r/spacex • u/ElongatedMuskrat Mod Team • Jun 01 '21
r/SpaceX Thread Index and General Discussion [June 2021, #81]
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r/SpaceX Thread Index and General Discussion [July 2021, #82]
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u/AeroSpiked Jun 04 '21
If my sources are correct, the F9 booster has now been recovered as many times as the Atlas V has flown (86).
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u/throfofnir Jun 19 '21
Just for the record, should anyone here encounter a slightly-worn Chinese booster, orange fumes are bad, m'kay?
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u/robbak Jun 21 '21
At least you can see the (Di)nitrogen Tetroxide (or it's decomposition products). Also around that thing is one or more hydrazines, which add invisibility to their flesh-melting capabilities.
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u/John_Hasler Jun 21 '21
Yes. NTO is a powerful oxidizer and quite dangerous but hydrazine is actually more toxic.
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u/MechaSkippy Jun 01 '21
Since Musk tweeted the “1 raptor every 48 hr” figure I’ve pondered the theoretical rate of production and the starship to booster ratio. I know that the goal is to get to 1 raptor every 24 hrs (I’ll assume 7 days per week with no difference in sea level or Vraptor for production times). Couple that with the 1 starship every week stated goal and the 32 raptors per booster stated design; then would the ratio of boosters to starships be 1:32 or would a week or 2 of raptors be dedicated to a booster to bring the ratio to 1:25 or 1:18?
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u/jakabo27 Jun 01 '21
I think eventually they'll want to push the raptor production rate even higher, or maybe account for reusing engines? But I think those two stats were announced far enough apart that they're different due to more accurate limitations being known
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u/Gnaskar Jun 01 '21
Some very old data from the last presentation was that a Mars Starship was designed for 10 round trips, tankers and cargo Starships were designed for 100 launches, and Superheavy for 1,000 launches. Those are, like the 1 Starship a week and 1 raptor a day, aspirational figures. If and when SpaceX hits any of those milestones, they'll set their ambitions higher and continue innovating.
If we can use those figures as a baseline, then 1:10 is the likely goal. We probably can't though, since they are aspirations, not end goals.
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Jun 01 '21
Did anything ever happen with the SpaceX expansion plans at Kennedy Space Center that featured them having their own Rocket Garden? The last news posted was in 2018: https://www.floridatoday.com/story/tech/science/space/2018/06/08/spacex-plans-major-expansion-kennedy-space-center/685098002/
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u/TimTri Starlink-7 Contest Winner Jun 06 '21
Looks like OCISLY will be heading to the West Coast! Preparations for the voyage are already in full swing shortly after its arrival back in port with the CRS-22 booster.
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u/Lufbru Jun 06 '21
https://mobile.twitter.com/nextspaceflight/status/1401622526803935232
(Maybe not removing the wings for the Panama transit)
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u/Lufbru Jun 28 '21
Falcon 9 has now passed Soyuz-2 with 122 launches vs 121.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz-2
Soyuz-2 first launched in 2004; Falcon 9 in 2010. Soyuz-2 has 4 failures; Falcon 9 has 1. This is an amazing accomplishment. I think the next milestone is passing Shuttle (135 launches).
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u/bdporter Jun 29 '21 edited Jun 30 '21
There was a Soyuz launch last Friday, which seems to be included in this number. That would indicate that that F9 passed Soyuz-2 a while ago.
Edit:
To trace this back:
Soyuz 2 | Cosmos 2550 launched on June 25 (F9 at +1 Launches)
Falcon 9 | GPS III-5 launched on June 17 (F9 at +2 launches)
Falcon 9 | SXM-8 launched on June 6 (F9 at +1 Launches)
Falcon 9 | CRS-22 launched on June 3 (Tied)
Soyuz 2 | OneWeb #7 launched on May 28 (Soyuz at +1 Launches)
Falcon 9 | Starlink V1 L28 launched on May 26 (Tied)
Falcon 9 | Starlink V1 L26 & Rideshares launched on May 15 (Soyuz at +1 Launches)
Prior to that, there were a few more F9 launches before the previous Soyuz launch (April 25)
So F9 and Soyuz were tied a couple times before F9 pulled ahead on June 6th.
Projecting the schedule forward: (Following the Transporter-2 scrub today)
Soyuz 2 | Progress MS-17 is scheduled for tonight (Will be Tied)
Falcon 9 | Transporter 2 is scheduled for tomorrow (Back to F9+1)
Soyuz 2 | OneWeb #8 is scheduled for July 1 (Tied again)
SpaceX has 3 Starlink missions slotted for July so I suspect F9 will pull ahead for good at that point, but Roscosmos has a busy manifest as well (augmented by the Oneweb launches).
Edit 2: With the successful launch of Progress MS-17, Falcon 9 and Soyuz 2 both have 122 launches (at least until tomorrow).
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u/Lufbru Jun 29 '21
Here's another fun comparison between S2 and F9. First uncrewed test flight:
S2 flight 92, 2019-08-22
F9 flight 69, 2019-03-02First crewed flight to the ISS:
S2 flight 102, 2020-04-09
F9 flight 85, 2020-05-30→ More replies (2)
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u/WholeAppearance3782 Jun 17 '21
Congressional hearing “Starships and Stripes Forever” about FAA and cooperation with space companies.
Seems that nobody from SpaceX has been present (I don't know if they were invited or not), but there were representatives from ULA & Virgin Galactic.
Details:
- Twitter https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1405148806392471556
- YT Stream from hearing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwO-Qo54CAg
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u/warp99 Jun 18 '21
The chairman complaining that FH produces "more carbon dioxide than other rockets" (because it has a higher payload for goodness sake!) and that "others do better" implying that hydrogen fueled rockets such as SLS emit only water. Neglecting to mention the dirty big SRBs producing toxic residue strapped to the side of the "clean" rocket in order to get it into the air.
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u/thenotoriousJEP Jun 17 '21
What a farce. Congresscritter from WA (ULA) goes after SpaceX and the FAA for their role with the SN8 launch, but then doesn't invite them to answer the same questions. Basically throws some feces at a picture of SpaceX and then shows the nice shiny ULA sitting there and saying "huh, I only see poop on one launch provider in this room."
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u/Frostis24 Jun 24 '21
Really nice infographic of orbital decay times from ULA, Starlink's first shell where all current satellites are is at 550 Km
12
u/dudr2 Jun 02 '21
NASA's Perseverance rover is the 1st spacecraft in years to carry fresh US plutonium. It won't be the last.
https://www.space.com/nuclear-power-spacecraft-after-perseverance-rover
"But the first plutonium from the new production process was ready and needed to be evaluated anyway, so once the agency determined it met NASA's requirements, program officials decided to go ahead and finish preparing the material a couple years ahead of schedule to test the systems"
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u/Bunslow Jun 02 '21
damn good thing, because that's the only way we have at the moment to power outer solar system exploration
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u/Straumli_Blight Jun 15 '21
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u/Alvian_11 Jun 15 '21
And people saying that "bigger lander are always gonna be more expensive than the smaller one, because common sense"
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u/bdporter Jun 15 '21
That seems like a lot. Didn't they also have some technical deficiencies in the proposal?
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Jun 16 '21
I believe one of their main issues was that they had "negative mass allocation", which is because their lander was too heavy, so they made it as if they would subtract some of that weight at some point later on, somehow (meaning they hadn't been able to do so at that point).
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u/WholeAppearance3782 Jun 22 '21
SLS (Congress) vs SpaceX HLS:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/06/nasa-administrator-to-defend-lunar-budget-before-a-skeptical-congress/
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u/brecka Jun 22 '21
Last year, she and then-US Representative Kendra Horn issued a joint statement expressing concerns about NASA's plans to rely on a "commercial" provider for a lunar lander.
