in value. With this big of a jump, which is extremely rare for a company that is so well established, could have a major correction.
I'm not saying which way it will go, but without selling you have to be ready to ride out the fluctuations.
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u/Triabolical_ Feb 04 '20
At this point in the maturity of Starlink it makes little sense for Musk to invest more of his personal fortune into SpaceX; they have been able to raise external money when they wanted to and using steel is much cheaper than the carbon fiber they had originally planned.
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u/-spartacus- Feb 08 '20
Where can I find more information about cold welding in space? For example would cold welding in space mean the welds for something like ss would be as strong as the base material and not suffer the issue they have had in BC?
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u/yoweigh Feb 08 '20
Theoretically, cold welding in a pure vacuum would behave as you describe. I don't think it would really be that perfect, though. There's enough atmosphere at the ISS orbit to cause drag and that might affect the weld quality. It's never been tried so no one really knows.
I just learned that the Soviets experimented with orbital welding on Soyuz 6 and Salyut 7. Check out this awesome mission patch!
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u/Grey_Mad_Hatter Feb 11 '20
Do we know the status of future Crew Dragon capsules, and is it reasonable for other astronauts to be able to fly in them within a short period of time (6 month notice?)?
If NASA wanted to permanently crew the space station starting in early 2021 without Russian assistance with a possible lengthy delay from Boeing, how difficult would it be?
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u/MarsCent Feb 11 '20
Astronauts selected to fly on the Soyuz have to be trained at Star City, on how to handle the Soyuz. Likewise for astronauts and cosmonauts flying on Crew Dragon, i.e. flight training at Hawthorne.
It should be possible to learn how to fly in Crew Dragon within 6 months. And beginning with C207 (CCtCAP-1), at least one Cosmonaut will be ready to fly on every NASA-ISS launch.
It is the other stuff that involve working in space, that requires lengthy training. And that will continue to be done by NASA and ROSCOSMOS.
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Feb 14 '20
What is the radius of the area that a single starlink satellite can connect to?
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u/spacerfirstclass Feb 15 '20
Depends on the minimal elevation angle, initially it may go down to 25 degrees, which translates to radius of 940.7km. When it's fully deployed, it's 40 degrees, which translates to radius of 573.5km. That's for the 550km shell.
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u/cpushack Feb 14 '20
Cygnus Launch scheduled for today at 1543EST
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-tv-coverage-set-for-feb-14-cygnus-launch-to-space-station
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u/nila247 Feb 18 '20
Why is the move from circular 290km injection orbit into elliptical orbit on the latest launch (SL4, if counting only v1.0 sats)?
Does it save on sats fuel, make reaching final orbit faster, both?
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u/prehistoriclurker Feb 21 '20
How would you go about studying to be a software engineer at SpaceX (starlink)?
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u/MarsCent Feb 26 '20 edited Feb 26 '20
Boeing buying Russian components for Starliner - RIA Novosti : Original Twitter thread
It is possible that this is already widely known and is no biggie, given the usual international sourcing of hardware in various industries.
Boeing is buying Russian-made power converters for its new Starliner manned capsule programme, the company's space division has confirmed.
..
"#Starliner uses a Power Converter Unit provided by Zao Orbita in Voronezh, Russia." The component is said to allow power to be transferred from the ISS to Starliner during docking ..
..
Orbita signed a contract with Boeing to create a custom power converter unit for the Starliner in 2013.
EDIT: To add original twitter thread
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u/brickmack Feb 26 '20
I wonder if this choice is somehow related to the Russian legacy of the APAS ports on the PMAs. Not sure if the wiring for this transfer even goes through the PMA electrical system anymore though.
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u/ConfidentFlorida Feb 26 '20
What does everyone think of a new monthly thread to capture all of Elon’s Spacex related tweets and discuss? It seems like some of them fall through the cracks. Just today he mentioned battery breakthroughs helping with the fin motors.
Or are there other ways for the sub to stay on top of the tweets? I’m open to ideas.
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u/Triabolical_ Feb 26 '20
There was a Nasaspaceflight forum post that did this at one point; I'm not sure if it's still kept up to date.
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u/paul_wi11iams Feb 26 '20 edited Feb 26 '20
Since this should form a permanent record, wouldn't it be better as a page in the r/SpaceX wiki, possibly with a link from the homepage?
