Starship launch bids

[novo2044]

Sounds to me like both the price and the delivery date are pure fantasy.  Perhaps someone at SpaceX just wanted NASA to confirm that for them?

Their internal goal is orbit by July. If they come remotely close to that, then a NASA mission next year isn’t fantasy whatsoever.

Most SpaceX internal delivery date goals are indeed pure fantasy and that would be a prime example.

When managing a large complex project aggressive internal goals are obviously best case scenarios, but it doesn't make any sense to pad your schedule for hypothetical setbacks.  People seem weirdly hung up these delays, all while SpaceX went from Falcon 1 to global launch leader in about a decade.

Also landing Starship seems a long way off, but just throwing an empty/near empty Starship to orbit?  I'm not sure why that's so implausible?

[Redclaws]

Sounds to me like both the price and the delivery date are pure fantasy.  Perhaps someone at SpaceX just wanted NASA to confirm that for them?

Their internal goal is orbit by July. If they come remotely close to that, then a NASA mission next year isn’t fantasy whatsoever.

Most SpaceX internal delivery date goals are indeed pure fantasy and that would be a prime example.

When managing a large complex project aggressive internal goals are obviously best case scenarios, but it doesn't make any sense to pad your schedule for hypothetical setbacks.  People seem weirdly hung up these delays, all while SpaceX went from Falcon 1 to global launch leader in about a decade.

Also landing Starship seems a long way off, but just throwing an empty/near empty Starship to orbit?  I'm not sure why that's so implausible?

Doing it safely/reliably in the near future seems a stretch.  It seems clear the degree of exploratory iteration vs preplanning and analysis has been hugely ramped up from the falcon program.  Now, personally, I think that’s very promising and if they make sure to plan and analyze *enough* (can’t just fiddle, and I think they know this), I think it will result in faster dev.  But it will also result in far more failures early on.  Putting a satellite on an early launch of a carefully (over-)analyzed and (over-)planned rocket?  Risky but ok.  An early launch of a vehicle with such a wildly iterative approach?  😬 😬 😬

[rakaydos]

Sounds to me like both the price and the delivery date are pure fantasy.  Perhaps someone at SpaceX just wanted NASA to confirm that for them?

Their internal goal is orbit by July. If they come remotely close to that, then a NASA mission next year isn’t fantasy whatsoever.

Most SpaceX internal delivery date goals are indeed pure fantasy and that would be a prime example.

When managing a large complex project aggressive internal goals are obviously best case scenarios, but it doesn't make any sense to pad your schedule for hypothetical setbacks.  People seem weirdly hung up these delays, all while SpaceX went from Falcon 1 to global launch leader in about a decade.

Also landing Starship seems a long way off, but just throwing an empty/near empty Starship to orbit? I'm not sure why that's so implausible?

Doing it safely/reliably in the near future seems a stretch.  It seems clear the degree of exploratory iteration vs preplanning and analysis has been hugely ramped up from the falcon program.  Now, personally, I think that’s very promising and if they make sure to plan and analyze *enough* (can’t just fiddle, and I think they know this), I think it will result in faster dev.  But it will also result in far more failures early on.  Putting a satellite on an early launch of a carefully (over-)analyzed and (over-)planned rocket?  Risky but ok.  An early launch of a vehicle with such a wildly iterative approach?  😬 😬 😬

What seems to be the stretch? The only ground failures were GSE related, in ways that would not apply to an actual launch. it's only landings where SpaceX has their repeated spectacular failures, and that's just fodder for another Monty Python-themed blooper reel after they do succeed.

But for "assumed to be expended but we'll try to recover it anyway" orbital launch, it looks like smooth sailing ahead.

[capoman]

I suspect this bid has multiple purposes. One is to demonstrate capability for other much larger satellites for both NASA and other customers. SpaceX will have to fly a few missions before customers will move from F9 to Starship. Also, might be a nudge to push to continue with the moon lander development. Says to NASA, we have confidence on getting Starship to work. It also might be a chance to demonstrate capability to different orbits from a single launch. This is something the military really likes. They also might combine with other sat missions. But mostly it might be to show NASA what is possible and hope NASA and the US gov/military will continue to support Starship development.

[Bryan Hayward]

Can the SS actually reach orbit by itself with no payload?  I wasn't aware of that. If true, that is pretty awesome!

No. I would assume this is a great way to use a minimum-engine booster, though.

Even if it could do that, why would you need to launch a starship without payload?