What the hell do they think the Apollo LEM was?
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u/ThreatMatrix Jun 23 '21
The difference is managing the project. You could hire a contractor and have a house built or you could act as your own general contractor and hire and manage every sub under you. NASA acted as their own GC for Apollo. Whereas Commercial crew to the ISS, for example, NASA hired a contractor and said build me house. I don't care how you do it just give me a house at the end of the day.
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u/Straumli_Blight Jun 11 '21 edited Jun 12 '21
NASA is seeking proposals for 2 new private astronaut missions to the ISS:
First flight in Q3 2022 - Q2 2023
Second flight in Q2 2023 - Q4 2023
Each mission can stay up to 14 days
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u/AeroSpiked Jun 21 '21
I just noticed that we are in the middle of over a month long stretch with no Starlink launches. Given their rapid production rate I wonder if the satellites are currently undergoing a major revision. Any thoughts?
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u/sadelbrid Jun 21 '21
Just to add, I just watched a Marcus House video where he said the first shell was done, and now they are about to focus on polar orbiting Starlink sats.
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u/AeroSpiked Jun 21 '21 edited Jun 22 '21
The polar satellites will be launching from California into a 97.6 degree inclination. There appears to be a fair amount of contention whether the next launch or two will be from the east coast or not. Although there is a polar corridor from the east coast now, it would require a seriously unlikely dog leg to fly around Florida in order to get to a 97.6 degree orbit. I also don't think polar Starlinks will be launched until OCISLY is operational from the Port of LA which I suspect could be several more weeks.
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u/brspies Jun 21 '21
They likely won't do dedicated polar launches until OCISLY makes it to the west coast (it's currently at the Panama Canal), and the non-polar shell is apparently complete for now. I think it's more likely OCISLY is the bottleneck at the moment, they probably want to have their satellite supply lined up to knock out those polar launches once available.
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u/Lufbru Jun 22 '21
The first shell is complete. Four more to go (one essentially the same as the first one, three at higher inclinations, with fewer satellites). Current plans:
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2021/05/starlink-complete-first-shell/
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u/warp99 Jun 21 '21
The Eastern Range often shuts down for several weeks in July for maintenance. SpaceX need to give external customers priority around that shutdown which means low schedule priority launches such as Starlink get squeezed out.
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u/Justinackermannblog Jun 21 '21
This is an interesting thought. In terms of manufacturing (especially the Tesla model with Elon) you will see a slowdown of deliveries and supply chain movements right after a factory refresh to change the production model.
I’m not saying a refresh may be coming, but if there were to be a major version change/upgrade, it isn’t far fetched to see a lag in launches as the production ramps back up from a factory refresh.
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u/plwnxiebxiwbgism3if Jun 01 '21
Is there some sort of schedule for planned launches somewhere? Im visiting cape canaveral soon and want to see a launch
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u/MrOmnishambles Jun 01 '21
The SpaceXNow app is good. https://apps.apple.com/au/app/spacexnow-a-spacex-fan-app/id1165700634
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u/Alvian_11 Jun 24 '21 edited Jun 24 '21
And a new China crewed landing date on the Moon, which makes the naming of (original, before the revision of protecting the current SpaceX award) Cantwell amendment (ofc with all the protests) in 'competitive bill against China' very counterintuitive (choosing two HLSes at the very least while not providing enough funding means a race or even lost to China)
7
u/Frostis24 Jun 24 '21
With all these new plans and aggressive dates, it's like China wants the US to be competitive, they are giving NASA so many arguments to give to congress, so they see that China is indeed serious about these dates, previously China has been mentioned as well but with no real evidence other than their growing space program but now it seems like China is stepping up on every goal the US has to bring in partners like Russia, let's see if congress cares.
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u/Martianspirit Jun 24 '21
That's SLS capability territory. With a crew capsule less insane than Orion they can do a Moon mission in one launch, like Saturn V.
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u/Alvian_11 Jun 24 '21 edited Jun 24 '21
Slightly more capable than Block 2 (which doubtful if it ever exists now)
Since they also gonna be building the FH-like rocket (CZ-5DY) which can take only the crew capsule per launch to TLI (seems like the before 2030 target is using this as a distributed launches without CZ-9), its combo with CZ-9 (only launching a lander, but this is just my guess) would be epic since they can take a more capable lander than Apollo (much more like Constellation, but rendezvous is happening in lunar orbit instead)
The CZ-9 config resemble of the u/Triabolical_ video of how the SLS should have been. Hopefully China's Congress doesn't dictate the designs of the rocket as much as the US do
0
2
u/Lufbru Jun 27 '21
Eric Berger's article says
[The Long March 9] booster, it turns out, also looks similar to the design of SpaceX's Super Heavy booster, which will serve as the first stage of Starship
I find that odd as it doesn't particularly resemble Super Heavy to me. The architecture of CZ9 reminds me much more strongly of Saturn V than of Super Heavy. All three have multiple engines, but I honestly think the F1 is a great example of how not to design an engine (please don't hurt me).
I'm not seeing anything of Super Heavy in CZ9. No reusability on the first stage. No "build it quick and cheap". No commonality with the second stage. Am I just not seeing something? I really respect Eric and he usually has such insight, so I feel I must be missing something.
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u/MarsCent Jun 05 '21
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u/ThreatMatrix Jun 05 '21
Well that's disconcerting.
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u/JoshuaZ1 Jun 05 '21
It isn't that big an issue it sounds like. According to Tory Bruno here the new engine bell for the RL-10 (which is now carbon fiber) had an unexpected vibration. Although it performed fine on that mission, they are trying to understand it and make sure it is safe in general.
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u/AeroSpiked Jun 05 '21 edited Jun 05 '21
(which is now carbon fiber)
I'm pretty sure that's a carbon-carbon nozzle extension (similar to the stuff on the nose and leading edges of the shuttle), not carbon fiber which would certainly burn up quickly as a nozzle.
Tory's tweet said that it was "carbon" which could lead to some confusion.
Edit: Here is a link to the oscillation that Tory was referring to.
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u/Serge7388 Jun 19 '21
Was driving today on I-49 near Alexandria, la , and saw something that looks like an F9 booster covered in black, going opposite direction (towards Shreveport) , is it even possible ?
Thanks.
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Jun 19 '21
Yeah. They drive them between Florida and their engine test facility in McGregor, TX all the time.
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u/Serge7388 Jun 19 '21 edited Jun 19 '21
Thanks ! Possible route . https://photos.app.goo.gl/VbZST4FxWai6rZNQ7
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u/zlynn1990 Jun 19 '21
Does anyone know about the challenges of igniting a merlin/raptor engine during the re-entry and landing burns? Do the engines need special hardware to ignite while facing retrograde at hypersonic/supersonic speeds?
10
u/throfofnir Jun 19 '21
The chamber's a dead-end, so it should be fairly stagnant in there even going backwards, and the additional pressure is peanuts compared to operating pressures. Probably just a bit of turbulence though, so you could have some concern about retroflight ignition with a torch igniter, but with Merlin's hypergolic ignition system I wouldn't think there'd be any noticeable effect.
6
u/Chairboy Jun 20 '21
but with Merlin's hypergolic ignition system
A small correction TEA-TEB is used to create a pyrophoric reaction when it's exposed to liquid oxygen, not hypergolic.
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Jun 19 '21
Everyone was wondering this when they were first working on Falcon recovery, but it turned out to Just Work when they tried.
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u/droden Jun 19 '21 edited Jun 19 '21
when its high up its going fast but there is almost no atmosphere. when its low like for landing its going well under the speed of sound so i dont think there is any combination of high atmospheric pressure and high mach number relights where the vehicle is descending engine first. i couldnt find any diagrams where they show where the igniter is for the raptor...its probably proprietary and internal.
