Author Topic: Starship Expendable Upper Stage?  (Read 71716 times)

Offline Twark_Main

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Re: Starship Expendable Upper Stage?
« Reply #140 on: 01/25/2025 01:30 am »
Decided to dredge up this thread as a better place to continue this discussion.

The only operational payload I expect from starship in the next 2 years is starlink. Part of the reason is that nobody knows what the final dimensions of the payload bay are or how a payload will be deployed. Chomper starships, if still in the pipeline, feel like they won't be tested this year. Companies and governments will start designing for NG assuming that if it'll fit in NG it'll fit in starship when it's done.

the big starlink sats have been held up by starship development, so a disposable upperstage, no wings, just tanks and raptors with a fairing (stainless, even) could have filled that gap and attracted attention from the industry (someone is going to want a simple disposable upper stage sooner or later to put up something massive). They could have been improving their ground operations and working on booster reuse all while launching payloads and the occasional starship for testing. While they want to ramp up this year to 25, the mishap investigation(s) are going to eat into their time, so these failures hurt.
Hindsignt and all, but i feel there was a better way.

Is there a true customer need for an expendable upper stage for very large payloads?  Where the Starship structure won't allow a payload to be deployed?  Something like a single launch space station, or huge station modules for a fuel depot or starship service dock.  A big space tug or space debris catcher or asteroid miner?

Would it be cost effective if it enabled truly massive infrastructure?
There's a small gap between "small enough to fit in the cargo bay" and "large enough to require orbital assembly" that might benefit from it in the short term. But if Starship meets its launch cost goals I suspect most customers will quickly move on to the larger structures constructed in orbit.

I expect it will be the opposite, actually. Anything you can fit in Starship will be cheap, but anything requiring risky and training-intensive EVAs for assembly (or some sort of custom R&D assembly robot) will be a lot more expensive.

Online Greg Hullender

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Re: Starship Expendable Upper Stage?
« Reply #141 on: 01/25/2025 02:30 am »
I expect it will be the opposite, actually. Anything you can fit in Starship will be cheap, but anything requiring risky and training-intensive EVAs for assembly (or some sort of custom R&D assembly robot) will be a lot more expensive.
Yet another reason to want that "orbital drydock." Especially if we can get NASA to pay for it!

Offline steveleach

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Re: Starship Expendable Upper Stage?
« Reply #142 on: 01/25/2025 09:16 am »
There's a small gap between "small enough to fit in the cargo bay" and "large enough to require orbital assembly" that might benefit from it in the short term. But if Starship meets its launch cost goals I suspect most customers will quickly move on to the larger structures constructed in orbit.

I expect it will be the opposite, actually. Anything you can fit in Starship will be cheap, but anything requiring risky and training-intensive EVAs for assembly (or some sort of custom R&D assembly robot) will be a lot more expensive.
Yes, clearly small things that can transported in a single reusable vehicle will be cheaper.

But when you go larger than that you have to choose between expending stages or multiple reusable launches, and I expect the latter will be much more common. Especially as the former only extends your size range a bit before you have to go multi-launch anyway.

I don't expect risky and training-intensive EVAs to be a thing for very long, once Starship brings launch costs down to where SpaceX want them to be. Starship's refuelling model, when implemented at scale, will make rendezvous and docking fast and trivial.

We know there are companies developing robotic orbital assembly technologies, but they aren't currently financially viable because current launch costs make it nearly impossible for them to get through prototyping before investors run out of patience. Reduce marginal launch costs to the price of the propellant and they become viable.

Offline Twark_Main

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Re: Starship Expendable Upper Stage?
« Reply #143 on: 01/27/2025 07:24 pm »
I expect it will be the opposite, actually. Anything you can fit in Starship will be cheap, but anything requiring risky and training-intensive EVAs for assembly (or some sort of custom R&D assembly robot) will be a lot more expensive.
Yet another reason to want that "orbital drydock." Especially if we can get NASA to pay for it!

Still using 90 Day Study logic, I see.  ::)

Offline Twark_Main

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Re: Starship Expendable Upper Stage?
« Reply #144 on: 01/27/2025 07:35 pm »
There's a small gap between "small enough to fit in the cargo bay" and "large enough to require orbital assembly" that might benefit from it in the short term. But if Starship meets its launch cost goals I suspect most customers will quickly move on to the larger structures constructed in orbit.

I expect it will be the opposite, actually. Anything you can fit in Starship will be cheap, but anything requiring risky and training-intensive EVAs for assembly (or some sort of custom R&D assembly robot) will be a lot more expensive.
Yes, clearly small things that can transported in a single reusable vehicle will be cheaper.

