The Starship "I risk sending a thread off topic" Homeless Posts Thread 2

[Star-Dust]

I presume next flight tests will be made with proven flight Serial numbers like SN15, this could speed up the process of testing.

Any clues about next step for SX test compagn.

I thought the whole point of this development path is to keep iterating. I'm not sure what if any differences there are in SN16 relative to SN15, but I'd also like to know if SN16 will fly higher/farther than SN15 did, or if it will attempt a similar flight.

We could keep going with iteration while keeping fundamental of proven flight SNs, what about a full heat shield covered SN15 , what about testing some sort of crew cabin with windows? a lot of possibility offered by a reusable SN15.


I just also wanted to suggest a thread to follow BNs developement process it hard to get any information or news about BNs.

[Dave G]

I am also very interested to find out which Starship will fly next.

Is this worth it's own thread?

[rakaydos]

SN15,16, and 17 are a block earlier than the orbital class SN20. Could they be  refit to SN20-class?

[Dave G]

SN15,16, and 17 are a block earlier than the orbital class SN20. Could they be  refit to SN20-class?

I suspect SN20 has some internal structural changes that are not suitable for refit.
But they could add some stuff incrementally to get closer to SN20, especially the heat shield.

Note that the latest FAA addendum to the EIS dated December 2020 talks about Starship test hops up to 30km (link here).
Is this high enough to start testing the heat shield?

[Jcc]

I presume next flight tests will be made with proven flight Serial numbers like SN15, this could speed up the process of testing.

Any clues about next step for SX test compagn.

I thought the whole point of this development path is to keep iterating. I'm not sure what if any differences there are in SN16 relative to SN15, but I'd also like to know if SN16 will fly higher/farther than SN15 did, or if it will attempt a similar flight.

Depends on what specifically they need to test. So far they have 5 flights of basically the same profile, all 5 were successful up to landing (counting the relight explosion of SN11), and one successfully landed. There have been a lot of internal changes, but not to the OML and the aerodynamics of the 10KM hop are well proven.

So, maybe they need to expand the aerodynamic envelope, fly higher and downrange, turn around and come back, testing the ability to kill some horizontal velocity with the bellyflop, and precisely land. That will require more propellant and there is a limit to what you can lift with 3 raptors, although I understand they have margin to increase thrust.  Will be interesting to see.

[Cheapchips]

But they could add some stuff incrementally to get closer to SN20, especially the heat shield.

I'd have thought that retrofitting a full heatshield would be one thing that's not worth it, for SN15 at least.  Their current pin wielding method involves rotating the barrel section within height reach of the robot.  They can't do that with a stacked ship.

[Joseph Peterson]

May 6th 2021 Updates:  Uncrewed Mars landing date

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1390386652007251970
Tweet Contents:  Still aiming for 2026 launch window?
2024 is not out of the question for an uncrewed flight

With that I'm going to recalibrate my expectations from an uncrewed Mars attempt in 2022 Is very doubtful to definitely isn't happening.

[hoku]

Just going to watch StarshipBocaChica's "Cinco de Mayo Multi view launch of SN15", and YouTube decides to "air" the new Blue Origin commercial "BID FOR THE FIRST SEAT" up ahead....


Now, should I save for a trip to Mars, or bid on BO's 100km high elevator ride? Decision, decisions ... 

[Norm38]

I'm still very confused on how Starship is being secured and moved. 
So it was jacked up onto the low slung rails?  I never saw the crane move in.

Did anyone know they were doing this?  They can just grab it and go without a crane? (though they haven't gone yet...)

What are the cranes doing?

[cdebuhr]

I'm still very confused on how Starship is being secured and moved. 
So it was jacked up onto the low slung rails?  I never saw the crane move in.

Did anyone know they were doing this?  They can just grab it and go without a crane? (though they haven't gone yet...)

What are the cranes doing?

Essentially ... yes.  There were a few theories about the purpose of the contraption bolted together from SPMTs and heavy steel beams.  One of the leaders was that its purpose was to drive over to a landed Starship and lift it by the edges of the skirt for transport, no crane needed.  We can all see now that that theory was correct.

As for the cranes, they're either doing various crane things, or waiting around to do other crane things, but for now at least it appears that picking up freshly landed Starships for placement onto transport cradles isn't on their agenda anymore.

[StarshipSLS]

Elon Musk tweeted that Starship SN15 could fly again soon!

[AC in NC]

While going back to update the Tweet Index History...

I'm cross-posting a tweet from March as context for the question at the bottom:


https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1369933283174318082
Tweet Contents:  If 2021 manifest is met, SpaceX will do ~75% of total Earth payload to orbit with Falcon.

A single Starship is designed to do in a day what all rockets on Earth currently do in a year.

Even so, ~1000 Starships will take ~20 years to build a self-sustaining city on Mars.

What is Musk meaning with the bolded statement from the tweet?

I'm going to feel stupid if I'm missing something obvious, but it doesn't seem close to right.  Just an imprecise use of SS (and inconsistent vs. the next statement about Mars) to mean SH?

Would like to capture the correct intent for the Index thread.

[LiamS]

I'm going to feel stupid if I'm missing something obvious, but it doesn't seem close to right.  Just an imprecise use of SS (and inconsistent vs. the next statement about Mars) to mean SH?

Would like to capture the correct intent for the Index thread.