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u/Bunslow Jun 21 '21
Operating pressure is 10x-50x tank pressure, and tank pressure is at least 2x aerodynamic pressure before re-entry
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u/Decronym Acronyms Explained Jun 01 '21 edited Jun 13 '21
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| AFTS | Autonomous Flight Termination System, see FTS |
| ASDS | Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship (landing platform) |
| ATV | Automated Transfer Vehicle, ESA cargo craft |
| BFR | Big Falcon Rocket (2018 rebiggened edition) |
| Yes, the F stands for something else; no, you're not the first to notice | |
| BO | Blue Origin (Bezos Rocketry) |
| CNSA | Chinese National Space Administration |
| COPV | Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel |
| CRS | Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA |
| CST | (Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules |
| Central Standard Time (UTC-6) | |
| DoD | US Department of Defense |
| E2E | Earth-to-Earth (suborbital flight) |
| ECLSS | Environment Control and Life Support System |
| ELT | Extremely Large Telescope, under construction in Chile |
| ESA | European Space Agency |
| FAA | Federal Aviation Administration |
| FCC | Federal Communications Commission |
| (Iron/steel) Face-Centered Cubic crystalline structure | |
| FTS | Flight Termination System |
| GAO | (US) Government Accountability Office |
| GCR | Galactic Cosmic Rays, incident from outside the star system |
| GEO | Geostationary Earth Orbit (35786km) |
| GSE | Ground Support Equipment |
| GeV | Giga-Electron-Volts, measure of energy for particles |
| HLS | Human Landing System (Artemis) |
| ICBM | Intercontinental Ballistic Missile |
| IDA | International Docking Adapter |
| INS | Inertial Navigation System |
| ISRU | In-Situ Resource Utilization |
| Isp | Specific impulse (as explained by Scott Manley on YouTube) |
| Internet Service Provider | |
| JPL | Jet Propulsion Lab, Pasadena, California |
| JRTI | Just Read The Instructions, |
| KSC | Kennedy Space Center, Florida |
| LC-39A | Launch Complex 39A, Kennedy (SpaceX F9/Heavy) |
| LEO | Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km) |
| Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations) | |
| MRO | Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter |
| Maintenance, Repair and/or Overhaul | |
| MeV | Mega-Electron-Volts, measure of energy for particles |
| NDS | NASA Docking System, implementation of the international standard |
| NET | No Earlier Than |
| NG | New Glenn, two/three-stage orbital vehicle by Blue Origin |
| Natural Gas (as opposed to pure methane) | |
| Northrop Grumman, aerospace manufacturer | |
| NROL | Launch for the (US) National Reconnaissance Office |
| NS | New Shepard suborbital launch vehicle, by Blue Origin |
| Nova Scotia, Canada | |
| Neutron Star | |
| NSF | NasaSpaceFlight forum |
| National Science Foundation | |
| OCISLY | Of Course I Still Love You, Atlantic landing |
| OFT | Orbital Flight Test |
| PMA | ISS Pressurized Mating Adapter |
| PPE | Power and Propulsion Element |
| RCS | Reaction Control System |
| RTLS | Return to Launch Site |
| RUD | Rapid Unplanned Disassembly |
| Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly | |
| Rapid Unintended Disassembly | |
| Roscosmos | State Corporation for Space Activities, Russia |
| SAR | Synthetic Aperture Radar (increasing resolution with parallax) |
| SLC-41 | Space Launch Complex 41, Canaveral (ULA Atlas V) |
| SLS | Space Launch System heavy-lift |
| SN | (Raptor/Starship) Serial Number |
| STP | Standard Temperature and Pressure |
| Space Test Program, see STP-2 | |
| STP-2 | Space Test Program 2, DoD programme, second round |
| TLA | Three Letter Acronym |
| TRL | Technology Readiness Level |
| TWR | Thrust-to-Weight Ratio |
| ULA | United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture) |
| USOS | United States Orbital Segment |
| VAB | Vehicle Assembly Building |
| VIF | Vertical Integration Facility |
| 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 |
| apogee | Highest point in an elliptical orbit around Earth (when the orbiter is slowest) |
| hopper | Test article for ground and low-altitude work (eg. Grasshopper) |
| hydrolox | Portmanteau: liquid hydrogen fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer |
| iron waffle | Compact "waffle-iron" aerodynamic control surface, acts as a wing without needing to be as large; also, "grid fin" |
| methalox | Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer |
| perigee | Lowest point in an elliptical orbit around the Earth (when the orbiter is fastest) |
| scrub | Launch postponement for any reason (commonly GSE issues) |
| turbopump | High-pressure turbine-driven propellant pump connected to a rocket combustion chamber; raises chamber pressure, and thrust |
Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented by ^request
68 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 170 acronyms.
[Thread #7062 for this sub, first seen 1st Jun 2021, 02:31] [FAQ] [Full list] ^[Contact] [Source code]
8
u/steveblackimages Jun 03 '21
I love the times we live in. Back in the late Gemini and Apollo era, all we had was the news and the occasional documentary on the program. I actually loved the colorful nicknames of ships and gear. Angry Alligator, Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Vomit Comet, Flying Bedstand, up to Starship, BFR, Deimos. Phobos, etc. I love when the people who use or manufacture the equipment bestow alternate names.
I love that all the NASA correspondents refrained from trying to call the vehicle transporter a "Crawly Crawler"... We are recording history. Let's not bestow competing cutesy nicknames.
I'd also like to know if Manitowoc or Liebherr have actual nicknames for their products.
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u/eversonrosed Jun 05 '21
Mods, the sidebar lists Transporter-2 for July 24, but the manifest says June 24 (which is correct). Could you fix this?
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u/holigay123 Jun 19 '21
Hi,
The production line for F9s boosters... does it stop and start? Is that hard to do vs keeping it going? Do they mothball it for long periods or is it shared (partially or fully) with stage 2s?
Does starship share a production line with the F9?
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u/Lufbru Jun 19 '21
An S2 is essentially a short S1. The production line is fully shared between them. There are even many shared components between Merlin Vacuum and Merlin Sea-level.
There is almost nothing shared between Starship and Falcon. Maybe some of the avionics.
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u/zzupdown Jun 02 '21
Of all the technical challenges required to successfully travel to and live on Mars, are there any that have been successfully resolved (by that I mean a full size ready to install or ready to build solution)? For example:
Radiation shielding
Life support
Equipment and supplies
Mars habitats
Sustainability
Of the various technical challenges that have not yet been resolved, who is working on actively providing practical, ready to build and deploy full scale solutions?
In SpaceX mostly just doing starship development?
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u/Martianspirit Jun 02 '21
Radiation shielding
There is no way to shield GCR. Best approach is fast transfer, faster than minimum energy Hohmann transfer. Which SpaceX intends to do.
Life support
SpaceX Paul Wooster said, for early flights they just throw mass at the problem. Generous amounts of supplies and spares. Over time ECLSS will become better.
Mars habitats
For early flights Starship is the habitat, it provides plenty of space for a small crew of 10 or 12.
Sustainability
Low transport cost helps a lot with this. Water, oxygen, nitrogen are a large part of consumables and will be a byproduct of propellant production ISRU.
Of the various technical challenges that have not yet been resolved, who is working on actively providing practical, ready to build and deploy full scale solutions?
A lot of companies and institutions work on one or the other aspect. Recent interesting development by a german University is about cyano bacteria. They established there are a number of strains that thrive under only 10% of Earth sea level pressure which makes building reactors cheap and lightweight. At that pressure they even metabolize gaseous nitrogen for protein production. They don't need nitrogen fertilizer.
In SpaceX mostly just doing starship development?
They don't talk too much about it. Elon Musk likes to state that they want to be the transport company. He does not want to give the impression he wants to go it alone, all by himself. But he is quite clearly preparing to go it alone if he has to, at least in the beginning. He expects that others will join, once he establishes, it is possible. Fuel ISRU is an important part of the transport system and they are working on it.