But when you go larger than that you have to choose between...

Let me stop you right there.

If. If you go larger than that.   ???

There's no inevitable progression where things have to necessarily get bigger, such that this is somehow an unavoidable problem that must be solved.

If bigger things are dramatically more expensive, then the far more obvious answer is that you just won't make things bigger. "Doctor, it hurts when I do this!"   :-\


I don't expect risky and training-intensive EVAs to be a thing for very long, once Starship brings launch costs down to where SpaceX want them to be. Starship's refuelling model, when implemented at scale, will make rendezvous and docking fast and trivial.

We've had rendezvous and docking long before the ISS, and yet we still used many many "risky and training-intensive EVAs" for that. So clearly this analysis is missing something.

We know there are companies developing robotic orbital assembly technologies, but they aren't currently financially viable because current launch costs...

That's just one hypothesis to explain why they aren't financially viable.

Looking at the actual technology, a more likely hypothesis is that they haven't actually solved the right problem. Most of the "robotic assembly" I see is just creating empty shells, but the vast majority of the cost isn't in the shell, it's in outfitting the interior equipment.

Offline steveleach

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Re: Starship Expendable Upper Stage?
« Reply #145 on: 01/27/2025 08:05 pm »
There's a small gap between "small enough to fit in the cargo bay" and "large enough to require orbital assembly" that might benefit from it in the short term. But if Starship meets its launch cost goals I suspect most customers will quickly move on to the larger structures constructed in orbit.

I expect it will be the opposite, actually. Anything you can fit in Starship will be cheap, but anything requiring risky and training-intensive EVAs for assembly (or some sort of custom R&D assembly robot) will be a lot more expensive.
Yes, clearly small things that can transported in a single reusable vehicle will be cheaper.

But when you go larger than that you have to choose between...

Let me stop you right there.

If. If you go larger than that.   ???

There's no inevitable progression where things have to necessarily get bigger, such that this is somehow an unavoidable problem that must be solved.

If bigger things are dramatically more expensive, then the far more obvious answer is that you just won't make things bigger. "Doctor, it hurts when I do this!"   :-\


I don't expect risky and training-intensive EVAs to be a thing for very long, once Starship brings launch costs down to where SpaceX want them to be. Starship's refuelling model, when implemented at scale, will make rendezvous and docking fast and trivial.

We've had rendezvous and docking long before the ISS, and yet we still used many many "risky and training-intensive EVAs" for that. So clearly this analysis is missing something.

We know there are companies developing robotic orbital assembly technologies, but they aren't currently financially viable because current launch costs...

That's just one hypothesis to explain why they aren't financially viable.

Looking at the actual technology, a more likely hypothesis is that they haven't actually solved the right problem. Most of the "robotic assembly" I see is just creating empty shells, but the vast majority of the cost isn't in the shell, it's in outfitting the interior equipment.
I know you like a good argument, but I think you're maybe trying a little too hard here.

Offline Coastal Ron

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Re: Starship Expendable Upper Stage?
« Reply #146 on: 01/27/2025 08:20 pm »
...
There's no inevitable progression where things have to necessarily get bigger, such that this is somehow an unavoidable problem that must be solved.

Inevitable? Maybe not, but human history shows that humans do like to make things bigger, whether that is transportation systems, buildings, machines, etc. And the reason for that is economic in a lot of cases, in that making whatever it is bigger results in being able to do more of something.

Quote
If bigger things are dramatically more expensive, then the far more obvious answer is that you just won't make things bigger.

This is really a question for the people and companies that want to solve problems in space by building something here on Earth and launching it into space. THEY will be the ones to decide how big or small something should be.

Me personally, though the cost of a Starship Cargo launch will be economical even if you don't fill up the payload bay, I think everyone will be trying to maximize each launch opportunity, since time is money too.

Quote
Most of the "robotic assembly" I see is just creating empty shells, but the vast majority of the cost isn't in the shell, it's in outfitting the interior equipment.

The ISS was the last major assembly project in LEO, and it used humans to do all of the detailed assembly work, though sometimes with the help of robotic arms. Even the Chinese are still using humans for their much smaller space station.

But humans cost a LOT to get to and keep in space, so for commercial activity in space that requires some degree of assembly I think the hardware designers will focus on how to use remote and robotic assembly techniques to assemble large (and small) components in space.

We have robotic rovers that have launched a helicopter on the surface of Mars, so it's not like no one has been thinking about this, it just hasn't been cheap enough to merit commercial versions. But interest in robotic assembly here on Earth is VERY intense, so why be surprised that it can expand to space applications too?
If we don't continuously lower the cost to access space, how are we ever going to afford to expand humanity out into space?