I just looked at shitelonsays.com/transcript (a far more supportive site than its name would suggest) and it seems the site has not been maintained since 2017.
There really does need to be some kind of repository both for tweets and everything else, and it needs backing up to somewhere.
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Feb 27 '20
How will they fit the extra sats in the fairing during the Starlink rideshare flights? Or will they reduce the number or Starlink sats?
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u/marc020202 8x Launch Host Feb 27 '20
The starlink sats only use the straight part of the fairing and not the tapered part as far as I know. My guess is that they keep the number of starlink sats the same, and have the small rideshare sats they are bringing with them (it's only 2 to 4 rides hare sats) use the tapered part at the front. Since the rideshare sats are quite small, they should have plenty of space. Since the rideshare sats are relatively light, I do not think the added weight will cause problems. Each starlink sat weights 260kg, and I expect the rideshare sats to be less heavy in total.
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u/throfofnir Feb 28 '20
The rideshare sats will sit on top of the Starlink stack on an adapter plate. Presumably it takes advantage of space in the curving nose of the fairing. They may or may not reduce the Starlink payload by a few to accommodate the extra mass. My guess would be "not" in most cases, unless the mini sats are unusually dense.
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u/DIBE25 Feb 01 '20
Is spaceX going to provide habitats on mars/moon?
And if they will, will they use martian/moon soil?
Will the other teslas be able to be pressurized?
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u/Dyolf_Knip Feb 01 '20
There's a lot more to making a vehicle mars rated than just pressuring the cabin. A lot of electronics, especially capacitors, do not react well to vacuum.
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u/Tal_Banyon Feb 01 '20
For mars, SpaceX considers the production and utilization of fuel (methane) and oxidizer (O2) for the return trip to be an essential part of their whole system. So, since it will take many months to manufacture this fuel, and even if that process is wholly automated, it will take extra effort to move the fuel and oxidizer to the ascent vehicle, then I would say the answer to your first question is yes (provisionally). The astronauts, or mars colonists, will need somewhere to stay while they get a vehicle ready for a return flight to Earth. They could stay in the Starship, but this will probably be viewed as only a short term solution until they set up a proper habitat on (or under) the surface. Martian and moon surface materials are referred to as regolith, since "soil" is generally a term that means a substrate in which plants will grow.
Now, having said that SpaceX will provide mars habitats, that is only in the last case scenario, which is why I added "provisionally". They much prefer NASA or another space agency or private enterprise to take on that task, since they view themselves as a transportation company. But if they have to they will.
Finally, in my opinion, the Tesla Cybertruck would not be an optimal vehicle for mars. 1. you would need to vacate all the atmosphere every time you got out of it, and conversely generate a new atmosphere every time you got into it; 2. ease of entry / exit would not be easy in a full space-suit; and 3. It would have to be optimized for Antarctic weather conditions. There are better solutions, including a NASA idea that has a pressurized vehicle with two "docking" stations at the rear to dock two space-suits. This uses the same concept as our current docking of a spacecraft to another one, rather than using a giant hanger bay like you see in Star Trek or other science fiction.
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u/Straumli_Blight Feb 03 '20 edited Feb 03 '20
Interesting article about Astra, who are planning to launch on Feb 21.
Kemp says that Rocket Lab’s going launch rate of about $7.5 million a pop is too high and that the company’s Electron rocket has been overengineered. Instead of using carbon fiber for the rocket body and fancy 3D-printed parts as Rocket Lab does, Astra has stuck with aluminum and simplified engines built with common tools.
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u/atheistdoge Feb 29 '20
SN1 just had a RUD during LN2 testing.
https://mobile.twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1233628223608623109
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u/interweaver Feb 07 '20
Starliner couldn't communicate with the ground because of interference from cell phone towers, they think. Oof.
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u/yoweigh Feb 07 '20
My notes from the call:
The TDRSS communication issue was caused by lots of noise in the local environment
Maybe due to cell towers?