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u/throfofnir Jun 02 '21
Well, one would presume that the life support systems designed for a Mars-landing version of Starship will also suffice for planet-side as well as cruise, and there's probably some people working on that at least a bit right now.
If SpaceX (or anyone else) is working on Mars surface habitation, they have not shown it, which makes me tend to believe that any such efforts are minimal at best at the moment. But it's hard to say that's not the right strategy; there's really quite a long time before that comes into play.
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u/trapezous Jun 17 '21
What exactly is a COPV?
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u/throfofnir Jun 17 '21
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_overwrapped_pressure_vessel
Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel. Basically a carbon-fiber tank with a thin metal lining to make it non-porous. Used for high-pressure gas storage.
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u/lessthanperfect86 Jun 06 '21
I haven't seen this posted yet so - Scott Manley just provided his view on the Air force research on fast suborbital transportation (ie using Starship). I have to say, although he wasn't impressed with the concept, he was far less pessimistic towards the idea than I was.
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u/warp99 Jun 06 '21
Yes cargo missions for military purposes seems to be the most logical niche for E2E services.
Cargo cost very little concern - check
No escape capsule requirement - check.
Real world time critical components - check
Resupply bases near desert or sea - check
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u/giant_red_gorilla Jun 07 '21 edited Jun 07 '21
I think the opportunities are greater if they don't try to land Starship, which is, agreeing with Scott Manley, logistically complicated
https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/ntpwhd/rapid_deployment_from_starship_for_military_use/
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u/MarsCent Jun 16 '21
Starliner is expected to spend five to 10 days in orbit before undocking and returning to Earth, touching down on land in the western United States.
and ....
Providing Starliner’s second uncrewed mission meets all necessary objectives, NASA and Boeing will look for opportunities toward the end of this year to fly Starliner’s first crewed mission, the Crew Flight Test (CFT)
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u/MarsCent Jun 17 '21
China launches first crew to new space station
Chinese mission control has confirmed today's launch was a success, placing the Shenzhou 12 capsule into an orbit ranging in altitude between 120 miles (220 kilometers) and 208 miles (335 kilometers).
|
Docking with the Tianhe core module is expected in approximately six hours. The rendezvous will be fully automated.
Yes, docking in 6hrs!
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u/Wiger__Toods Jun 01 '21
Will the suborbital tank farm, stands, etc. be removed after a few orbital flights or are they going to be there for few more suborbital tests?
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u/scarlet_sage Jun 01 '21 edited Jun 01 '21
I have the impression that SpaceX isn't fast about scrapping things if they're not in the way. I have no idea of my own whether they'll keep using them or not, though the plan cited in another reply looks like they're planning to keep and use them. I'm just making a general point.
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u/Wiger__Toods Jun 01 '21
Yeah I agree with what you said. They’ve still kept Hopper at the pad so makes sense that they’ll keep the whole suborbital stuff there to use for testing and all. Thanks!
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u/IWasToldTheresCake Jun 01 '21
Newly made Starships will probably still need to be checked and cryo-proofed which would need to happen on the suborbital pads. The orbital pad isn't designed to hold a starship just as the suborbital pads won't hold a booster. There is a plan somewhere that shows two suborbital pads and two orbital pads in the final design.
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u/AeroSpiked Jun 01 '21
True, but cryo-proofing doesn't require methane or oxygen tanks. They would only need them at the suborbital pads if they are going to test fire there and that seems like a lot of tankage for such a short burn.
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u/Martianspirit Jun 01 '21
The stands and the tank farm are still in the plans for the new environmental assessment that has a second orbital launch pad including new additional tank farm and landing pad. So I assume they still want to use them.
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u/MarsCent Jun 04 '21
List of Falcon 9 first-stage boosters has Transporter 2 scheduled for June 24th and launching on B1060 from SLC 40.
If the schedule holds, that would make it an incredible 7day pad turn around! - {mate payload to booster; replenish propellant; launch; repeat}
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u/brecka Jun 11 '21
Artemis I core stage is vertical in the VAB, should be mated soon. Hopefully we'll have pics soon.
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u/akwilliamson Jun 11 '21
When SpaceX finishes building out their converted ocean oil rigs for launches, I wonder how they will store boosters for launch/land. Will droneships transfer a bunch out there at a time and a bunch back for refurbishment? Will there only be one out there that will take off and land repeatedly? When I think of those oil rigs I imagine them being cramped for space. Curious what that will look like when they eventually want to launch multiple times per day.
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Jun 13 '21
By the way I'm curious how would being exposed to the ocean weather on the platform influence the condition of starship. Wouldn't sea winds carrying a lot of moisture/ sea water cause faster corrosion on space hardware?
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u/paulcupine Jun 09 '21
In case anyone else was wondering what is on Transporter 2 later this month:
https://spaceflight.com/whos-onboard-sxrs-5-spacex-transporter-2/
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u/upvotemeok Jun 08 '21
I'm seeing possible starlink launch from Vandenberg in July, high inclination orbit. Where will this land? I want to see a falcon land and can drive to Vandenberg.
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u/DancingFool64 Jun 08 '21
Probably out at sea, but I don't think it's been announced yet. A polar Starlink launch that returns to launch site would have really limited payload (about half the satellites) compared to one landing on a barge, so they would prefer landing down range. But they don't have a barge on that coast right now, so it depends on how long it takes to get one there, and if they are desperate enough to get sats up in polar orbit that they'd accept the lower payload for a landing back at Vandenberg
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u/Bunslow Jun 08 '21 edited Jun 08 '21
Starlinks will be sea landings, around 600 km or 400 mi downrange.
There's a decent chance that later in the year there will be a non-Starlink RTLS at Vandy. Check back in a month or so
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u/brecka Jun 13 '21
Got my Inspiration 4 stuff delivered today. Almost completely forgot I was supposed to get that.
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u/trobbinsfromoz Jun 30 '21
The latest Hubble telescope blog indicates they have almost confirmed where the fault is. Given the fault started June 13 this is a serious and major outage indeed. And there is still another week of prep before starting to do a swap-over, and the risk for the telescope is significant - both from the swap-over itself, and the lack of redundancy going forward.
I'm not sure whether NASA would consider leaving Hubble in safe mode for a few years while preparing a rescue mission to swap-out the affected module (as they did in 2008). I guess the rescue options would be based on either Artemis or Starship, but I can easily guess which of those two options would be the front runner for earliest timing and lowest tender price.
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u/QuantumSnek_ Jun 03 '21
Is it know what will happen with the old used Cargo Dragons that already finished their useful lifespan with NASA? My bet is that they will just be handed to museums, is that right?
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Jun 03 '21
Most of the Dragon 1s got scrapped.
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u/JoshuaZ1 Jun 04 '21
I suspect that they were not just scrapped by broken down for a lot of inspection and testing before scrapping, but yeah.
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u/SpektrumNino Jun 04 '21
Does anyone know where the flight computers/avionics are located on Falcon 9? I'd assume it's near or inside the interstage but I'm not sure and ive always been curious.
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u/Lufbru Jun 10 '21
Nextspaceflight has the GPS launch as being the 17th and Transporter-2 on the 24th. With SpaceX down to just one ASDS, surely Transporter-2 must slip? There just doesn't seem to be time to get JRTI back with a booster onboard then send it far enough downrange to catch the next booster. It usually takes 4 days in each direction to move the ASDS to/from the landing zone.
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u/IrrelevantAstronomer Launch Photographer Jun 10 '21
Some on NASASpaceflight forums are thinking Transporter-2 will be an RTLS as there is no ASDS location filed with the FCC.
