Topic: Interesting stuff about SpaceX Starship (hate the name)

[Nemesis]

The first Kuiper satellites are now provisionally sometime in September as the rocket for the first planned launch (Vulcan I believe) isn't ready to fly and may not fly this year though it does seem to be scheduled for December.  Why they bought launches only on 3 not yet flown boosters I don't know but it wasn't bright and all 3 are delayed (Ariane 6 and New Glenn are the other 2).  This launch is on an Atlas (few Atlas flights left due to no more Russian engines). 

Amazon is being sued by a major stockholder over the Kuiper launch contract.  SpaceX wasn't asked for a bid and there was (allegedly) little or no oversight about Bezos as head of Amazon being involved on the bids for Amazon AND for Blue Origin.  Allegedly it was because of his "rivalry" with Musk that SpaceX wasn't asked to bid.  The lawsuit claims that not letting SpaceX bid cost 100s of Millions of $$. 

Since Vulcan, Ariane 6 and New Glenn STILL haven't launched (and may not this year) they risk defaulting on their orbital licensing by not getting the first satellites up on time or not having 1/2 in orbit (more than 1600 more than 800 tons) by July 2026 and all by July 2029 (total 3236 satellites and more than 1600 tons), some perhaps on the few Atlas V rockets left (no more Russian engines) or on the 3 unproven launch vehicles 2 of which rely on the unflown BE-4 engines.

Assuming 20 tons per launch they need in excess of 40 launches in less than 3 years.  Then another 40. 

Ariane 6 20+ tons to LEO
Vulcan Centaur 27+ tons to LEO
New Glenn 45 tons to LEO

Falcon 9 22+ tons to LEO

Even using New Glenn with 45 tons to LEO it is 18 launches in the next 3 years with no attempts yet made and the "scheduled" December flight extremely doubtful.  Without a reusable booster that would require 126 engines with each engine taking weeks to make.  They need to mass produce reliable BE-4 and BE-4 has yet to be flown.  This is especially problematic since the Vulcan Centaur is supposed to by contract get priority and each of its launches take 2 BE-4 engines and at least initially (could be years) they won't be reusable (if ever). 

Kuiper NEEDS Falcon 9 or Starship. 

[Nemesis]

Blue Origin is apparently pulling out of the Orbital Reef Station.  Their New Glenn was to be the literal backbone of the Reef so can it continue without them?

So the questions are 1/ is it true?  2/ why?  Is New Glenn not going to be available?

Maybe their partners should talk to Musk about a Musks Reef as I suggested previously.

[Nemesis]

Looks possible for a launch this Friday of the 2nd Starship attempt at orbit.

A Falcon 9 has now done 18 flights. 

[Nemesis]

Starship now set for Saturday Nov. 18th morning.  They had to remove the hot staging ring and replace a faulty grid fin actuator.

Two Falcon 9 are also launching Saturday morning.

I don't have details but there are reports of a Chinese company landing a booster.  I don't know if this is one that flew to orbit or just a up and down low level flight.

The Chinese rocket was the equivalent of the SpaceX starhopper.  It went up less than 200 meters never achieved anything like a high velocity.  Its landing legs are permanently deployed and it bounced pretty high on landing.  29 meters tall.

[Nemesis]

Details are lacking at this point but Starship did launch and achieve separation.  The 1st stage did their flip maneuver and seemed to ignite the engines for return then exploded.  The 2nd stage had full ignition and after nearly full burn time the signal was lost with apparent self destruct. 

Not a full success but still far better than the naysayers claimed would happen (they predicted it would at best explode on separation due to the hot staging).

How successful the deluge plate was still needs to be revealed.  Was there damage?

Not a full success but still a very good test.

[Nemesis]

I don't know how official this is but I've seen it reported that the next Starship flight is tentatively in December no precise date.  I'd expect it to slip into January or February as adjustments are made to "ensure" a more successful flight.

Falcon Heavy flies on Dec 7th.

[Nemesis]

Amazon is being sued by a major stockholder over the Kuiper launch contract.  SpaceX wasn't asked for a bid and there was (allegedly) little or no oversight about Bezos as head of Amazon being involved on the bids for Amazon AND for Blue Origin.  Allegedly it was because of his "rivalry" with Musk that SpaceX wasn't asked to bid.  The lawsuit claims that not letting SpaceX bid cost 100s of Millions of $$. 