Depends on what you mean by "payload." If the payload is essentially extra (or extra-large) propellant tanks, then you'd be launching a propellant depot.  Something that has to be done anyway to demonstrate in-orbit refueling.

[Ludus]

The whole thing sounds like a "because we can". Or an attempt to get NASA to indirectly fund an orbital EDL test.

Given that SpaceX is aiming for orbital testing later _this_ year, having it be in 2022 would no longer be a test.

It's the right time-frame for orbital refueling tests, though. Might as well drop off some cubesats first.

Yep. Propellant is the other default payload besides Starlink Sats that SpaceX can adapt to rideshare. Not just Cubesats of course but almost any traditional payload is a fraction of Starships 100 ton capacity. The system just schedules launches regularly like airlines whether or not external customers have anything going up and takes a few satellites off the stack or lowers the propellant delivery target to accommodate whatever needs a rideshare.

When Starship starts launching regularly, SpaceX goes from launching the majority of mass to orbit to launching almost all of it. Everybody else including ULA, the Russians, Chinese, Europeans, startups would share the asterisk on the sliver representing the few percent of non-SpaceX orbital launch.

[LDLB]

I'm curious as to how Starship will handle the constellation market.

Obviously, its incredible payload capacity would allow for a lot of satellites to go into orbit at once, but when I was reading about what Peter Beck was saying in regards to Neutron, he said these Super Heavy launchers aren't as fit for the constellation market as it may seem:

"We’ve listened to our customers and the message is clear - biggest doesn’t always mean best when it comes to constellation deployment. Efficiently building the mega constellations of the future requires launching multiple satellites in batches to different orbital planes. It’s a requirement that all too often sees large launch vehicles fly with payloads well below their full lift capacity, which is an incredibly expensive and inefficient way to build out a satellite constellation."

So it's an interesting take. Obviously, the benefit of Starship is that even though if it carries significantly below payload capacity, all stages of the vehicle are recovered and reused. But is it "efficient" using a vehicle of this size to do that?

And its also worth noting that Starship will mainly concentrate on Starlink, and the above point Peter is making, isn't directly applicable for this - but I just thought it's an interesting point in regards to potential constellation customers for Starship.

[Ludus]

I'm curious as to how Starship will handle the constellation market.

Obviously, its incredible payload capacity would allow for a lot of satellites to go into orbit at once, but when I was reading about what Peter Beck was saying in regards to Neutron, he said these Super Heavy launchers aren't as fit for the constellation market as it may seem:

"We’ve listened to our customers and the message is clear - biggest doesn’t always mean best when it comes to constellation deployment. Efficiently building the mega constellations of the future requires launching multiple satellites in batches to different orbital planes. It’s a requirement that all too often sees large launch vehicles fly with payloads well below their full lift capacity, which is an incredibly expensive and inefficient way to build out a satellite constellation."

So it's an interesting take. Obviously, the benefit of Starship is that even though if it carries significantly below payload capacity, all stages of the vehicle are recovered and reused. But is it "efficient" using a vehicle of this size to do that?

And its also worth noting that Starship will mainly concentrate on Starlink, and the above point Peter is making, isn't directly applicable for this - but I just thought it's an interesting point in regards to potential constellation customers for Starship.

He’s in a difficult position trying to scale into a market that could be large but may be disappearing. There are currently many well funded players talking about doing what SpaceX is already executing with Starlink. He wants to serve them. They’re competing in FCC filings but not in anything real yet. It’s not certain that they will ever get to the point of really competing though. This has all the features of a network scaling event like the creation of the big tech company dominance of a market. Once Google was in place in search there wasn’t much room for anyone to replicate it. When Google challenged Facebook a little late in it’s scaling, it couldn't make it work. If Starlink establishes itself as a global satellite internet system there may not be room for anyone else. Maybe there is an iOS and Android of Internet Constellations or maybe just a single Google. In that case there are no customers for Neutron or there are for awhile until they decide it’s just a waste of Capital to try to compete with Starlink. Then SpaceX just keeps making Starlink Sats bigger and more capable and launching more of them. Starship is well suited to that.

[steveleach]

I'm curious as to how Starship will handle the constellation market.

Obviously, its incredible payload capacity would allow for a lot of satellites to go into orbit at once, but when I was reading about what Peter Beck was saying in regards to Neutron, he said these Super Heavy launchers aren't as fit for the constellation market as it may seem:

"We’ve listened to our customers and the message is clear - biggest doesn’t always mean best when it comes to constellation deployment. Efficiently building the mega constellations of the future requires launching multiple satellites in batches to different orbital planes. It’s a requirement that all too often sees large launch vehicles fly with payloads well below their full lift capacity, which is an incredibly expensive and inefficient way to build out a satellite constellation."

