What if Starship can't work as currently envisaged?

[spacenut]

SpaceX was almost there, making Starship work, with Raptor 1's.  The got suborbital, orbital should have not been that hard, landed in the water off Australia, but had some burn through on the fin areas.  Fins were being solved when they went with Raptor 2's.  Then the harmonics, vibrations, etc, on the Starship caused RUD's. 

The booster, they have landed, what 3 times now, so it is basically reusable.  They have expended them, I think trying to get the Starship higher before stage separation.  This can be solved on the booster by either a tank stretch with Raptor 3's or even adding two extra engines in the center on the booster.  Musk mentioned this as a possibility. 

I have asked in other areas if Raptor 3's will be able to throttle and by how much.  Seems like they may have too much thrust on Starship causing the vibrations to RUD's.  Either that, or they will have to beef up the bottom more, but that takes away payload capabilities. 

[meekGee]

....  Seems like they may have too much thrust on Starship causing the vibrations to RUD's.
 ...

Where are you getting that?

The harmonics issue only happened once, and the biggest change wasn't the thrust level.

[DanClemmensen]

So, I would answer yes to ask those questions, and further expand it to say that Starship will have worked as currently envisaged if it is a two stage vehicle with full, rapid reuse, capable of delivering over 100t to LEO at a cost that is significantly lower than any vehicle flying today.

SpaceX can make it work if they have the payloads. It was Starlink that made reusable Falcon 9 successful. I'm not yet convinced Starlink can do the same for Starship.

When Starlink reaches 40,000 satellites. with a 5-year lifetime they need 8000 new satellites per year. At 80 satellites/launch, they need 100 Starships/year. This should be enough to pay the operations costs for maybe 1000 launches/year. Presumably other revenue will be generated by some of those other launches.

[Kaputnik]

It was Starlink that made reusable Falcon 9 successful.

Falcon 9 was wildly successful even before Starlink.

[TheRadicalModerate]

SpaceX can make it work if they have the payloads. It was Starlink that made reusable Falcon 9 successful. I'm not yet convinced Starlink can do the same for Starship.

F9 enabled Starlink, not the other way around.  However, I guess you could say that part of Starship's success will depend on whether it can deploy more Starlink, with greater Mbps¹/month and lower $/Mbps as the key metrics.

About that:  I built a dumb model, and my concerns about an expendable Starship not being adequate seem to be unfounded.

A completely expendable Starship launching 40 v3's almost double the specific cost ($/kg) as an F9 launching 28 v2's.  But if it's really true that a Starlink v3 has roughly 10x the Mbps as a v2, while it's only 2.7x heavier, even an expendable Starship is half the $/Mbps as an F9.²

Even if SuperHeavy is only 5x reusable, Starship specific cost for the v3's drops to 85% of the F9/v2's, while the $/Mbps is a quarter of the F9.  So, even at low cadence during a test program,

The real question is whether Starship can maintain the launch cadence necessary to completely take over from F9.  I suspect the answer to that will be "no", at least for a year or two.  But SpaceX will be annoyed if they can't start retiring the v2 mini line in favor of v3.  So getting cadence up ASAP is very important.  That requires prioritizing getting recoverability and refurbishment working as quickly as possible--even if that means that Starships are test articles first and v3 launchers second.

_________
¹Megabits per second, which seems like the best metric for Starlink network capacity.

²Assumptions:  $150M / expendable launch.  Baseline mass to a 200km x 200km x 26º reference orbit is 100t, which will be 81t to 279km x 279km x 53.16º when launched from Florida, which allows 40 Starlink v3's to be launched at once.  (If they launch from Boca Chica, there's a nasty dogleg involved in reaching any inclination above about 31º, which will sharply reduce the effective payload.)

Note that 100t to reference LEO for an expendable Starship, with no TPS, header tanks, or flaps, should be really, really easy.  But if an EDL test article is being used to launch v3's, that could take the mass to reference orbit down to 80t or so, in which case the number of v3's to a 53º orbit could be as low as 32.

[lightleviathan]

SpaceX was almost there, making Starship work, with Raptor 1's.  The got suborbital, orbital should have not been that hard, landed in the water off Australia, but had some burn through on the fin areas.  Fins were being solved when they went with Raptor 2's.  Then the harmonics, vibrations, etc, on the Starship caused RUD's. 