I interpret that to mean that starship, when it is fully up and going, will be able to launch the same tonnage into orbit in a 24 hour period that every rocket launch during a typical year can.

going by ZachF's fantastic post detailing annual payload to orbit for various organisations, using an adjusted payload value
link below:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=50640.msg2070733#msg2070733
the typical year has ~700 tons of adjusted payload value launched into orbit, to take a high estimate

According to spacex's website starship will be able to launch "in excess of 100 metric tons to earth orbit", which I'll take to mean 100 metric tons for this conservative estimate


so Elon thinks that starship will be capable of 7 launch missions per day, or roughly one every 3 hours 26 minutes. In order to match the current world launch capacity with a single starship in a 24 hour period

[schuttle89]

I'm going to feel stupid if I'm missing something obvious, but it doesn't seem close to right.  Just an imprecise use of SS (and inconsistent vs. the next statement about Mars) to mean SH?

Would like to capture the correct intent for the Index thread.

I interpret that to mean that starship, when it is fully up and going, will be able to launch the same tonnage into orbit in a 24 hour period that every rocket launch during a typical year can.

going by ZachF's fantastic post detailing annual payload to orbit for various organisations, using an adjusted payload value
link below:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=50640.msg2070733#msg2070733
the typical year has ~700 tons of adjusted payload value launched into orbit, to take a high estimate

According to spacex's website starship will be able to launch "in excess of 100 metric tons to earth orbit", which I'll take to mean 100 metric tons for this conservative estimate


so Elon thinks that starship will be capable of 7 launch missions per day, or roughly one every 3 hours 26 minutes. In order to match the current world launch capacity with a single starship in a 24 hour period

Elon has said before that once there are enough sea platforms and starship doesn't have to do multiple orbits to land that the time between launch and landing would be around 90 minutes so hopefully launch every 3 hours which would fit with this tweet. If this ever happens is a different story but I for one hope it happens.

[john57sharp]

This is a great photo from RGVPhotographic, but I can’t help wondering how they got the SPMT vehicle under SN15? Does it split apart somehow, or widen itself? The problems are:
1. The legs under SN15
2. The 4 big cross beams
These seem to me to prevent just driving under the Starship.

Cheers
John

[Ghoti]

This is a great photo from RGVPhotographic, but I can’t help wondering how they got the SPMT vehicle under SN15? Does it split apart somehow, or widen itself? The problems are:
1. The legs under SN15
2. The 4 big cross beams
These seem to me to prevent just driving under the Starship.

Cheers
John

I don't think it goes under the starship but wraps around it. To wrap around it suggests the 2 SPMTs are split and rejoined to do this. Very large turnbuckles are attached from the structure mounted on the SPMTs to brackets on the Starship.

[john57sharp]

This is a great photo from RGVPhotographic, but I can’t help wondering how they got the SPMT vehicle under SN15? Does it split apart somehow, or widen itself? The problems are:
1. The legs under SN15
2. The 4 big cross beams
These seem to me to prevent just driving under the Starship.

Cheers
John

I don't think it goes under the starship but wraps around it. To wrap around it suggests the 2 SPMTs are split and rejoined to do this. Very large turnbuckles are attached from the structure mounted on the SPMTs to brackets on the Starship.

Thanks Ghoti but how do they split this with the beams and the weights? I can’t see that sorry.

Zoom in on the same RGV image

John

[AC in NC]

I interpret that to mean that starship, when it is fully up and going, will be able to launch the same tonnage into orbit in a 24 hour period that every rocket launch during a typical year can.

going by ZachF's fantastic post detailing annual payload to orbit for various organisations, using an adjusted payload value
link below:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=50640.msg2070733#msg2070733
the typical year has ~700 tons of adjusted payload value launched into orbit, to take a high estimate

According to spacex's website starship will be able to launch "in excess of 100 metric tons to earth orbit", which I'll take to mean 100 metric tons for this conservative estimate

so Elon thinks that starship will be capable of 7 launch missions per day, or roughly one every 3 hours 26 minutes. In order to match the current world launch capacity with a single starship in a 24 hour period

Thanks!!! It's a shame that Thread got shut-down as it really should've been generalized to a year-by-year scorecard according to a variety of the debatable metrics.

When I was searching to see about yearly mass, I came across this interesting post about cumulative mass to orbit ever: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/88/what-is-the-total-mass-sent-into-orbit-over-all-history

with about (I think some launches from the datasource did not have a payload mass) ...
14,466 tons launched to orbit though ~EOY 2019
and ~550 tons per year 2018-2019

So yeah, surpisingly I guess it's possible.

Thanks again!

[spacenut]

If Musk has two sea platforms, plus Boca Chica, and Cape Kennedy, that if 4 launch and landing locations.  He could launch 2 per day from each and get 8 launches in a 24 hour day.  This is doable. 

This is IF the boosters land back at the pad and the Starships either land back at the pad or there are at least 2 Starships at each pad location for a booster to launch.  Surely a booster can be ready in 12 hours after a launch, cool down, stack on a new Starship, checkouts, fuel up and go again. 

[AC in NC]

If Musk has two sea platforms, plus Boca Chica, and Cape Kennedy, that if 4 launch and landing locations.  He could launch 2 per day from each and get 8 launches in a 24 hour day.  This is doable. 

This is IF the boosters land back at the pad and the Starships either land back at the pad or there are at least 2 Starships at each pad location for a booster to launch.  Surely a booster can be ready in 12 hours after a launch, cool down, stack on a new Starship, checkouts, fuel up and go again.

There's no question that Starships could do it but the tweet was essentially saying that a Single Starship was designed to be able to do it. 

That's the part I was having a hard time with and still do due to logistics.  But "designed to" probably is enough wiggle room.