Predictions for Starship IFT-3

[InterestedEngineer]

Don't know if this is the right place to ask this, but I figured I'd ask here since a lot of people have been predicting about it.

Do we know what material the TPS is made of? Are there expansion joints between the outer mold line and the tiles themselves, or are they just glued on there? I don't know how hot the surface behind the TPS gets, but COE mismatch is a big deal for mounting composite components to metal surfaces.

Again, don't know if this is the right place to ask. If someone has already answered this somewhere else on the forum, please redirect me! I can also delete this post if it's in the wrong place.

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=50748.msg2543885#new

Do we know what material the TPS is made of?

Asked and answered multiple times on that thread.  A bit of tedious reading I'm afraid.

Are there expansion joints between the outer mold line and the tiles themselves, or are they just glued on there?

That sounds like a new question (I think, not sure what a mold line is on a Starship), you should ask it on that thread

[wannamoonbase]

Made my predictions.

I think IFT-3 will improve on the flight profile.  I think the booster will be mostly successful with a boostback and landing burn.  Maybe off trajectory at most.

Starship will make a successful trajectory through a full burn.  But will fail during re-entry.

I predicted February for the flight as I think there could be some time required to make adjustments to the Ship from what is learned from IFT-2.

[Ke8ort]

Don't know if this is the right place to ask this, but I figured I'd ask here since a lot of people have been predicting about it.

Do we know what material the TPS is made of? Are there expansion joints between the outer mold line and the tiles themselves, or are they just glued on there? I don't know how hot the surface behind the TPS gets, but COE mismatch is a big deal for mounting composite components to metal surfaces.

Again, don't know if this is the right place to ask. If someone has already answered this somewhere else on the forum, please redirect me! I can also delete this post if it's in the wrong place.

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=50748.msg2543885#new

Do we know what material the TPS is made of?

Asked and answered multiple times on that thread.  A bit of tedious reading I'm afraid.

Are there expansion joints between the outer mold line and the tiles themselves, or are they just glued on there?

That sounds like a new question (I think, not sure what a mold line is on a Starship), you should ask it on that thread

Thanks you! I was looking on the engineering thread but wasn't finding much info. Guess I needed to look a little deeper!

[schuttle89]

Made my predictions.

I think IFT-3 will improve on the flight profile.  I think the booster will be mostly successful with a boostback and landing burn.  Maybe off trajectory at most.

Starship will make a successful trajectory through a full burn.  But will fail during re-entry.

I predicted February for the flight as I think there could be some time required to make adjustments to the Ship from what is learned from IFT-2.

Agreed, small chance of end of January but Feb 12 is my guess

[Reynold]

Put my entry in the spreadsheet as well, but I predict;

Launch in first half of January,
Booster boostback burn works this time, 20% chance of failure at booster landing burn
Ship makes it to (quasi) orbit, gets to Hawaii, has some combination of burnthrough and control issues on reentry and does not survive intact to splashdown. 

I would still consider this a success so they can get data on boostback and reentry.  If all they can do is reuse the booster in 2-3 more test flights and control the Starship in orbit and deorbit so it is safe, they can do what they need for HLS without a problem even without reuse. 

[wannamoonbase]

Put my entry in the spreadsheet as well, but I predict;

Launch in first half of January,
Booster boostback burn works this time, 20% chance of failure at booster landing burn
Ship makes it to (quasi) orbit, gets to Hawaii, has some combination of burnthrough and control issues on reentry and does not survive intact to splashdown. 

I would still consider this a success so they can get data on boostback and reentry.  If all they can do is reuse the booster in 2-3 more test flights and control the Starship in orbit and deorbit so it is safe, they can do what they need for HLS without a problem even without reuse. 

I agree, if your prediction comes true that would be a wildly successful test flight.

I think the first booster catch attempt could be 2-3 flights away and I think they will successfully catch at least one in 2024.  Not sure about reuse though.

[wes_wilson]

I'm into the sheet with a bet on March 8th, 2024.

[ztkraptor]

I'm not sure of the ships or the timeline, but I predict complete failure. It will clear the tower, but will RUD about 1min 30sec into flight.

Source: I'm from the future.

[oiorionsbelt]

I'm not sure of the ships or the timeline, but I predict complete failure. It will clear the tower, but will RUD about 1min 30sec into flight.

Source: I'm from the future.

Would you just check on the ship and booster #'s for me please.