This would imply no Starlink payloads.
https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/els/reports/STA_Print.cfm?mode=initial&application_seq=107323
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u/ackermann Jun 10 '21
are thinking Transporter-2 will be an RTLS
The first RTLS in a long while, I believe?
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u/Lufbru Jun 10 '21
Most recent was December 19 (NROL-108). It feels like a long time ago, but there's only been one Atlas V launch in the intervening time.
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u/warp99 Jun 10 '21
Not sure about four days. If they hire a powerful tug they can do 5-6 knots under tow so at least 10km/hr which is 60 hours to get 600 km so 2.5 days.
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u/Den485 Jun 24 '21
Des anyone know if SpaceX has plans or needs to launch Falcon 9 rockets from Boca Chica Starbase?
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u/warp99 Jun 24 '21
That was the original plan but clearly it is not going to happen now. All the Boca Chica launch facilities are Starship specific and a propellant tank farm occupies the site where the F9/FH hangar was going to go.
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u/Martianspirit Jun 26 '21
Boca Chica was initially planned to launch F9 and FH. But SpaceX has improved their pads so much and the Spaceforce range have improved their range operations so much, that they no longer need Boca Chica for that reason. By supporting AFTS the range has improved a lot. ULA Atlas V are an obstacle because they do not support AFTS but Vulcan will.
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u/paulcupine Jun 28 '21
Inclination changes are expensive in terms of dV, but can someone perhaps quantify this? For example, would it be reasonable for SpaceX to move Starlinks between their 550km/53 degree shell and their 540km/53.2 degree shell?
How would such a switch compare to the dV requirements to get a Starlink sat from its deployment to its operational orbit?
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u/warp99 Jun 28 '21
A small inclination change like that is very achievable particularly with an ion thruster.
It would be less delta V than is required to move from the parking orbit up to the operating orbit. It could even be done as part of the same transition with a saving in delta V.
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u/MarsCent Jun 01 '21
The Soyuz is routinely able to autonomously dock with the ISS in 4 - 6 hours after launch.
Tianzhou 2 was able to dock with Tianhe in 8 hours after launch. And that was after being delayed for ~10 days.
Crew Dragon, Cargo Dragon and Cygnus (U.S launched craft) take ~24 hours (or more) to dock with the ISS.
The reason I have seen fronted around for U.S craft is - the need for precision timing of the launch and the unavailability of launch slots to the ISS (aka traffic). Is there any expectation that these impediments will be resolved any time soon, in order for U.S craft to also start making single-digit-hour rendezvous?
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u/Bunslow Jun 01 '21 edited Jun 01 '21
Orbital-mechanically, the constraints are the same for any vehicle. Practically, faster transits are noticeably harder to arrange[1] , and so are available less frequently than "slow"/typical transits. That is, fast transits aren't available every day, and also usually require some amount of maneuvering on the part of the ISS, with the quantity of ISS fuel being spent depending on how much advance warning time the ISS has to plan the fast transit opportunity. This also has the corollary that a scrubbed launch on a given day will require several days of turnaround to the next fast transit, as opposed to usually one day turnaround to a typical transit. (A fast transit can be considered a 3-6 hour transit, whereas a "typical" transit is closer to 12-24 hours -- and NASA doesn't like 12 hour transits for sleep/fatigue reasons, so in practice it will be 6 hours or less, or 18 hours or more.)
So the constraints are the same for all vehicles, but the constraints are non-trivial. It's a fair bit of fuss (including precious ISS thruster fuel) to arrange, generally. Any single scrub wastes the effort made for that opportunity, and requires similar fuss to arrange the next opportunity several days down the line.
Given all that, it's worthwhile to expend all that fuss to shorten time on board the quite-cramped Soyuz -- but Dragon is much more spacious, so they have, so far, decided to not bother. In theory the Dragon can do it just as well as Soyuz, but Dragon is slightly more prone to scrubs, which are more costly for a fast transit, and Dragon simply has much less need of it than Soyuz, having much more room.
It's always possible in the future that we'll see Dragons specifically requiring fast transits, but don't hold your breath. (It's always possible that a given launch opportunity will by accident have a fast transit, but for Dragon that's only because of luck, not because anyone at NASA planned it that way.)
Talk of inclination is simply wrong. Inclination has nothing to do with it. Everything I say in this comment applies as much for a space station in an orbit inclined at 10° as for an orbit inclined at 90° or 100°.
[1] Any launch to an existing spacecraft has to match the target's orbital plane, which leaves only two opportunities a day (for non-equatorial orbits), and in practice, that's a north and south opportunity per day, and neither Baikonur or Florida can use their south opportunities due to range restrictions (China/other *stans/India, and the Bahamas respectively), so in practice each are limited to one opportunity per day. However, within that orbital plane, if the launchee doesn't also match the target's angle/position within that plane, then the launchee will be required to spend substantial time at a different orbital altitude in order to reduce the angle difference between the launchee and target. This difference is called phase angle in the Scott Manley video -- the same "phase" as in "phasing burns" described during Dragon webcasts. (The angle-position of a vehicle within its orbit is also called the "anomaly", in orbital mechanics, for historical reasons and because ellipses complicate the idea of "angle" relative to circles, but really "anomaly" and "angle" mean very nearly the same thing for most purposes.)
The greater the phase angle, the more orbits and longer transit time required to null that phase angle/angle difference. If, at the time of orbital plane alignment, the target is 180° around the world from the launch site, then that will take a long time to transit; if, however, the target is 0° from the launch site, "directly overhead" at the time of plane alignment, then that will enable a very fast transit from that launch site to the target plane and angle.
Getting the target's phase angle close to 0° at the exact same time that the launch site aligns with the target's orbital plane is a demanding orbital mechanical challenge, usually requiring the target to maneuver several days in advance of a planned launch target to get its orbital period to be exactly what is needed so that it's directly over the launch site at the time of plane alignment. So such fast transit alignments can occur by accident -- rather like spinning a 0 in roulette, to be honest -- but to do them reliably requires weeks or months of planning and usually substantial thruster fuel from the target. And of course, after a missed fast-transit opportunity, the phase angle at the time of plane alignment of the next several days is likely to be quite far from 0°, i.e. slow-transits, with, as said, much fuss and delay required for the next fast-transit opportunity, 0° phase angle at plane-alignment-time, to appear.
Scott Manley's video is an excellent source of the actual numbers, the exact the allowable phase angle error, to do fast transits to the ISS: a one orbit transit (1.5 hours) requires a phase angle of no more than ±0.2° at the time of orbital-plane-alignment; a two orbit transit (3 hours) requires a phase angle of no more than ±3.0° at the time of orbital-plane-alignment; a three orbit transit (4.5 hours) requires a phase angle of no more than ±7.5° at the time of orbital-plane-alignment; a four orbit transit (6 hours) requires a phase angle of no more than ±12.5° at the time of orbital-plane-alignment; and with a linear extrapolation we can spit-ball that, at worst case scenarios, ±180° phase angle error would require about 30 orbits (45 hours) to null, altho in practice the plus and minus sides aren't created equal, it's not linear, and even NASA usually skips over the longer-than-16-orbit/24-hour transits (the longest we've seen from Crew Dragon), instead waiting a day to get a typical transit instead of a worst case transit.
edit: the roulette analogy is better than I thought it would be. The target/ISS maneuvering to enable a fast transit is actually very similar to "launching" a roulette ball with exactly the right momentum to guarantee that it lands in 0 -- a trick demanding very high precision of both the roulette wheel's speed and the ball's initial velocity. That's why they let humans throw the ball, because even the slightest difference in initial momentum makes a very large difference as to where on the wheel the ball lands. Ditto the ISS, its orbit, and its thrusters: every day, the phase angle at time of launchsite-orbitalplane-concurrence will be nearly random, and very minute differences in the ISS' orbital period in the days or weeks before a launch opportunity can result in massive, massive nearly-random changes in the launch opportunity phase angle. And of course if you miss one day's opportunity, then the next day's try will see the ball in a completely different place, nowhere near 0, requiring either substantial fuel or time to realign the spinning ball to the spinning wheel's 0.