The booster, they have landed, what 3 times now, so it is basically reusable.  They have expended them, I think trying to get the Starship higher before stage separation.  This can be solved on the booster by either a tank stretch with Raptor 3's or even adding two extra engines in the center on the booster.  Musk mentioned this as a possibility. 

I have asked in other areas if Raptor 3's will be able to throttle and by how much.  Seems like they may have too much thrust on Starship causing the vibrations to RUD's.  Either that, or they will have to beef up the bottom more, but that takes away payload capabilities.

Block 1 ship (S24 and later) used Raptor 2. The issues were unique to V2 ship, not the engine.

"too much thrust" is also a really interesting assumption because V1 & V2 ship have the exact same thrust.

[dondar]

So, I would answer yes to ask those questions, and further expand it to say that Starship will have worked as currently envisaged if it is a two stage vehicle with full, rapid reuse, capable of delivering over 100t to LEO at a cost that is significantly lower than any vehicle flying today.

SpaceX can make it work if they have the payloads. It was Starlink that made reusable Falcon 9 successful. I'm not yet convinced Starlink can do the same for Starship.

where this "starlink made Falcon 9 succesfull" comes from?
I find it always very interesting how many people mix cause and effect.
Streamlined Falcon 9 made Starlink succesful, not other way around.
Payloads don't make rockets (sorry  but the mere idea is stupid). Rockets make payloads. Available launch capabilities determine payload characteristics, not other way around.
Extremely expensive launch skewed payload prices to jewelry levels (see price of failure on orbit). Hard limitations on space and weight skewed development costs and design complexity (see WEBB telescope for most obvious example).

Yes there is serious developmental delay (from 2 to 8 years depending on the ambitions and the project complexity) for payloads to arrive, that's is why all companies try to communicate early and make preliminary  launch contracts sometimes  "for free". Both sides need some insurance, customer/supplier feedback and the lead time in their developmental loop.

[meekGee]

So, I would answer yes to ask those questions, and further expand it to say that Starship will have worked as currently envisaged if it is a two stage vehicle with full, rapid reuse, capable of delivering over 100t to LEO at a cost that is significantly lower than any vehicle flying today.

SpaceX can make it work if they have the payloads. It was Starlink that made reusable Falcon 9 successful. I'm not yet convinced Starlink can do the same for Starship.

Oli's got a point.

It's true that F9 made SL possible, but equally, SL's launch rate made F9 the financial goldmine that it is.

Were going to assume that SL will stay at 40000 satellites, only larger ones.  That launch rate, while enough to practically saturate F9, doesn't even tickle SS.

SS is not only 10x larger, it can also launch 10x more often. Actually more than 10x.

However, given the crazy low cost of everything SS, I don't think you'll beed to saturate it with SL to make it break even, not even remotely.

But - there's no proof of that as of yet, just some.confidence that SpaceX knows these pretty basic numbers.

[TheRadicalModerate]

It's true that F9 made SL possible, but equally, SL's launch rate made F9 the financial goldmine that it is.

F9 isn't much of a goldmine.  On third-party launches, it probably makes 60-70% gross margin, which is nothing to sneeze at.  But there were only 45 non-Starlink launches in 2024.  Figure an average selling price of $90M, and that's maybe $3.1B.  That's a pretty good business, but it's going to be tiny compared to Starlink.

The thing that makes F9 so important is that it takes Starlink launch costs (no profits involved in this part) down to an almost trivial point.  No other megaconstellation has that property.

[meekGee]

It's true that F9 made SL possible, but equally, SL's launch rate made F9 the financial goldmine that it is.

F9 isn't much of a goldmine.  On third-party launches, it probably makes 60-70% gross margin, which is nothing to sneeze at.  But there were only 45 non-Starlink launches in 2024.  Figure an average selling price of $90M, and that's maybe $3.1B.  That's a pretty good business, but it's going to be tiny compared to Starlink.

The thing that makes F9 so important is that it takes Starlink launch costs (no profits involved in this part) down to an almost trivial point.  No other megaconstellation has that property.

It's small compared to what SL WILL be, but even today it's a huge chunk of profit.

The reason SS will need a smaller comparative volume to achieve the same effect is simply that bit about full reusability.