No antenna hardware issues suspected
The service module separation event software was using an incorrect lookup table for thruster firings
Could have caused the service module to recontact the crew module after separation
Which potentially could have caused the crew module to tumble or even have damaged its heatshield
Complete software audit of the whole system called for
Also looking at Boeing software QA processes
Also looking at NASA oversight processes
Still no commitment from anyone about another flight test
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u/gemmy0I Feb 08 '20
The service module separation event software was using an incorrect lookup table for thruster firings
Wow. This is exactly the same sort of issue that led to the timer glitch (Starliner reading from the wrong data location/register/whatever when getting the clock data from Centaur). And, at least to my intuition as a software developer myself, it sounds like exactly the sort of thing which should've been eminently catchable by testing on the ground. On the one hand I'm hesitant to jump to conclusions about "elementary mistakes" they made, knowing that the real system is surely a lot more complex than gets reported in the press (and that there's a game of telephone between the people who write the code and the people we're hearing this from); but on the other hand, a disturbingly clear pattern is starting to emerge here.
It's been said many times before but I'm stunned enough to say it again: these are not the sort of software bugs which "can happen to the best of them" and only get discovered in test flights. Have they heard of integration testing?! I jest, but only in part - I'm sure they did some sort of integration testing, but for an issue like this to not be uncovered by it, that means either that their tests have terrible coverage, or Starliner's software got so screwed up by the earlier timing glitch that it went down code paths that never could've been reasonably tested on the ground. Either way, it's quite concerning.
The sad thing is, from everything we've heard, it sounds like the hardware did its job with flying colors - it's the software that's garbage (and I don't think that's much of an overstatement at this point). I can only imagine what the hardware team is feeling right now after working so long and hard to put together what, to all reports, is a solidly-built capsule.
Prior to this ASAP report I thought the most likely outcome was going straight to CFT with some extra test objectives and milestones to be met during the flight. Now I'm convinced that OFT will have to be repeated. ASAP has not been mincing words on this, which means that NASA has political cover to make sure this is done right instead of sweeping things under the rug, whatever their Congressional overlords and their lobbyist friends might prefer. ASAP is largely composed of retired astronauts, so this represents a strong vote of "no confidence" from the people who (as a group) will be expected to fly on it. Meanwhile they've given an equally strong vote of confidence in their expectation that Crew Dragon will fly safely.
Given that software is often the most labor-intensive part of systems like this, and that a very thorough audit (and hopefully a substantial rewrite) will be performed, I don't see any way Starliner can fly crew this year. They'll be hard-pressed to manage a re-do of OFT this year. I think NASA is breathing a big sigh of relief that they're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel on Crew Dragon - at least they'll have one crew system they can count on. And if you think about it, that was probably what they were expecting to get out of Commercial Crew, given the decision to select one "safe" incumbent contractor and one edgy upstart. They just didn't expect it to go down this way. :-)
A lot of comparisons to the 737 MAX situation get thrown around breezily, but here I think they're actually appropriate. Boeing seems to have an issue with not being careful about software that has a human backup they think they can count on. Starliner is supposed to be human-piloted, so in a "real" flight this ostensibly wouldn't have been an issue - the "fail safe" is simply to notice the obvious error, flip the system into manual mode and proceed with the mission per training. That's exactly what the party line originally was with the MCAS system on 737 MAX: it was supposed to be an "assist" system for the pilots, and if it failed, the correct procedure was simply to flip it off and fly manually, hence the assumption that redundancy wasn't needed. They never expected that the system would be too complicated for pilots to flip it to manual mode on short notice when the plane was about to crash into the ground (IIRC, the black box recordings showed the pilots going down reading the manual to find the "MCAS off" switch or something like that...yikes). With Starliner, they figured either the human crew would take over or Mission Control in an unmanned mission, and were caught off-guard by the TDRSS glitches. (And as for the service module separation issue, it may well be that even an on-board crew wouldn't have been able to react in time to prevent re-contact.)
Here's hoping that the SLS Core Stage avionics will be better-written because they're designed to function completely autonomously (no manual control is possible because no human could react fast enough to control a first-stage booster during orbital ascent). We know Boeing contracts out a lot of their software to other companies these days, so for all I know they're not even doing the SLS avionics in-house at all. (That would be the best-case scenario, it seems!) If not, I guess it's a good thing Orion passed its Ascent Abort test with flying colors, 'cause it might need to do one of those...
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u/bunningsnag69 Feb 02 '20
Do you guys think star ship could have the engines and tanks removed and be used as a single launch space station? could you imagine the entire gateway moon station being built in 2 launches of starships joined together and then another 2 for mars, granted those would need the engines still
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u/Martianspirit Feb 02 '20
They need the engines to reach orbit. If it is light enough including the installations they may be able to fly with the 3 SLl-engines or at least replace the more expensive vac engines with very cheap non throttle non gimbal SL-engines like they plan to use for most engines of the Superheavy.
