SpaceX Starship IFT-4 : When will it launch?

[Vettedrmr]

5 weeks later it's 3-5 weeks away:
<snip>
That's about 1 day of schedule slip per day. Not good.

For the 4th flight of a prototype vehicle, it's not bad, either.  IMO, SpaceX, NASA, and FAA are probably taking more time than originally expected, which I'm perfectly fine with.  The more they learn from IFT-3 and can transfer those lessons learned to IFT-4 the better.

[Vettedrmr]

They probably can’t.

The next flight vehicles are already built and integrated. And they look just like the last few vehicles. 

Misquoted Einstein saying…
“Insanity” is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Another misquoted saying….
“Research” is doing the same thing differently each time and expecting the same result.

There is a fine line between these two, and we’re witnessing the former of these two sayings.

I'm not sure what you're getting at.  What you write sounds like the only things the SS and booster consist of is stainless steel and engines, maybe some electric actuators and tiles.  We both know it's obviously much more than that, especially where software is involved.  Who knows what internal changes they've made since IFT-3?

[Perchlorate]

They probably can’t.

The next flight vehicles are already built and integrated. And they look just like the last few vehicles. 

Misquoted Einstein saying…
“Insanity” is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Another misquoted saying….
“Research” is doing the same thing differently each time and expecting the same result.

There is a fine line between these two, and we’re witnessing the former of these two sayings.

I'm not sure what you're getting at.  What you write sounds like the only things the SS and booster consist of is stainless steel and engines, maybe some electric actuators and tiles.  We both know it's obviously much more than that, especially where software is involved.  Who knows what internal changes they've made since IFT-3?


Vettedrmr, is this more like how your quote/reply should be?

[Vettedrmr]

Vettedrmr, is this more like how your quote/reply should be?

Yes, thanks for correcting the syntax.

[Tangilinear Interjar]

The Starship / HLS vehicle configuration to land on the moon (with or without crew) hasn’t been built yet.

If this was research, you would expect at least a mock-up of the lunar vehicle being shown by now.  But obviously this isn’t research.

I'm really curious how a mock-up would be helpful at this point?

It seems pretty obvious that spending engineering resources on getting the core concepts developed, functioning and validated would be more valuable than building pretty models.

[Metalskin]

The Starship / HLS vehicle configuration to land on the moon (with or without crew) hasn’t been built yet.

If this was research, you would expect at least a mock-up of the lunar vehicle being shown by now.  But obviously this isn’t research.

I'm really curious how a mock-up would be helpful at this point?

It seems pretty obvious that spending engineering resources on getting the core concepts developed, functioning and validated would be more valuable than building pretty models.

I suspect that you are correct.

The only use I can think of for mockups is interaction design, understanding the human aspects and usability of controls, entering/exiting issues, etc.

But obviously they don't need a full scale for that and I am sure they've already done these things, if not doing, in big rooms somewhere.

[Vettedrmr]

I'm really curious how a mock-up would be helpful at this point?

It seems pretty obvious that spending engineering resources on getting the core concepts developed, functioning and validated would be more valuable than building pretty models.

A proper mockup provides good engineering information: envelope sizes, interfaces, human factors, etc.  The outer shell of a mockup isn't necessarily relevant.

[c4fusion]

I'm really curious how a mock-up would be helpful at this point?

It seems pretty obvious that spending engineering resources on getting the core concepts developed, functioning and validated would be more valuable than building pretty models.

A proper mockup provides good engineering information: envelope sizes, interfaces, human factors, etc.  The outer shell of a mockup isn't necessarily relevant.

I will say that is only partially true, if it's a small capsule (basically everything except the 2 shuttles), the outer shell matters a lot since that will impact how things are placed since every millimeter is important.  It's another thing when you have the space of a couple full size American houses for 4 astronauts, you could be off by a meter and it might not matter much.  Also it's no longer super important to use the lightest materials everywhere, they could give every astronaut a full size bedroom with king size bed and individual bathrooms and they would only fill a single floor of the multi floor HLS lander.