Amazon has now signed a deal with SpaceX for 3 launches beginning in mid 2025.  A token contract so far. 

I recently saw an article that Blue Origin was planning to begin to build a integration building for New Glenn and a manufacturing facility for BE-4 engines.  PLANNING only so far.  They have been PLANNING December launches of New Glenn for 3 years so far and orbital launches in general for 23+ years. 

What are the odds they can have the integration building ready for August 2024?  How about having the manufacturing facility up and running in time to make all the required engines?  I have severe doubts.

[Nemesis]

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[Nemesis]

The booster used for Crew Demo for the first SpaceX manned mission to the ISS recently flew and landed its 19th mission.  On the way back to port under heavy seas (10-20' waves) it toppled and broke in 2.  R.I.P..

Engines are expected to be salvaged.

UPDATE:  Nothing much really but apparently since this on was built 3 1/2 years ago they have added automatic leveling to let them handle waves better so a newer unit might have survived.

[Nemesis]

SpaceX has had 98 launches in 2023, short of their planned 100.  This last  Falcon Heavy launch blocked several planned Falcon 9 with all its delays tying up the rocket transporter that takes weeks to readjust to and from the Falcon Heavy configuration.  Still VERY impressive especially with most of them being already flown boosters.  They plan 140 launches next year, whether that will be reduced if Starship goes into operation with its higher payload I wouldn't try to predict.

Currently looks like the 3rd Starship (SN28 and BN10) will be in March.  They just (within hours of each other) did a single engine static fire for SN28 and a 33 engine static fire for BN10, both successful tests.  SN28 has had test opening and closing of the cargo slot so this one seems to be planning to be launched without welding it closed.  The question is will it have any Starlink 2 satellites (or even mass simulators for them) when the launch occurs?

Vulcan has slipped to January 8th with the 2nd not till April where it is planned to carry Dreamchaser, the Sierra Nevada mini shuttle.  Proving my prediction that they wouldn't launch multiple Vulcans in quick succession after the 1st launch without at least a month or two to analyze data from the prior launch successful or not.

New Glenn is now only showing 1 launch and that in August, 3rd year in a row cancelling their late December debut launch again as I expected.  The other 2024 launches no longer show up on the schedule I'm using.

I have seen one unsubstantiated claim that Blue Origin may buy ULA.  If so and assuming that BE-4 and Vulcan work it would finally give them orbital capability but knowing Bezos he would start calling the history of ULA and all the companies that went into them as  Blue Origin history.  I hate it when companies do that. 

2024 ought to be eventful in the Space industry especially if all the planned new vehicles become functional.  Starship, Vulcan, New Glenn, Arianne 6 and several others in various stages as boosters.  The Starliner capsule if it works and isn't cancelled as a white elephant.  Dreamchaser for cargo to and from orbit and the ISS with the potential in the future to be manned.  Who knows what the Chinese and Indians will do as well?   There are some fairly novel things in the works. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR! to all. 

[Nemesis]

Vulcan flew successfully but the payload propulsion has caused issues (not the fault of ULA) so the lunar lander won't be landing, last I heard they were considering backup options to make some use of its science abilities from space.

There are people crowing about how the Blue Origin BE-4 engine is the first methalox engine to achieve orbit.  First of course since only the 1st stage has methalox engines none of them actually achieved orbit and second without the SRBs in addition to the BE-4 engines (2) the Vulcan wouldn't have got off the ground. 

Vulcan will be competing with Falcon 9 mostly to start and is substantially more expensive to fly.  Non reusable with plans to (maybe) one day recover the 2 BE-4 engines for reuse but nothing else to my knowledge.   Don't expect many to fly per year, it won't be flying as often as Falcons.

Blue Origin has rolled out a "complete New Glenn booster".  I put it in quotes because the inter stage unit to connect to the 2nd stage is not a flight capable unit.  No insulation and no control surfaces.  The "engine unit" is totally covered but has no aft control surfaces, looks like no landing legs and if there are engines you can't see any sign of them.  Most likely just a test unit for cryo tests and maybe static fires if they have any engines (they need 7). 

If this booster ever flies it will need a lot of work just to be in condition to try a sea landing (I don't think they yet have a drone ship to land on).  I seriously doubt that this one will fly.  Allegedly they have 3 more under construction. 