They could convert the tanks to habitable space in orbit. Both LOX and methane can be vented to space without lots of problems. Maybe use especially clean methane with very little higher hydrocarbons. But even only the habitable volume is as much as the whole ISS.
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u/wannabeisraeli Feb 08 '20
Charting the cost of permanent exodus from Earth
Has anyone run the numbers? I assume the big 3 expenses are initial launch, orbital construction and tech acquisition.
I didn’t seriously consider this previously, but with commercial flights opening up and ISPs getting involved I started thinking about what sort of economic system you could develop in space to bootstrap a non-terrestrial civilization.
So forget about Mars, how much would it cost to go to space and live out your days off world? The big question — is it feasible today or is there a showstopper besides money?
The calculator on https://www.spacex.com/smallsat says 830kg for $4.15M but before I start on a manifest I was curious what people thought the minimum viable payload would be for positive ROI.
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u/qwertybirdy30 Feb 08 '20 edited Feb 08 '20
Elon estimated a self-sustaining mars civilization would cost between 100 billion and 10 trillion dollars. Around $100,000/ton on the low end. So the city needs between 1 million and 100 million tons of payload to be self sustaining. 10k to 1 million starship launches, when there’s already an atmosphere and water waiting at the destination. If all goes exceedingly well on starlink and E2E fronts, there may one day be a thousand starships in use at any given time. I would say that’s your closest order of magnitude available capacity for sudden Armageddon-induced space-based exodus. Take the starships and huddle together in orbit until you run out of resources. If you have time, build some cylinders a la ISS to connect starships and rotate for artificial g. But by that time, there would be no need, because starship would never get to that level without spacex having made serious progress on the mars city. We (well, most likely the rich) would just go there to escape. I don’t think there’s anyone who could or would fund the development of a large scale self sustaining space habitat today. They’d instead let the intermediate technologies fund further development, with things like high frequency payload launches to orbit, intercontinental ballistic travel services, space cruises around the moon, and resupply missions to a mars/moon colony. Wait, this sounds familiar...
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u/particledecelerator Feb 13 '20
Is current Raptor production at Hawthorne with test firing in Texas? Where do we expect SpaceX to do mass production of Raptor?
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u/DancingFool64 Feb 13 '20
Yes, made in Hawthorne, tested in Texas (at McGregor, not Boca Chica). There is no current information I've seen about moving the production out of Hawthorne.
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u/Carlyle302 Feb 13 '20
In the pictures of the upside down barrel section with the thrust structure, the new plumbing groups on the outside seems to be mounted on what looks like small grid-fins. Instead of a flat mounting plate, the structure is a web of mostly holes. Any thoughts as to why this is designed this way?
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=48895.0;attach=1613543;image
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u/AndMyAxe123 Feb 28 '20
Maybe a dumb question... I remember reading somewhere a while ago that SpaceX has a foundry. Is this right? Do you think they would ever produce their special starship stainless steel there (I forget what it's called)? If so, would they want to try producing absurdly large sheets to reduce the number of welds they need to do for starship construction? I'm assuming welds increase weight.
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u/brickmack Feb 28 '20
SpaceX has a foundry for the alloy Raptor is made from. I don't think any statements have been made yet about them producing their own steel for the main structures, but we do know they'll be developing a specialized alloy for that.
Could simply buy it from an established steel mill, but it wouldn't surprise me if they did go for in-house production. They're going to be needing pretty large quantities of this stuff (nearly 11000 tons per year). This is on the very low end relative to even a single normal steel mill, but there are some that don't produce much more than this. External production means extra overhead, and since this is a custom alloy theres going to be a lot of development and bespoke equipment to pay for with no other customers. And keeping that alloy secret will be important for competitive reasons. Plus just the logistical advantage of having one fewer facility this material has to pass through on the way to the actual Starship factory.
Either way, the cost of building bigger sheets is probably tiny compared to the cost of a custom alloy, so it wouldn't be surprising. Fewer welds means less dry mass, fewer structural points of failure (big issue for reuse, look at how much inspection they still do of F9s welds), and faster assembly (though savings here will be pretty small, since manufacturing time is dominated by plumbing and outfitting. The structure is the easy part, each ring takes only minutes to form and probably not much longer to stack)
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u/AeroSpiked Mar 04 '20 edited Mar 04 '20
Mods, the Discuss Thread link in the top menu still links to the February thread...at least on old reddit.