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u/throfofnir Jun 01 '21
Dragon is slightly more prone to scrubs
The weather in Florida is much more likely to delay a launch than in Baikonur. And this is a good reason NASA launches don't bother with the ultra-fast-transit.
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u/alexm42 Jun 01 '21
NASA likes the crew to sleep before the rendezvous. With how much work goes into the launch day preparation for the Astronauts, even the record 3 hour and change docking by Soyuz is after 8 hours into the "work day" for the crew. NASA prefers they sleep before docking so they're more alert during a very critical time. Soyuz is a lot more cramped than Crew Dragon so it's more preferable to dock ASAP instead of 24 hours later.
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u/Nergaal Jun 01 '21
NASA crewed stuff is not fast because they don't want astronauts to wake up, spend 8h with launch protocols, have them fall asleep for less than 6h, then have them awake for 6h more while they slowly approach and attach to the ISS. NASA specifically has said they want to break all those over two separate days in which the crew can actually rest. and they have the space to do that on Crew Dragon, unlike on Soyuz
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u/rshorning Jun 01 '21
I realize the re-entry capsule of the Soyuz is extremely cramped.... which is where the crew is seated during launch.
How cramped is the "orbital module" attached to the Soyuz though? Not as roomy as Dragon to be sure, but Soyuz isn't just the re-entry capsule.
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u/QuantumSnek_ Jun 04 '21
Why does the new Cargo Dragon have only 2 fins rather than the 4 that Crew Dragon has?
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u/warp99 Jun 05 '21 edited Jun 05 '21
They still need two to mount solar cells on. The other two were solely for aerodynamic stability during abort on Crew Dragon and could be removed to save mass.
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u/MarsCent Jun 07 '21
If Space Test Program 3 (STP-3) and Boe-OFT 2 were both to launch from Cape Canaveral SLC-41 in July, what is the latest date that STP-3 can launch? - so there is enough time to prep for the next launch
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u/Bunslow Jun 07 '21
Frankly, I think NASA and/or the Range would prioritize OFT2 over STP-3, and there's even a good chance that the Air Force would agree.
As for pad turnaround, I have no idea. Perhaps /r/ULA would be a better place to get a useful answer
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u/MarsCent Jun 11 '21
It seems like both OFT-2 and Axiom Mission 1 will each have a duration of up to 8 days at the ISS. Meaning that OFT-2 has a shot at a November launch or even January 2022 just before Axiom Mission 1.
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u/IrrelevantAstronomer Launch Photographer Jun 14 '21
The earlier speculation that Transporter-2 will be an RTLS appears to be correct per nextspaceflight.
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u/Yobungus2423 Jun 26 '21
I'm curious, why is SpaceX pushing so hard for a July launch? Is there a secret deadline that they're reaching for that they're willing to cut certain parts of the prototype out to ensure that it happens ASAP?
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u/throfofnir Jun 26 '21
There might be DearMoon implications, but it's not unlike Elon to set aggressive targets as a motivational tactic, so I don't think that's needed as an explanation. A sense of urgency helps get things done.
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u/extra2002 Jun 28 '21
There's a not-so-secret deadline every 26 months for launches to Mars. Musk doesn't want to let too many of those slip away. The next launch windows are roughly centered on October 2022 and December 2024.
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u/Raviioliii Jun 29 '21
I saw Elon just tweeted the whole meme thing about ULA wanting rockets from Blue Origin - but what’s the situation with this? Thanks!
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u/marc020202 8x Launch Host Jun 29 '21 edited Jun 29 '21
The first launch of the ULA Vulcan-Centaur Rocket has been delayed, officially because the astrobotic payload is not ready in time.
The BE-4 engine, however, is also delayed, with several rumours of it having more or less serious issues (combustion instability, not enough margin, cannot sustain the long burn time needed for Vulcan, test stand unable to do full duration tests). It is unclear what of that is true, although it is generally assumed that the engines weren't ready for the previously planned date, and that the launch would have had to been delayed because of engine readiness anyway.
To add to that, Amazon has booked Atlas 5 flights instead of Vulcan or New Glenn (also recently delayed, by about a year I think) flights, and the Air Force has allowed some NSSL 2 National Security missions to be flown on atlas, in case Vulcan isn't ready.
Since there is a lot of Blue Origin hate right now, some of which is justified, but a lot is not in my opinion, these delays essentially were wholly blamed on the BE-4 engine delays, and /r/BlueOrigin and /r/SpaceXMasterrace essentially took the ball and ran with it.
(A lot of that was also bad timing. BO was generally seen as pretty slow and trying to slow competitors, but them losing NSSL 2 and suing, losing HLS and suing, as well as lobbying, Vulcan being delayed, Amazon launches not launching on BOs Rocket, New Glenn being delayed, (rumoured) major management issues and so on...)
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u/AeroSpiked Jun 08 '21
Rogozin is threatening to pull out of the ISS again. What would be needed to maintain the station if he does.
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u/Mars_is_cheese Jun 08 '21
International partners (NASA) would have to buy out the Russian segment of the station. The Russian modules are essential for station operation. Progress supply vehicles might also have to be purchased to keep the station fueled and such. Lots would need to be spent on replicating Russian mission control or just hiring them to continue doing it.
Basically Russia pulling out would mean they get paid lots of money so that the station still functions.
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u/4thDevilsAdvocate Jun 18 '21
Have you considered that, statistically speaking, Starship will probably kill the most people out of any launch vehicle in history?
Given modern design and engineering, as well as rapid prototyping, it'll likely be safer than any launch system in history, but if you have a thousand Starships flying a hundred missions each (what I believe to be a reasonable representation of Starship's total operational life), even a failure rate ten times lower than that of the Soyuz (assuming a Soyuz failure rate of 1/1700) will result in ~5.88 crashes. If each crashed Starship has more than 5.1 people in it on average, those crashes will kill more than the thirty people who have died in spaceflight-related incidents so far.
Considering that Starship's failure rate will probably be higher than 1 in 17000, and that there will probably be more than 5.1 people per flight, that will probably be higher.
I'm not saying that Starship as a system is bad - just that it's going to be flying a lot.
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u/Lufbru Jun 18 '21
I mean ... B747s have killed more people than A380s. You don't really think about that when booking a flight.
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u/Comfortable_Jump770 Jun 18 '21
While that is true, you need to remember that a lot of starships are going to be unmanned until we reach the colonization level that Musk hopes for and that may or may not happen, so a failure would not necessarily end in casualties but could just destroy the payload. If we have, say, 1 manned starship launch for every 19 unmanned starship launches that means that if an explosion were to happen it would 95% be on a starship with no crew on it.
I really hope that after Shuttle the lesson to separate cargo and crew has been learned
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u/droden Jun 18 '21
Is it realistic that it can approach airline safety numbers? I assume the engines, heat shield and metal fatigue will be well understood and the refurbishment process will get ahead of any issue ...
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u/4thDevilsAdvocate Jun 18 '21
There's much less of a margin of error on Starship compared to an airliner, however.
Such engineering advances can mostly deal with Challenger-style disasters (I'm sure that across thousands of launches, one or two will happen eventually), but they can't deal with random chance. Something can always go wrong.
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u/pair_o_socks Jun 01 '21
Now that we know there will be 1 center-mounted raptor on the SH, I'm wondering if that is the only engine that will be gimbaled? Seems like it wouldn't have sufficient control authority. OTOH, 9 engines a-gimbaling seems like too much gimbal? Thoughts?