Offline Twark_Main

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Re: Starship Expendable Upper Stage?
« Reply #147 on: 01/27/2025 10:02 pm »
There's a small gap between "small enough to fit in the cargo bay" and "large enough to require orbital assembly" that might benefit from it in the short term. But if Starship meets its launch cost goals I suspect most customers will quickly move on to the larger structures constructed in orbit.

I expect it will be the opposite, actually. Anything you can fit in Starship will be cheap, but anything requiring risky and training-intensive EVAs for assembly (or some sort of custom R&D assembly robot) will be a lot more expensive.
Yes, clearly small things that can transported in a single reusable vehicle will be cheaper.

But when you go larger than that you have to choose between...

Let me stop you right there.

If. If you go larger than that.   ???

There's no inevitable progression where things have to necessarily get bigger, such that this is somehow an unavoidable problem that must be solved.

If bigger things are dramatically more expensive, then the far more obvious answer is that you just won't make things bigger. "Doctor, it hurts when I do this!"   :-\


I don't expect risky and training-intensive EVAs to be a thing for very long, once Starship brings launch costs down to where SpaceX want them to be. Starship's refuelling model, when implemented at scale, will make rendezvous and docking fast and trivial.

We've had rendezvous and docking long before the ISS, and yet we still used many many "risky and training-intensive EVAs" for that. So clearly this analysis is missing something.

We know there are companies developing robotic orbital assembly technologies, but they aren't currently financially viable because current launch costs...

That's just one hypothesis to explain why they aren't financially viable.

Looking at the actual technology, a more likely hypothesis is that they haven't actually solved the right problem. Most of the "robotic assembly" I see is just creating empty shells, but the vast majority of the cost isn't in the shell, it's in outfitting the interior equipment.
I know you like a good argument, but I think you're maybe trying a little too hard here.

I haven't the foggiest idea of what this response is supposed to mean.  ???

I thought I was being the voice of something rather obvious, actually. I also recognize that I'm committing heresy against certain people's (sci-if inspired) visions of the future. Maybe it's time we kill the old myths and monsters.   8)


Edit: I was going to fix "sci-if," but actually I rather like it...
« Last Edit: 01/27/2025 10:04 pm by Twark_Main »

Offline Twark_Main

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Re: Starship Expendable Upper Stage?
« Reply #148 on: 01/27/2025 10:20 pm »
...
There's no inevitable progression where things have to necessarily get bigger, such that this is somehow an unavoidable problem that must be solved.

Inevitable? Maybe not, but human history shows that humans do like to make things bigger, whether that is transportation systems, buildings, machines, etc. And the reason for that is economic in a lot of cases, in that making whatever it is bigger results in being able to do more of something.

I don't have to remind you that "human history" also provided us with the example of the 747 and the A380.

Things get bigger. Then they don't. See Akin's "distrust assertions" quote.

If bigger things are dramatically more expensive, then the far more obvious answer is that you just won't make things bigger.

This is really a question for the people and companies that want to solve problems in space by building something here on Earth and launching it into space. THEY will be the ones to decide how big or small something should be.

And since we know they will be heavily influenced by cost, we can strongly predict what their choice will overwhelmingly be.

"#38. Capabilities drive requirements, regardless of what the systems engineering textbooks say."

Me personally, though the cost of a Starship Cargo launch will be economical even if you don't fill up the payload bay, I think everyone will be trying to maximize each launch opportunity, since time is money too.

Heck, shipping something in a truck is a lot cheaper than spaceflight, but there's still tremendous pressure to increase utilization.

I do expect SpaceX will be opportunistically launching Starlinks with some of that "spare" payload, but obviously that's only possible on certain orbits.

I think we agree overall: there will indeed be slack space, but there will also be continual pressure to reduce it.

Most of the "robotic assembly" I see is just creating empty shells, but the vast majority of the cost isn't in the shell, it's in outfitting the interior equipment.

The ISS was the last major assembly project in LEO, and it used humans to do all of the detailed assembly work, though sometimes with the help of robotic arms. Even the Chinese are still using humans for their much smaller space station.

But humans cost a LOT to get to and keep in space, so for commercial activity in space that requires some degree of assembly I think the hardware designers will focus on how to use remote and robotic assembly techniques to assemble large (and small) components in space.

Sorta begging the question in bold, yeah?

If you can launch a "ready to use" module you eliminate all those costs and risks, whether human or robotic. There's no incentive to assembling small components in orbit, you just do that on the ground. You might do some reconfiguring (swapping out experiments etc), but you still want to minimize that, not maximize it.