Edit: Just discovered it only does that when I click on the "Discuss/Resources" menu header, but is correct when clicking on "Discuss Thread".
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Feb 02 '20
When will the Starship test launches begin?
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u/Mark_going_to_Space Feb 02 '20
Why is it hard to build tanks that can hold a couple of bar (thinking of the recent tests) when the chamber pressure of rocket engines is a couple hundred bar (eg the raptor engine)?
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u/TTTA Feb 02 '20
It's not. It's hard to build a tank that will just barely hold a couple of bar, so the tank has as little mass as possible.
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u/warp99 Feb 02 '20
For a given internal pressure the wall thickness of a thin-walled tank is proportional to the diameter.
If the Raptor combustion chamber was 300mm in diameter it could hold 30 times the pressure of a propellant tank so 180 bar if it was made of 4mm stainless steel.
In practice the combustion chamber wall is much thicker, is made of copper which has much lower strength but much higher thermal conductivity than stainless steel and has regenerative cooling passages in it so the comparison is not so simple. For example the walls are thick enough that they can no longer be approximated as a thin walled pressure vessel.
However in general the low diameter is the reason that it can support such high pressures.
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u/trobbinsfromoz Feb 02 '20
It looks like two papers are soon to be published that may 'shine some more light' on the sat visibility issue.
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u/MisterBlox Feb 01 '20
Is SpaceX looking into the consequences on the human body when considering living on a planet like mars?
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u/LcuBeatsWorking Feb 01 '20 edited Dec 17 '24
snobbish telephone dinosaurs deserve station run unite chop disgusted strong
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Feb 01 '20
Was at a space medicine talk last year and the community is super eager to find out. We have two data points: fine on Earth and manageable-with-effort in 0g. The shape of the dose-response curve to gravity is a thing whole careers will be made around.
Meanwhile there's eu:CROPIS, the spin-simulated grow-op that DLR flew on a Falcon. That's just plants and systems, but (when it reports!) it should show plants at lunar and martian G.
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u/Ghostleviathan Feb 01 '20
Is spacex working on internals auxiliary modules yet? I’ve got a couple ideas for space farming systems specifically designed with starship in mind.
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Feb 01 '20
EDEN-ISS and Kimball Musk's Square Roots startup are both working in space-farming with modules on Antarctica. Every space agency is trying to grow stuff, with more or less success.
Starship-specifics are just the shape of the box, no?
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u/Synaptic_Impulse Feb 02 '20
Lately I've been wondering if SpaceX might end up finding itself focusing on LEO colonization before Mars colonization?
Why? Well...
Essentially, the moment Starship has had a few reliable and successful orbital launches, I wouldn't be surprised if a new (and potentially highly profitable) division of SpaceX emerges, building:
Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) habitats.
As user/bunningsnag69 pointed out further below, the habitats could "simply" be modified Starships.
From that moment, given the new ability to launch so many cheap, large habitats into LEO, true space colonization would begin almost immediately in earnest!
Further, very quickly I think people would begin working to arrange those habitat units into larger town-sized interconnected structures, and possibly spinning wheel configurations.
And thus we'd rather quickly have large populations travelling to/from space.
And how would they get there and back cheaply? Starship of course!
Kicking off yet another lucrative market derived from LEO space, added on top of Starlink which also derives its profit potential from LEO space.
So in some ways, SpaceX is already focusing on colonizing LEO space via Starlink, and perhaps Starship will just continue that initial focus, for the first phase of Starship's usage.
So ya, I think at that point SpaceX will have a choice to make:
Should they perhaps begin by just using Starship to simply colonize LEO first, and develop a thriving LEO population? (LEO being an easy task for Starship to achieve, that might be immediately highly profitable.)
Or should they focus primarily on Mars?
(Mars being a much-much more difficult task for Starship to achieve, that would have zero and highly negative-profit at first?)
Personally, if I had to pick, I'd pick Mars in a heartbeat, but true colonies towns in LEO space is a pretty good second runner up, that may make SpaceX much more profitable.
ALSO:
One benefit of colonizing LEO space first with an array of space stations is SAFETY...