So it's an interesting take. Obviously, the benefit of Starship is that even though if it carries significantly below payload capacity, all stages of the vehicle are recovered and reused. But is it "efficient" using a vehicle of this size to do that?

And its also worth noting that Starship will mainly concentrate on Starlink, and the above point Peter is making, isn't directly applicable for this - but I just thought it's an interesting point in regards to potential constellation customers for Starship.

It's not efficient to have a bus driving around with single passenger sitting on it, but I see it all the time. "Efficiency" can take all kinds of strange forms when viewed holistically.

[mandrewa]

Given the timing of this, the draft RFP was posted on 6-12-2020 and all of the responses were received by 8-31-2020, and given that the payload must be launched by July 31, 2022, I think it's likely that SpaceX gave some weight to the possibility that they would not have a completely functional Starship by that point.

It's not unusual to bid a launch system that has not yet reached orbit.  After all the New Glenn and the Vulcan already have quite a few contracts.  But given the short time between now and then, I wonder if SpaceX wasn't bidding this with the explicit understanding internally that they would launch even if the Starship was not successfully landing at that point. 

I assume that SpaceX was confident that they would be able to reach orbit by July 2022 at the time the bid was made, approximately 8-31-2020.

But they need not have been confident that they could successfully land it by that point.

The logic for making this bid would then be that $9 or $10 million, or whatever SpaceX bid, was a substantial part of the cost of building the prototype, and that regardless, trying to land the Starship, if they hadn't done it already, would be something they would be doing anyway.

But though I suspect this was part of SpaceX's internal reasoning, I wonder how they phrased it in their bid.  Did they explicitly state that they would launch even if Starship was not successfully landing by that point?  Or did the "integrated master schedule" that was part of the bid include everything they hoped to achieve by that early date?

[M.E.T.]

Not exactly sure which topic this best fits under, but it does relate to potential Starship launch bids, so here goes:

At what point of maturity is Starship already a better alternative to SLS? Even if upper stage recovery takes many years to master, it would seem that Starship is already incredibly competitive in the interim.

Assuming booster recovery, which seems a fairly trivial challenge given their proven F9 achievements, and assuming they reach orbit by the end of 2021, then by 2022 it is quite plausible that we will have a fully functional Super Heavy version of F9 in operation, at the very least.

So what is Starship’s payload to LEO if you expend the upper stage? I guess we would be looking at least at 140 tons or thereabouts. For a cost of what - $50M? $100M per launch? That’s Saturn V’s maximum payload to LEO, while still recovering the booster.

And it is more than SLS can put into orbit, while SLS costs anything from $1B-$2B per launch. So between 10 to 40 times cheaper.

So it instantly gives the US government and/or NASA a cheap and frequently repeatable super heavy lift capability to orbit.

And from a constellation point of view, that equally gives you the ability to put 400-500 Starlink size satellites into orbit for $50-$100M, so between a third and half the cost/kg of F9.

And all of that without the need to master orbital refuelling or 2nd stage reentry and landing.

So all they need to do is get Starship to orbit and master Super Heavy landing and reuse, to instantly close the Starship business case. It seems highly plausible before the end of 2022.

[CorvusCorax]

Not exactly sure which topic this best fits under, but it does relate to potential Starship launch bids, so here goes:

At what point of maturity is Starship already a better alternative to SLS? Even if upper stage recovery takes many years to master, it would seem that Starship is already incredibly competitive in the interim.

SLS for basically anything BUT human payloads is basically already dead - even without starship, thanks to Falcon Heavy and other commercial providers. And it will take hundreds of flights until Starship will be ready for human-rating. Even SpaceX says so. By then SLS WILL have flown. It will get it's moment of glory.

Nobody claims that SLS would fly often. It's a bit like Ariane6 or Vulcan, by the time it has it's maiden flight, it's already superseded. Everyone knows that.

[RotoSequence]

Not exactly sure which topic this best fits under, but it does relate to potential Starship launch bids, so here goes:

At what point of maturity is Starship already a better alternative to SLS? Even if upper stage recovery takes many years to master, it would seem that Starship is already incredibly competitive in the interim.