[baddux]

Launch date: 15. April 2024

Outcome: successful full burn of Starship and target "orbit", booster lasts longer than previously but is destroyed before water landing, ship destroyed before attempted landing

Edit: in other words after this launch, they would be able to put a space station with volume of the ISS to LEO

[wes_wilson]

Launch date: 15. April 2024

Outcome: successful full burn of Starship and target "orbit", booster lasts longer than previously but is destroyed before water landing, ship destroyed before attempted landing

Edit: in other words after this launch, they would be able to put a space station with volume of the ISS to LEO

No offense, but this is a crazy guess.  If you're going into April it would no doubt be April 20th. 

[ZachS09]

Launch date: 15. April 2024

Outcome: successful full burn of Starship and target "orbit", booster lasts longer than previously but is destroyed before water landing, ship destroyed before attempted landing

Edit: in other words after this launch, they would be able to put a space station with volume of the ISS to LEO

No offense, but this is a crazy guess.  If you're going into April it would no doubt be April 20th. 

Not this time. I don't think SpaceX would go for the 20th again if IFT-3 slips to next April.

[notthebobo]

This may help you find your answer: Google for "spacex starship thermal tile materials site:nasaspaceflight.com"

[Star-Dust]

Launch date: 15. April 2024

Outcome: successful full burn of Starship and target "orbit", booster lasts longer than previously but is destroyed before water landing, ship destroyed before attempted landing

Edit: in other words after this launch, they would be able to put a space station with volume of the ISS to LEO

Same outcome for me, but I would say launch earlier, early february if no permit FAA issues.

[Robotbeat]

I’m gonna wait until the end of December to make predictions.

I want to see some word about the mishap report so I get some feeling on where they are in fixing everything.

Depending on how they’re feeling about the mitigations, I can see the flight going well for everything (including the booster until splashdown) except with a big ol’ question mark for reentry.

They’ve done a lot more work on S28 to at least give it a fighting chance of not all the tiles coming off right away (they did a pull test on all the tiles IIRC this time, unlike S25), but I am still pretty mistrusting of this method of tile attachment. They have a new tile attachment method coming up, and that may be the point where the tiles can be actually trusted, but we gotta see based on static fires (the old method would always have some tiles fall off… if the new method shows no tile failures during static firing, that’s a vote of confidence).

Of course failure is still fairly likely. 20-30% chance of failure on the way up? 95% success probability (which is roughly average for launch vehicles past the initial 5 launches) is way too confident at this point.

I’m not making predictions before a static fire.

[alugobi]

I’m gonna wait until the end of December to make predictions.

I want to see some word about the mishap report so I get some feeling on where they are in fixing everything.

In addition, they're doing a lot of groundwork at the site.  New tanks coming in, need to be plumbed.  If the others arrive, will they take down the existing vertical tanks?  Now might be the time.

Wall construction along the road, too.  It will take several weeks to form it and pour it. 

Also, let's see if they return booster(s) to the bays for upgrade work.  They might be satisfied with the armoring underneath around the engines, but they might have to mitigate the tankage/plumbing to address the engine out problem. 

Bottom line:  it might be a while.

[Steve G]

I think they will master Super Heavy on the next flight, and will have figured out the issue causing the RUD on Flight 2. It's Starship that's going to be the problem child. Everything from determining why it failed to get to orbit, then flying it through an Hypersonic regime on reentry, then landing on target. None of the landing tests they did with Starship went supersonic. And that's the easy part compared to what comes next.

[First Mate Rummey]

Flight Pairing: S28/B10
Launch Date: March 2024
Mission Success Chance: 75%

I think most likely mission outcome would be better than IFT-2, however both SS and Booster will still fail to properly (water-)land.

[wannamoonbase]

I think they will master Super Heavy on the next flight, and will have figured out the issue causing the RUD on Flight 2. It's Starship that's going to be the problem child. Everything from determining why it failed to get to orbit, then flying it through an Hypersonic regime on reentry, then landing on target. None of the landing tests they did with Starship went supersonic. And that's the easy part compared to what comes next.

I agree, I think they will do very well with the SH on the next flight.  If they can hit the virtual marks for return and positioning then onward to attempting a catch, which I think could be IFT-4 or 5.

SS, achieving a nominal trajectory insertion will be a huge win, but I think they will be working on the heatshield for awhile to come.  Any entry data would be helpful though.


Edit: The latest SpaceX video drop makes me wonder if the first half of January is plausible.  Get the HLS folks through the holidays then back to Starbase on the week of Jan 8th.


Who knows, will be wild.

[TomH]

Aren't they changing the way they attach the tiles for this particular ship?  For me, I am no more capable of predicting the outcome than I am prophecy, so I will only say I believe they will correct the issues that caused the loss of the IFT-2 vehicles.  What new issues may bedevil them, I can't say, but I'm hopeful that the outcome will be progress in the right direction.

Is this what you're referring to? I don't think there is any change yet. Click on image and zoom in.

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=50748.msg2547223#msg2547223