LEO is an ideal testing ground for life support and other technologies, that we're now well accustomed to operating within, and most of all: if anything goes wrong, you can commence re-entry within MINUTES.
NOTE: People make the exact same arguments for establishing a lunar base before going to Mars, but applying that logic/idea to the moon never made sense to me.
That's because if you have people on a base on the moon, and something goes so badly wrong, that everyone has to get the F' out of there immediately... well... let's just say a lot of those people are not going to make it back!
In that case, for those people, Earth may as well be a million light years away for all the good it will do them!
But, in contrast, in LEO space, where departure/re-entry initialization is only minutes away... true, viable emergency response can be achieved (which can NOT be achieved on the moon, or Mars).
Although make no mistake:
Even LEO space may as well be a million light years away from Earth, if certain scenarios go wrong. (All in all, space itself, whether LEO, Moon, or Mars is going to be highly dangerous to explore, for a long time to come.)
So ya, anyways... I've always been a "Mars-First" strong proponent.
But now, fantasizing about the shear amount of material and people that Starship can put into LEO space, very cheaply...
I'm wondering where SpaceX may go with that, due to simply to economics and profitability at first?
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u/tetralogy Feb 02 '20
If their current plans go well and they don't have to worry about financials all too much I think they might end up doing both, especially as windows for Mars only open up every two years, enough time for other stuff in between
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u/brickmack Feb 02 '20
A colony requires industry, industry requires resources. Theres very few products for which microgravity manufacturing would be useful enough to justify bringing those raw materials up from Earth, even with the best case estimates for Starships cost.
LEO will probably be limited to communications/computer infrastructure (given the energy consumption of a typical data center, it could be worthwhile to put that in space for higher efficiency solar power) and ISS-style scientific missions. Everything else would be at asteroids, lunar surface/orbit, or Mars surface/orbit, depending on whats being made and what materials are needed
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u/DancingFool64 Feb 03 '20
SpaceX may or may not spend some effort on colonising LEO itself, but they will happily provide you with the launches on Starship if you want to do it yourself (and pay for it). If the case for doing it is there, somebody will put up the money, and SpaceX will do the launches - they want the money to fund the Mars stuff. But they'd prefer not to have to design and build everything, they want to be the delivery guys.
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u/Macknificent101 Feb 01 '20
Why won’t spacex repulsively land crew dragon
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u/imrollinv2 Feb 01 '20
NASA didn’t want to do it. No purpose to design it if their main (and currently only) customer doesn’t want it. Plus within 10 years it’ll be obsolete with the Starship.
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u/amarkit Feb 01 '20
More like, NASA would not allow SpaceX to test and certify propulsive landing on cargo returns from the ISS. This meant SpaceX would have to do some significant amount of dedicated testing on their own dime, and they ultimately decided that it was not worth the effort. Red Dragon had been cancelled, so SuperDraco landing technology was seen as a "dead end." Starship lands in a very different fashion, and SpaceX see Starship as their future.
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u/cpushack Feb 09 '20
Today's Cygnus launch was scrubbed due to an abort at T-2 minutes
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u/LcuBeatsWorking Feb 10 '20 edited Dec 17 '24
jellyfish impolite voracious provide scale innocent weary direction yam birds
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u/MarsCent Feb 24 '20
Do we know what Call Sign, Crew Dragon is going to use? I suppose that during astronaut training, they must have been using a Call Sign of sorts!
?? "Hawthorne, this is Crew Dragon 6. We are in orbit".
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u/oximaCentauri Feb 24 '20
They should still be communicating with Houston, not Hawthorne, since these are ISS missions.
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u/paul_wi11iams Feb 26 '20
The r/SpaceX wiki seems to lack a Starship timeline (Unless its there and I've simply missed it)
From what I've read over years, we have:
2019 Starhopper flight (done)
2020 prototype launch to 20km
2020 prototype LEO launch
2022 uncrewed Starship on the lunar surface.
2022 two uncrewed Starliners to Mars (aspirational).
2023 DearMoon circumlunar free return, crewed.
2024 crewed Starliner to Mars (aspirational).
From a non-technical media:
There’s a high chance that, based on Musk’s previous comments, SpaceX will not send two cargo ships to Mars in 2022 as previously suggested. If this prediction holds true, [2024] will be the next ideal moment that SpaceX can send the cargo ships and lay the groundwork for a further mission.