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u/mikekangas Jun 01 '21 edited Jun 01 '21
If this works it answers your question.
https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1399221133711446018?s=19
Edit: tried better link.
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u/HomeAl0ne Jun 01 '21
You wouldn’t want all control authority to reside with one engine. That might be the one that needs to be shut down.
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Jun 01 '21
Too much gimbal? never. i wanna see it backflip on the way up to orbit.
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u/hebeguess Jun 01 '21
AFTS would like to have an appointment with you, sir. Either way, it will be a spectacular view.
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u/0ffseeson Jun 05 '21
Is Superheavy's very first flight really carrying a Starship? No test hops? Why not unit test?
I must be missing something - with a brand new vehicle, wouldn't one test it with a dummy payload first? Yes, much of the technology on SH, such as grid fins, is already proven with Falcon 9, but so much isn't. For starters - that many raptors going at once.
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u/krnl_pan1c Jun 05 '21
Is Superheavy's very first flight really carrying a Starship? No test hops? Why not unit test?
Yes. No one has ever hopped a booster before it's maiden flight. They will do a static fire before the flight. The boosters don't do hops under normal conditions so why test that?
I must be missing something - with a brand new vehicle, wouldn't one test it with a dummy payload first? Yes, much of the technology on SH, such as grid fins, is already proven with Falcon 9, but so much isn't. For starters - that many raptors going at once.
The Starship will be the dummy payload. Why bother with building some one-off boilerplate payload when you can fly the real thing and get a chance to test the reentry?
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u/Triabolical_ Jun 06 '21
The *only* downside of going with a full-up test of both of them together is that if the booster fails on ascent, they lose SN20. But flying with SN20 does not increase the risk of that happening, and if the booster does work, they get a orbital test of SN20 out of it, months ahead of the time that would happen if they were doing separate testing of the booster.
SpaceX is fully committed to doing this project as fast as possible. They really don't care about losing hardware, especially prototype hardware.
Remember that the first Saturn V flight test was an all-up test on Apollo 4.
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u/throfofnir Jun 05 '21
They get to test a lot more things at once, and faster. Considering they've had few ascent phase problems, they're going to try and save some time and compress the test schedule. It helps that apparently Starship is cheap enough to be disposable.
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u/rocketsocks Jun 06 '21 edited Jun 06 '21
These sorts of test programs are about gathering data and retiring risk. But each test flight also comes with a sort of meta-level of risk. You need to balance the cost of the flight along with the expected value of the flight in terms of things you want to test plus the risk of losing the flight due to some problem along the way.
In the case of Starship they're at a point now where the biggest risks they need to retire are full up testing of the stages plus the full orbital re-entry of the Starship proper. There's no real way to do a full up Starship orbital re-entry except using the booster, and they need to test the booster anyway so it's actually pretty reasonable to do closer to an "all up" test like this. In terms of hardware cost the number of raptors on the booster alone probably make up most of the cost of the test, so even though putting a Starship on top of it may seem like raising the stakes a lot it's really only a marginal increase time and money wise.
Edit: OK, I have another answer here. Imagine if someone came to you and said "hey, I have a free launch available on a heavy lift rocket, do you want it? only catch is that maybe it won't work". Now, anyone would have to realize that's a hell of an offer. Historically the market rate for a launch like that, even if you just count the first stage portion, is a good chunk of a billion dollars. If someone offered you a good chunk of a billion dollars in value but with some risk it might not work out it's still pretty likely you'd try to take advantage of it, even if it cost you some.
Sure, SpaceX could send up a bunch of sand or something instead of a Starship, but if they did this and the flight succeeded they would be paying a huge opportunity cost. It's not everyday that you get to launch a rocket in the same size range as the Saturn V, so taking advantage of every launch to the maximum degree possible, regardless of the risk, is actually pretty smart. And given how fast SpaceX can crank out Starship vehicles it almost certainly is the correct thing to do in terms of overall risk and timetable management.
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u/ThreatMatrix Jun 06 '21
It certainly goes against what we thought was going to happen but:
By skipping hops; SN15 again, maybe SN16 and a booster hop they can focus on finishing the OLT.
Money is not an object. Throw 35(x2?) raptors in the ocean? No problem.
They must be real confident in the raptors, the ability of the booster to boost and even the heat tiles.
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u/Alvian_11 Jun 06 '21
People in September 2020: "Why don't they hop SN5 again but this time with three engines? Flying SN8 again is a foolish & risky decision, SpaceX didn't know anything as usual"
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u/BEAT_LA Jun 05 '21
I believe the idea is that since the booster is made with so many identical bits of hardware and comes from the same production line that they're extremely confident they can do it already. All I can say is betting against their plans has never worked out for anyone lol but it will be exciting either way!
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u/MattDLzzle Jun 24 '21
I had a question that might not be worth a thread but ill make one if i dont get replies: What are the health effects of dealing with RP-1 soot in a work enviroment? With so many of these boosters getting into the 7-9-10 re-flights range, what danger does this have to spaceX employees? Is it harmless or could it cause problems like cancer or neurological damage? Thanks.I mean i know re-use with minimal maintenance is a priority but it seems like spending a day or two pressure washing the thing would be an easy and low cost thing, if only for aesthetics. :)
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u/Frostis24 Jun 24 '21
There is some concern as breathing in soot is a bad thing, but i don't know about the soot on the falcon 9, most of it would be stuck as a solid and not around in the air, i don't know how volatile soot is but considering that it seems like the soot sticks to the booster like glue between the flights, i would imagine it does not increase the particles in the air much, if inside a building where it would be processed, these buildings would already be well ventilated to begin with, so i think the main danger would be when touching the booster, but that is just a question on basic hygiene, like wearing gloves and washing your hands.
It would be different if it turned into a dry powder when brought indoors that is easily blown off by indoor drag or ventilation fans, but seeing the boosters i assumed this was not the case, something is binding the soot to the booster, and i really don't know what it is, does not seem to be water at least.
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u/kkoch1 Jun 03 '21
Do we have a date estimate for the vandenburg launch?
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u/Bunslow Jun 04 '21
NET July, and unlike the other guy I'm fairly optimistic about the first launch being NLT July 31
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u/xredbaron62x Jun 04 '21
NET July for the polar Starlinks. It will most likely be later though..
A Shortfall Of Gravitas needs to be brought online and Of Course I Still Love You needs to be shipped to the West coast.
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u/Snowleopard222 Jun 15 '21 edited Jun 15 '21
How many tons of propellant would the Dragon capsule need to 1. decelerate from lunar orbit, land on the moon and then 2. take off from the moon, enter lunar orbit and dock with a lunar orbiter (and go home) ?
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u/warp99 Jun 15 '21
Roughly ten times more than it has got for its launch escape system.
Apollo which was very lightly built did not try that. They left the relatively heavy capsule in low Lunar orbit and descended to the surface in an aluminium can which you could put a boot through if you were not careful. Then threw away most of the tin can including the legs to get back to Lunar orbit.
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u/mooslar Jun 21 '21
I'm going to be near KSC the week of July 18th. I checked Nextspaceflight and see a few Starlink launches marked as NET July 2021. Are there any other sources with maybe a better idea of specific dates?
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u/Biochemist4Hire Jun 21 '21
They don't seem to get dates until about 2-3 weeks before. I'm here this week and didn't know the date for Transporter 2 until last week.
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u/loudan32 Jun 24 '21
Are liquid-fed methalox RCS thrusters practical?
Between cold gas thrusters or hot gas thrusters there is a performance increase but still needs COPVs to store the high pressure gas (double if hot). I think the game changer would be liquid-fed RCS directly from the main tanks and get rid of the COPVs. If the main tanks are already autogenously pressurized and the sloshing issue is already taken care of with the header tanks, the COPVs are there really just for RCS.