Here's hoping that 2026 will be un2025.

[Kaputnik]

there were only 45 non-Starlink launches in 2024. 

Just to put that in historical perspective, 45 launches in one year by the same rocket design is exceptional. I believe it's only been achieved once before, by Soyuz/R7 in the 1970s.
It's not so long ago that the total number of annual launches by all nations was just 85.

45 is only a small number compared to the stupendous pace of the Starlink campaign. Take that out of the picture and F9 would *still* be undeniably the most successful and prolific launcher in history.

[Oli]

It was Starlink that made reusable Falcon 9 successful.

Falcon 9 was wildly successful even before Starlink.

I said reusable Falcon 9.

[zubenelgenubi]

Moderator:
Thread trimmed.

[TheRadicalModerate]

If we assume that Starship isn't reusable, and SuperHeavy is, but it requires substantial refurbishment:

1) What is the maximum production rate of expendable Starships?

2) Is that production rate the gating factor on launch cadence?  Or is it SH or OLM refurbishment?

3) Would it result in a launch cadence sufficient to do a lunar and/or martian refueling campaign?  (Lunar is more demanding than martian.)

[alugobi]

If we assume that Starship isn't reusable,

then they don't need any tiles. 

[crandles57]

If we assume that Starship isn't reusable, and SuperHeavy is, but it requires substantial refurbishment:

1) What is the maximum production rate of expendable Starships?

2) Is that production rate the gating factor on launch cadence?  Or is it SH or OLM refurbishment?

3) Would it result in a launch cadence sufficient to do a lunar and/or martian refueling campaign?  (Lunar is more demanding than martian.)

Build enough factories and the production rate can be reduced increased as much as desired. Whether this makes financial sense to do this is a different question.

Build enough SH and facilities to refurbish and you can get the sh availability as high as needed. Again whether it is financially sensible to do this is a different question.

Build enough OLMs ....

In reality building so much probably isn't sensible but you can stock up over a period of time without launches to get sufficient ships and SH ready to go. Then is the question the OLM refurbishment time? or something else? Launch opportunities per day to an orbit that allows docking without much maneuvering that wastes too much fuel? Time to restock propellants and other consumables like water deluge?

[TheRadicalModerate]

If we assume that Starship isn't reusable,

then they don't need any tiles.

That's correct.  Is your point that putting the TPS on is the long pole in the tent?  I was guessing that wasn't true.  I'd guess the bottleneck is cryo/pressure testing and static fire.

[TheRadicalModerate]

Build enough factories and the production rate can be reduced increased [FTFY] as much as desired. Whether this makes financial sense to do this is a different question.

But it's a relevant question.

I'm assuming that SpaceX will eventually get Starship reusable, in which case over-investing in manufacturing capacity before you need it is a bad idea.

Another relevant question is what happens if SpaceX decides to go into operation for third parties with expendable Starships, or if EDL-experimental Starships perform so poorly that they can't be used operationally.  Then you have operational, bare-metal Starships, and EDL-experimental Starships.  How do you manage that mix?  What does it do to your testing pipeline?

[Robotbeat]

Elon said he wants to make 1000 Starships per year and make them reusable. So 1000 per year would not be an over-investment.

[crandles57]

Elon said he wants to make 1000 Starships per year and make them reusable. So 1000 per year would not be an over-investment.

Saying 1000 starships per year as a wild aspirational goal doesn't mean it is definitely going to happen. It is waaaaay too early to invest that much yet.


3 10 ton payload starships in late 2026 perhaps only need a couple of refuelling tankers per ship so 9 ships at 2 weeks build time each each once design for this window has settled. Production needs to start by ~mid 2026 if not earlier, yes time is running out for this. Just 3 v3 boosters needed assuming <1 month refurbish time and 3 sets of launches each set a month apart. Still that is additional build time and v3 has to go super smoothly to allow refinements and fuel transfer and long cold soak engine restarts and fuel retention over long periods and .... 

Lunar is more demanding but 2027? rather than 2026 and 75 ton payloads to Mars are also more demanding but 2028/9 and the extra time allows higher production rates to become available. Tankers being reusable in time for these would help keep the production rate needed down a lot even if some refurbish time is needed for a while until sufficient experience and improvements designed in.