Additionally, I am not sure if we would see the mocks, tbh.  While SpaceX has been very open about Starship, we don't actually have that much inside insight into their other projects other than Falcon 9 reuse when it was happening.  Crew Dragon, Starlink, Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, IVA and EVA suits all had announcement of them starting the project and very little updates and after a while, a fully fledge product/equipment/rocket suddenly pops out.

I think people are conflating how open SpaceX is with Starship, which is open because it's basically impossible to hide such a large rocket while trying to build it a scrappy startup way with SpaceX being actively open with their development.

So I think this is going to be the par for the course. I think the first time we see how the interior looks like will be the test flight for HLS and it will be basically ready for astronaut use.

[Perchlorate]

Meanwhile, back at the Topic....

I voted for May, but I'm feeling Thursday, June 13.

[Metalskin]

I'm really curious how a mock-up would be helpful at this point?

It seems pretty obvious that spending engineering resources on getting the core concepts developed, functioning and validated would be more valuable than building pretty models.

A proper mockup provides good engineering information: envelope sizes, interfaces, human factors, etc.  The outer shell of a mockup isn't necessarily relevant.

Wow.  A mockup would help to solve key questions like... how long does it actually take to build a lunar lander?  Let's just say Starship is a lot less stuff than HLS.

A mockup by definition is "a model or replica of a machine or structure, used for instructional or experimental purposes". Generally you use them to test if they meet the needs of users, visual aspects, configuration aspects, etc.

For build/manufacturing you do a path finder. This is done after the mockups have been done and verified.  With a path finder you test the manufacturing processes including logistics need (within the build process, not supply chain).

I know I'm getting hung up by words, but in the world of design, mockups mean something different to what your referring to.

[Metalskin]

Sure… I would be satisfied to see a pathfinder.  It might be a useful ornament for the lawn or a nice way to say… hello and welcome to the area.  You get this schtick driving into Alabama.

I think the term museum queen or hangar queen might be more appropriate than pathfinder.  Because in manufacturing, one tends to learn from such folly.

After the pathfinder, then you can build a thermal mock-up of the HLS vehicle and stick it in a very large cryogenic vacuum chamber (that doesn’t exist).  Then the astronauts can don suits (that also do not exist) and somehow attempt to open doors (that don’t yet exist) and walk around the cabin with an exterior temperature near 110 degrees according to William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin… or whatever exact temperature is at the lunar South Pole.

This will assist the astronauts to know what not to touch (which may be everything).  Some people call this training.

Here is what that looked like for Apollo.

https://www.nasa.gov/history/50-years-ago-thermo-vacuum-testing-certifies-critical-lunar-hardware/

I'm not sure what your point is.

[daedalus1]

What's all this got to do with when flight 4 is?

[deltaV]

Cross post:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1792629142141177890
Tweet contents:  Starship Flight 4 in about 2 weeks. ...

Edit: this has actually shifted to the left since the "3-5 weeks" a little over a week ago!

[mikelepage]

Looks like 1st week of June then. Probably the wisdom of the crowds will be correct!

[deltaV]

Looks like 1st week of June then. Probably the wisdom of the crowds will be correct!

IMO it's highly likely to be sometime in June but it's premature to say which week.

[redneck]

I think it's safe to say that my May vote was wrong. I really thought it would either be a much faster turnaround or an extended time to correct discovered problems. All the June predictors can now mock me mercilessly.

[Vettedrmr]

Yeah, I'm right there with you.

[joek]

I think it's safe to say that my May vote was wrong. I really thought it would either be a much faster turnaround or an extended time to correct discovered problems. All the June predictors can now mock me mercilessly.

Nah, no ridicule. For me it was litteraly a coin-toss between May and June; mine landed on June. Given how this business tends to go and the stage of Starship's development, getting within +-1 month is darned good.

[eriblo]

I think it's safe to say that my May vote was wrong. I really thought it would either be a much faster turnaround or an extended time to correct discovered problems. All the June predictors can now mock me mercilessly.

Much ridicule in your general direction! I, on the other hand, thought it through and expertly voted June.

Then I pondered it some more and switched to May last minute 

[Metalskin]

Ironically, I regretted my choice of June for a while, thinking I was being too conservative. I don't see any reason to mock anyone for their estimate, and to be honest, I haven't seen any strong evidence either way of why it couldn't have been in May.