This is basically the ISS model. I do think it will be with us for much longer than some may think.
« Last Edit: 01/27/2025 10:25 pm by Twark_Main »

Offline spacenut

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Re: Starship Expendable Upper Stage?
« Reply #149 on: 01/28/2025 02:09 am »
Since it seems SpaceX has the Superheavy booster down pat.  However, why can't they just build a stripped down Starship upper stage, expendable for now, to launch Starlink satellites?  Then work on the Reusable Starship.  They could probably do both at the same time.  It would at least see how much refurbishment the booster will take before relaunching.  If they can do 200-250 tons expendable, that could get a lot of Starlinks up on one launch.  Sure, it would probably be in line with what it is costing using F9 expending the upper stage, but Starlink would work faster and get more customers.  Also, with an expendable upper stage, they could do an entire moon launch with lander and Orion ala Apollo with Saturn V in one launch. 

Starship is to me, going to be the hard part, making it work reusable.   

Online DanClemmensen

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Re: Starship Expendable Upper Stage?
« Reply #150 on: 01/28/2025 02:19 am »
Since it seems SpaceX has the Superheavy booster down pat.  However, why can't they just build a stripped down Starship upper stage, expendable for now, to launch Starlink satellites?  Then work on the Reusable Starship.  They could probably do both at the same time.  It would at least see how much refurbishment the booster will take before relaunching.  If they can do 200-250 tons expendable, that could get a lot of Starlinks up on one launch.  Sure, it would probably be in line with what it is costing using F9 expending the upper stage, but Starlink would work faster and get more customers.  Also, with an expendable upper stage, they could do an entire moon launch with lander and Orion ala Apollo with Saturn V in one launch. 

Starship is to me, going to be the hard part, making it work reusable.
They can launch at most 25 this year. They need to test EDL. They have already designed and are building Pez. As soon as they can go orbital, they can start launching Starlink V3s on Pez, putting the V3s in orbit even if re-entry fails. I suspect the trade-off will show that getting to reusable Pez Ship quicker will minimize the time it takes to launch the V3 constellation.

Offline Norm38

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Re: Starship Expendable Upper Stage?
« Reply #151 on: 01/28/2025 01:58 pm »
I was thinking that an expendable would make sense for something huge that is best launched in one piece.  For Starlinks, yes one expendable launch could lift a lot of them, but wouldn't that be too much for one plane?  Or would the expendable have the fuel to make plane changes and deploy starlinks to multiple orbits?

Offline TomH

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Re: Starship Expendable Upper Stage?
« Reply #152 on: 01/30/2025 05:00 am »
Expendable would be best utilized for an unusually large deep space probe, which would be a rare mission. Enceladus and Europa have oceans with a frozen surface. A mission might have:

1) A lander
2) A stationary communications relay that stays with the lander
3) A nuclear powered mini submarine which melts its way through the ice, unspools a communication
    cable as it does so, then leaves a signal relay station at the bottom of the ice. The sub then goes
    off to explore the submerged world.

Again, this would be rare and it would be high mass. If done in an architecture with non-distributed mass, a disposable US makes sense. A fairing is jettisoned upon reaching vacuum, and the US is re-propped in LEO, possibly again in cis-lunar space. The second stage in essence is reused as both a third stage, and possibly even a fourth stage, simply by taking on additional prop at specified waypoints.

Online InterestedEngineer

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Re: Starship Expendable Upper Stage?
« Reply #153 on: 01/30/2025 06:00 am »
Expendable would be best utilized for an unusually large deep space probe, which would be a rare mission. Enceladus and Europa have oceans with a frozen surface. A mission might have:

1) A lander
2) A stationary communications relay that stays with the lander
3) A nuclear powered mini submarine which melts its way through the ice, unspools a communication
    cable as it does so, then leaves a signal relay station at the bottom of the ice. The sub then goes
    off to explore the submerged world.

Again, this would be rare and it would be high mass. If done in an architecture with non-distributed mass, a disposable US makes sense. A fairing is jettisoned upon reaching vacuum, and the US is re-propped in LEO, possibly again in cis-lunar space. The second stage in essence is reused as both a third stage, and possibly even a fourth stage, simply by taking on additional prop at specified waypoints.