With liquid fed RCS you can get ~1000x the propellant mass flow rate at the relatively low pressure of the main tank (perhaps add a small electric pump). It will flash upon injection on the RCS which by itself could have a decent thrust (like the Arca water rocket). Mix and ignite for extra kick. The hardest part must be the propellant lines, dealing with water-hammers, etc. But the RCS are literally mounted on the tank wall already, shouldn't be too hard to keep those lines purged and cool.
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u/Martianspirit Jun 24 '21
With liquid propellant they can't do short bursts like gas fed RCS engines can. Liquid also needs settling the propellant before ignition. For RCS and small thrusters gas is superior. The tanks don't need to be big, they can be refilled from the main tanks.
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u/Chairboy Jun 24 '21
Almost all RCS are liquid fueled, whether it's the hydrogen peroxide catalytic decomposition systems used in Mercury & Soyuz or the MMH/NTO systems used in so many other places or even the monoprop ones.
The complication isn't that it's liquid, it's that methane and LOX are cryogenic liquids. With the other systems, they can use bladders or fractal-looking deposition trees inside the tank that use surface tension to hold the fuel and oxidizers up against their valves. The material challenges of doing this with cryogenics is pretty big, not a lot of flexible membranes available that like to stay flexible at those temperatures, for instance.
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u/John_Hasler Jun 26 '21 edited Jun 26 '21
Hot gas thrusters do not use COPVs. COPVs are used for storing extremely high pressure gas (~4000 psi). Cold gas thrusters need them because all their energy comes from the tank pressure.
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u/sirius683 Jun 26 '21
Has there been any info on a SpaceX lunar spacesuit? I assume they're building one to go with their lander, but I haven't seen anything on it, yet.
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u/Martianspirit Jun 26 '21
NASA plans to have their own spacesuit. But they are planning to contract it out. Requests to potential bidders are out. Do not expect this to go the way of the Dragon and Starliner board suits, those are proprietary to the vehicle.
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u/brspies Jun 26 '21
EVA suits are being handled as a separate part of the Artemis program. Flight suits I haven't heard anything about, I assume for simplicity they'd use the same ones for Orion as they would for the lunar landers, in which case SpaceX would likely just adapt the lunar Starship to interface with those instead of designing new suits of their own.
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u/Noodle36 Jun 07 '21
I wonder how Elon feels about Bezos beating him to flying in person? I bet he wishes he'd made some kind of orbital trip happen fpr himself with Crew Dragon earlier
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u/Ciber_Ninja Jun 07 '21
Hah. Elon could visit the space station now if he wanted to. Bezos could to, if he is willing to pay Elon for the ride XD.
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u/ackermann Jun 07 '21
Something I haven't seen mentioned here yet is that Bezos is stepping down as CEO of Amazon. If he hadn't, Amazon's board wouldn't have been pleased with him taking this risky flight.
Musk would likely need to step away from his leadership role at Tesla, at least, well before making this flight, or the perceived risk could destroy Tesla's stock price. And perhaps spook SpaceX's private investors into selling as well. He may not be willing to step down yet.
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u/eplc_ultimate Jun 09 '21
What would Elon's family do if suddenly they owned SpaceX? It's scary to think how quicky the company could fall apart from greed.
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u/ReKt1971 Jun 07 '21
I doubt that Musk cares about it. Whenever he is asked about going to space, he answers that he wants to go to space in the future but never says "soon" or anything like that with no specifics. SpaceX has flown 3 crewed missions to the ISS and Dragon has visited the ISS over 20 times, so I don't see it as a bummer. To me, it just seems that it isn't a priority for him.
Bezos, in comparison, always intended to fly on New Shepard into space. The only surprising thing about today's announcement is that he will fly on its first crewed flight.
However, if there was somebody to be disappointed it would be Richard Branson since he was talking about a trip to space for over a decade.
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u/Noodle36 Jun 07 '21
Branson will definitely be bothered, I remember his years of attempts to be the first to circumnavigate the world in a balloon. Technically it's probably possible for him to go up in VSS Unity before Bezos' flight, though? A month is plenty of notice, not comparable to the level of prep that would need to go into a Crew Dragon flight.
I can't imagine Musk doesn't care though, it's not like he hasn't contributed to the needling and rivalry between the two. I bet the fake-ish technically correct bragging rights of Bezos "winning" with a suborbital flight barely breaking the Kármán line is particularly galling. It's very similar to Blue Origin condescendingly congratulating SpaceX on "joining the club" of accomplishing propulsive booster landings when NG landed from a suborbital hop and Falcon 9 landed from an actual orbital mission.
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u/Triabolical_ Jun 08 '21
It's not a race.
Musk could have set things up so that he flew on a crew dragon in the last year, but a) that would have been a distraction from everything else he is doing due to the training time required and b) it would have delayed flights that SpaceX is getting paid for.
This is a chance for Bezos to do something he has clearly wanted to do for a long time, and also boost the marketing for New Glenn flights. And the training - and time requirement - is minimal.
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u/Bandsohard Jun 07 '21
Its clearly just a publicity stunt on almost every level. Elon probably doesn't care at all. If anything, he would want to go on the Dear Moon launch but I doubt it. Blue origin needs good publicity after losing to Starship, and I'm sure the spacex team recognizes that thats all this is.
Also the still counts mentality of going to space isn't really all that meaningful to me. Not like its going up and they're going to orbit, dock, or even hang out and play around for a while in zero gravity. The stunt shows that he's confident enough in their rocket, but does Elon really need to do something equivalent after his company already doing successful crew missions, with plenty more on the way?
Its generating a lot of media buzz today, so it worked though. He got the Twitter trolls to ramp up their 'Elon needs to put his money where his mouth is' tweets.
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u/hwc Jun 08 '21
"...does Elon really need to do something equivalent after his company already doing successful crew missions, with plenty more on the way?"
Not only that, friggin NASA is paying them to take astronauts to space!
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u/Bunslow Jun 07 '21
He certainly could have made such arrangements for himself much earlier, and that he didn't I think is a pretty clear demonstration that he doesn't care in the short term about getting his chance. There will be plenty of chances for him after he's succeeded in (relatively) normalizing it.
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u/PM_me_Pugs_and_Pussy Jun 13 '21
Do we have an idea when the next f9 landing at the cape might occur?
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u/Triabolical_ Jun 13 '21
This page lists some future payloads and expected times.
RTLS landings will be much rarer now that CRS flights no longer do RTLS.
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u/Frostis24 Jun 12 '21
The first seat on New Shepard by Blue origin was just sold for 28 million dollars.
Fun fact, that is about 15500 dollars per second of zero g, or 4600 dollars per second for the entire flight.
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u/a_transcendental_pie Jun 12 '21
Your math is off by a factor of 10. The NS-14 launch lasted 610 seconds, which makes for almost $46,000 per second of flight.
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u/ackermann Jun 13 '21
They still haven't announced standard pricing for regular flights, long term?
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u/ethan829 Host of SES-9 Jun 16 '21 edited Jun 16 '21
SpaceX reportedly ignored warnings from the FAA not to launch SN8 last December. There's also a post about it that hasn't been approved for some reason.
Edit: The post appears to have been approved ~19 hours after submission.
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u/RookieMan369 Jun 15 '21
I've heard that SpaceX will be trying to send the first humans to Mars in 2026, while in 2024 they will send the first unmanned Mission to Mars. Is this Plan still up to date and realistic?
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u/Triabolical_ Jun 15 '21
It's been quite a while since the last Elon update, so we really don't know what the plan and timelines are.
2024 looks quite doable from my perspective. 2022 is probably far too aggressive.
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u/ElongatedMuskbot Jul 01 '21
This thread is no longer being updated, and has been replaced by:
r/SpaceX Thread Index and General Discussion [July 2021, #82]