[Nemesis]

SpaceX has torn out 2 of the vertical tanks in the Boca Chica tank farm. 

They have started shipping tower components made in Florida to Boca Chica to build a 2nd tower there.

Axiom has another crew on the ISS (3rd flight for the Crew Dragon capsule).

They are designing a Starship 3 that will be 20-30 meters longer.  The tower would of course need to be taller.  No more details on cargo capacity etc.  They seem to have redesigned (but not installed on any ship yet) the payload door into a 3 part door. 

Starlink has demonstrated being able to send and receive text messages from a "standard tech" cell phone.  Whether this means existing cell phones can be used with it or not is not clear (to me anyhow).  They are demonstrating a backpack portable "dish" for mobile starlink connection, apparently "laptop sized".

The failed Peregrine lunar lander was made to re-enter and has burned up.  The Japanese lander did deploy (while landing) two small lunar rovers and landed but contact has been lost either because it rolled over or landed out of direct sunlight.

[Nemesis]

Ingenuity has had its last flight due to rotor damage.  The mission length was 33 times what was planned.  R.I.P.

[Nemesis]

Now assume a successor was build inside a Starship cargo bay and flown there with a detachable nose cone section, if it was refueled first in orbit and used a minimum energy trajectory how long could it stay on station? 

A Hubble replacement could be built the same way 8 meters in diameter.   Of course if it stayed in LEO repair/refurbishment/upgrade missions would be easily practical if Starship works to spec.

Building a telescope inside a Starship 2nd stage is now an official option from SpaceX.    Nice to be right. 

[Nemesis]

Info on IFT2.  The booster explosion was due to a Raptor exploding as a result of insufficient oxygen flow through a filter.

The O2 dump from the Starship caused multiple explosions that seem to have severed sensor connections resulting in the engine shutdown. 

The recent lander on the moon that fell over landed off target on a 12 degree slope which probably contributed to it falling. 

The JAXA lunar lander that also landed badly but which had some solar power allowing it to complete some missions survived the lunar night (it wasn't designed to) and is back in communication and continuing to function. 

[Nemesis]

Just seeing that IFT 3 is now listed as next Thursday morning.

They have done a wet dress rehearsal.  Fueling was done in something like 49 minutes and they think the upgrades that they have done will get that down to 42 minutes.  That is for BOTH stages at the same time. 

[Nemesis]

Launch occurred

33 engines for full duration

Successful hot staging separation

Booster did the initial relight after separation for boost back burn.

The relight for the "ocean landing" seems to have been at best partial.

Starship burn reached coast phase.

Pez doors did open.

Relight did not occur.  It is unclear at this point whether that was a computer decision or a failure of the engines to relight.

Re-entry seemed to be a tumble that could not be controlled.  Why is unclear.  Were all the flaps working correctly or not? 

During re-entry there was continued video through the Starlink system even with the tumble through the plasma that normally blocks transmissions. It is believed that the loss of transmission was due to it breaking up.  The video during plasma showed debris which might have been detaching heat tiles, ice or something else.

So a big leap ahead but not full success. 

On to IFT4.  How much it will be delayed is unclear. 

Still over all a big success. 

[Nemesis]

Relight did not occur.  It is unclear at this point whether that was a computer decision or a failure of the engines to relight.

The roll (not explained) caused the computer to not relight the engines.  It was not an engine failure but the roll itself is not explained.  It burned up during re-entry.

The booster not relighting properly seems to have it exploding at 460+ meters in altitude (not a flight termination as the explosives had been "safed"). 

Funny watching the naysayers ignore that their predicted failures didn't occur and target the goals not accomplished instead and predicting that this is the best that could happen in the future (just like they did after the 1st two flights). 

IFT4 now showing as April 2024 (no day of the month).  Lets see if the FAA will issue another license that quick.

[Nemesis]

Musk gave a talk where he claims that Starship will (eventually) be able to deliver 200+ tons to LEO with full re-usability.  Is this Musk hyperbole or real?  How much with expending the second stage?  How much with expending both stages?

[TAnimaL]

I'm prone to be extremely critical of Musk, but I suppose "eventually" is key to that claim.  Saturn's LEO payload for the Apollo lunar missions was 140 tons for CM, LEM and fuel fifty years ago, so 200 tons seems doable.... eventually.