Why would you jettison a fairing?  You waste up to 10km/sec of aerocapture potential
« Last Edit: 01/30/2025 06:01 am by InterestedEngineer »

Offline Skye

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Re: Starship Expendable Upper Stage?
« Reply #154 on: 01/30/2025 07:55 am »
If going to worlds with no atmosphere (Mercury, moons of gas or ice giants, unless you’re willing to aerocapture in the GG itself - very risky potentially, we’ve never done that), the fairing is dead weight
-Skye :3

Online InterestedEngineer

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Re: Starship Expendable Upper Stage?
« Reply #155 on: 01/30/2025 08:05 am »
If going to worlds with no atmosphere (Mercury, moons of gas or ice giants, unless you’re willing to aerocapture in the GG itself - very risky potentially, we’ve never done that), the fairing is dead weight

Pioneer 10 flew 1.85 radii above Jupiter back in 1973, it's entirely possible to aerocapture w/ Jupiter.

If you go slow enough you probably won't need to, but that makes the mission much longer.

Offline Skye

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Re: Starship Expendable Upper Stage?
« Reply #156 on: 01/30/2025 09:14 am »
Oh, wow! Sorry, I (evidently) didn’t know that.

Still a little risky tho? Real strong winds, even in the upper atmosphere.

Not saying it can’t be done tho

I suppose it depends on payload. It your payload is light enough to enable fairings, then keep them for faster transit & aerocapture, but if it’s too heavy, just go with the slower transit & no aero.

For expendable Starships, which don’t need the RSLs except for gimbaling, why not have 3-6 RVs and only one RSL? Saves cost & mass.

So…

No TPS (~25t)

No Elonerons (~10t including actuators & stuff?)

No Header Tanks (~5t for tanks, ~40t for EDL)

Jettisoned (sometimes) fairings, but either was no hinges needed (~500kg or 16t?)

2 RLSs less (3t)

No solar arrays? If the SS doesn’t need any control whatsoever after destination transit burn, they can just get rid of batteries and solar arrays. It would still need to turn around for a capture burn, tho. Unless using aerocapture or just Voyager-type mission? (Unsure)

~100t more payload with jettisoned fairings (not including battery/solar array mass, as unsure)



-Skye :3

Online InterestedEngineer

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Re: Starship Expendable Upper Stage?
« Reply #157 on: 01/30/2025 03:59 pm »


No TPS (~25t)

No Elonerons (~10t including actuators & stuff?)



TPS is 10t per I think the IFT-5 broadcast comments.

Elnerons are probably 10t as you indicate

Offline Skye

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Re: Starship Expendable Upper Stage?
« Reply #158 on: 01/30/2025 04:44 pm »
I heard somewhere it’s 20-25t, but alright, I was wrong lol  ;D
-Skye :3

Offline TomH

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Re: Starship Expendable Upper Stage?
« Reply #159 on: 01/30/2025 08:41 pm »
Expendable would be best utilized for an unusually large deep space probe, which would be a rare mission. Enceladus and Europa have oceans with a frozen surface. A mission might have:

1) A lander
2) A stationary communications relay that stays with the lander
3) A nuclear powered mini submarine which melts its way through the ice, unspools a communication
    cable as it does so, then leaves a signal relay station at the bottom of the ice. The sub then goes
    off to explore the submerged world.

Again, this would be rare and it would be high mass. If done in an architecture with non-distributed mass, a disposable US makes sense. A fairing is jettisoned upon reaching vacuum, and the US is re-propped in LEO, possibly again in cis-lunar space. The second stage in essence is reused as both a third stage, and possibly even a fourth stage, simply by taking on additional prop at specified waypoints.

Why would you jettison a fairing?  You waste up to 10km/sec of aerocapture potential

You eliminate all atmospheric paraphernalia on the US: tiles, elonerons, and jettison the fairing. The lander itself has its own much smaller TPS and landing system. This is advantageous in mass trades. Rather than managing the mass of an entire Starship entering the atmosphere of Enceladus, you have something similar to (but larger than) a Curiosity/Perseverance EDL architecture. While Enceladus has significant atmosphere, Europa's atmosphere is virtually non-existent, something like one hundred billionth of Earth, therefore EDL will have to be retropulsive. You take a lot of prop, not TPS. Although you might do some aerobraking at Jupiter prior to landing on Europa. IDK how the extra mass for TPS would trade against prop for direct retropulsive descent. Aerobraking at Jupiter followed by directional changes to reach Europa is a bit more complex, although Galileo and Cassini performed numerous maneuvers in navigating from moon to moon.

Paul451 just sent me a PM with a very germane fact:

Quote
The radiation environment of Europa is so extreme that it probably wouldn't have the same con-ops as an Enceladus lander-drill mission.

For eg, you might not want to leave most of your hardware on the surface, but instead leave just a passive comms relay, while everything else is melted into the ice.
« Last Edit: 01/30/2025 08:46 pm by TomH »

 

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