Assuming booster recovery, which seems a fairly trivial challenge given their proven F9 achievements, and assuming they reach orbit by the end of 2021, then by 2022 it is quite plausible that we will have a fully functional Super Heavy version of F9 in operation, at the very least.

So what is Starship’s payload to LEO if you expend the upper stage? I guess we would be looking at least at 140 tons or thereabouts. For a cost of what - $50M? $100M per launch? That’s Saturn V’s maximum payload to LEO, while still recovering the booster.

And it is more than SLS can put into orbit, while SLS costs anything from $1B-$2B per launch. So between 10 to 40 times cheaper.

So it instantly gives the US government and/or NASA a cheap and frequently repeatable super heavy lift capability to orbit.

And from a constellation point of view, that equally gives you the ability to put 400-500 Starlink size satellites into orbit for $50-$100M, so between a third and half the cost/kg of F9.

And all of that without the need to master orbital refuelling or 2nd stage reentry and landing.

So all they need to do is get Starship to orbit and master Super Heavy landing and reuse, to instantly close the Starship business case. It seems highly plausible before the end of 2022.

In theory, any LEO payload is immediately out of the running for SLS. Things are a lot murkier if you start looking beyond LEO and, assuming minimal vehicle development, can't refuel in orbit.

[Dave G]

Can the SS actually reach orbit by itself with no payload?  I wasn't aware of that. If true, that is pretty awesome!

No.

I would assume this is a great way to use a minimum-engine booster, though.

A while back, Musk said Starship could achieve single stage to orbit (SSTO) with no payload.
Has something changed since then?

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1076613555091234816?lang=en

[maquinsa]

Can the SS actually reach orbit by itself with no payload?  I wasn't aware of that. If true, that is pretty awesome!

No.

I would assume this is a great way to use a minimum-engine booster, though.

A while back, Musk said Starship could achieve single stage to orbit (SSTO) with no payload.
Has something changed since then?

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1076613555091234816?lang=en

for it to achieve orbit by itself it must leave the aerosurfaces and heatshield tiles on the ground so a complete starship cannot achieve orbit without sh

[Dave G]

Obviously, the benefit of Starship is that even though if it carries significantly below payload capacity, all stages of the vehicle are recovered and reused. But is it "efficient" using a vehicle of this size to do that?

Yes.

Let's say you want to launch a single 4.5 ton satellite.
Starship launch costs will be an order of magnitude less than Falcon 9. To be clear, that's cost per launch, not cost per kg.

To put some numbers on that, this site estimates Falcon 9 reusable internal costs at $15-20 million per launch.
Musk says Starship internal launch costs will be around $2 million per launch (link here).

Some people have a hard time believing this, but remember, Falcon 9 is not fully reusable.  They expend an F9 upper stage on every flight, and most comsat vendors don't want payload fairings that have been dipped in saltwater. Also, since Raptor burns methane instead of kerosene, there's no soot buildup in the engine, so inspections and refurbishing should be much less frequent.  In other words, Starship will be the world's first fully and rapidly reusable launch system. I think the implications of that have yet to fully sink in.

[Dave G]

for it to achieve orbit by itself it must leave the aerosurfaces and heatshield tiles on the ground so a complete starship cannot achieve orbit without sh

do you have a link handy?

[edzieba]

At what point of maturity is Starship already a better alternative to SLS?

Depends on the payload:

1) Orion? No chance. You can't stack it on top, and putting it inside is pointless (still no LAS). Once you accept Starship as the crew launch and return vehicle, then not only are you using an alternative to SLS + Orion, but an alternative to the entire architecture of Moon & Mars exploration proposed thus far.

2) Payloads that require ICPS or EUS as an earth-departure stage? Also no, unless you develop a stage that can be carried internally and deployed from the chomper, or if you pay SpaceX to develop the notional Starkicker, or pay them to expend a Starship.

3) Big payloads to Earth orbit (or to a transfer orbit from which the payload will propel itself)? Yes, Starship works very well here, though almost certainly needs a propellant resupply launch for deploying to higher orbits.

In terms of SLS announced payloads? Those all fit in category 1 (Artemis missions) or category 2 (Europa Clipper before being moved off of SLS), so none. That leaves you with concept missions like LUVOIR that could be accomplished with either launch vehicle. That's not a slight on Starship, more that SLS scope of utility has always been very limited.

[haywoodfloyd]

What is Elon's plan for an LAS for Starship?

[M.E.T.]

What is Elon's plan for an LAS for Starship?

Same as for an airliner. Fly it a lot.