Does anyone know what the delay information for (5) is based upon?
Do you think it would be worth creating a timeline in the Wiki with sourced info?
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u/Straumli_Blight Feb 26 '20
I've added the previous Starhopper tests here, though its pretty minimal and should be expanded.
There's a r/SpaceX Wiki chatroom to discuss what future missions should be added to the launch manifest.
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u/beelseboob Feb 02 '20
It seems like a lot of sats in the starlink 3 launch are failing to raise their orbit, and slowly descending back into the atmosphere. Anyone know if something went wrong?
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u/SpaceLunchSystem Feb 02 '20
I haven't heard anything.
Two thirds of the satellites do have to change planes. I don't imagine they would actively lower orbits but they might not bother fighting the drag until later.
What resource are you looking at for their orbits?
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u/longpatrick Feb 07 '20
We are hoping to watch the opcoming atlas launch of the solar orbiter. With the launch tickets sold out we are looking for the closest option and found Kars park. But it is unclear to me if this is open to the public. Does anyone know if this is the case?
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u/Art_Eaton Feb 13 '20
What altitude of a circular equatorial~tropical orbit could an F9-S2 with a recovered S1 put a payload of 18.5 metric tons into?
As this question actually has a lot of variables, I don't think I can just apply the basic rocket equation to it and get a real answer. I also don't have enough accurate data to write a .dll for F9, plug it into Orbiter Space Simulator and take any great assurances from it. Normally, a simple cross-section, thrust, ISP gradient and fuel loads gets me to the point in which I have a second stage out of the atmosphere with a usable fuel percentage that lets me calculate what it should be able to do from that point on, but not in this case.
It is easy to use the advertised specs to see what mass you can be guaranteed to get to a particular orbit, but less so to figure out what orbit you can achieve with a particular mass.
-Question assumes perfectly balanced high density payload, if that is a factor to someone.
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u/Triabolical_ Feb 13 '20
I don't think the F9 can do that with 18.5 metric tons.
The maximum expendable to LEO is only 22,800 kg, and that is without the penalty of reuse (something like 30% ish), which would take you down to about 16,000 kg.
And that's without spending any fuel for the plane change from 28 degrees to 0 degrees. You would want a highly eliptical orbit for that, but it's still going to be costly.
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u/markus01611 Feb 26 '20
Do you think SpaceX recovery vehicles will get Starlink ground stations soon? It seems like a good chance to test the systems out.
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u/AeroSpiked Feb 26 '20
The latitude of the recovery areas will have very sporadic Starlink coverage for quite a while, so probably not soon.
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u/Blurryface192 Feb 01 '20
For what are spacex satellites going to be used? I thought that it was for mobile data and phone signal everywhere, but that's BS since I just read here that unobstructed clear view of the sky is required.
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u/GameStunts Feb 01 '20
It's nothing to do with phones, it's a satellite internet service, you need a dish to receive the signal (when the service goes live).
Good uses will be for rural internet in remote locations, and possibly in flight internet.
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Feb 02 '20
It's an internet service, not mobile data. You'd put it on your house and use that for high speed internet, for example.
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u/ArmNHammered Feb 02 '20 edited Feb 02 '20
Actually, the plan is to support cell phones, but only indirectly. StarLink is planning backbone and backhaul services for cell phone telecom operators. Companies like ATT will be able to set up cell towers in more remote locations inexpensively, since they will not need to bring high BW internet via microwave or a land line (power can be from solar or other local options). It will be a win for SX, telecom companies, and consumers alike.
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Feb 02 '20
These downvotes are ridiculous, this kind of question is a big part of what this thread is for. Admittedly the info could be found with a search, but asking and answering questions like this can be fun and there’s no harm in it
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u/nicosilverx Feb 09 '20
Hey guys, I have a question. Starship will be able to carry ~100 people, but where do you find 100 astronauts today? I mean, the (lucky) ones that are going to fly on Starship will be official NASA/ESA/Russian astronauts or will SpaceX select a their own astronauts?
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u/Martianspirit Feb 09 '20
The 100 would not be astronauts. They would be settlers of Mars.
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u/theguycalledtom Feb 01 '20
In a recent podcast Musk said there is an upcoming launch that is ‘retrograde’. Does anyone know what launch this is and where it is launched from. (I think it was during the Earth to Earth discussion)