Author Topic: HLS Landing in 2023 - What would it take?  (Read 36347 times)

Offline woods170

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Re: HLS Landing - this year(2023) -What would it take?
« Reply #20 on: 01/20/2023 01:25 pm »
According to Wayne Hale in the NAC, they think SpaceX could even attempt a Moon landing this year??
<snip>

Stop right there. Wayne Hale is ill-informed in this case. Probably not his fault, but courtesy of someone at either NASA or SpaceX not updating the schedules.
None of the sources I have spoken at SpaceX deem an uncrewed Moon landing attempt possible this year. 2024 Is out of the question as well. The very earliest they see it happen is 2025, and then only if everything goes OK. Which, needless to say, will probably not be the case.

Their realistic assessment is a first uncrewed lunar landing attempt in 2026, with the crewed landing NET late 2027/early 2028.

And yes, I'm willing to eat crow if my sources are wrong and the first uncrewed lunar landing attempt is earlier than 2026. Same for the first crewed landing if that happens before 2027.
« Last Edit: 01/22/2023 02:46 pm by woods170 »

Offline DanClemmensen

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Re: HLS Landing - this year(2023) -What would it take?
« Reply #21 on: 01/20/2023 06:12 pm »
According to Wayne Hale in the NAC, they think SpaceX could even attempt a Moon landing this year??
<snip>

Stop right there. Wayne Hale is ill-informed in this case. Probably not his fault, but courtesy of someone at either NASA or SpaceX not updating the schedules.
None of the sources I have spoken at SpaceX deem an uncrewed Moon landing attempt possible this year. 2024 Is out of the question as well. The very earliest they see it happen is 2025, and then only if everything goes OK. Which, needless to say, will probably not be the case.

Their realistic assessment is a first uncrewed lunar landing attempt in 2026, with the crewed landing NET late 2027/early 2028.

And yes, I'm willing to eat crow if my sources are wrong and the first uncrewed lunar landing attempt is earlier than 2026. Same for the first crewed landing it that happens before 2027.
I am reluctantly forced to agree with you. There is a graph in a post on another thread:
    https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=46338.msg2450278#msg2450278
It shows that no modern orbital LV has launched more than 3 times in its first year, and only F9 managed to launch 10 times in less than 5 years. But Starship will need more than 10 launches when you include initial testing.

Offline alugobi

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Re: HLS Landing - this year(2023) -What would it take?
« Reply #22 on: 01/20/2023 07:40 pm »
Indeed.

The impatience of fandom knows no bounds.

Offline RDMM2081

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Re: HLS Landing - this year(2023) -What would it take?
« Reply #23 on: 01/20/2023 08:05 pm »
I think we can all agree that the 2023 HLS landing demo is preposterous, given the facts and assumptions above.

Also that graph is a wonderful benchmark of past launcher systems.

Maybe a better question is if Starship/Superheavy has a chance to "beat the record" of 3 launches in its first year?

Pro: The system is supposed to be designed to be fully and rapidly reusable.
Pro: They have been testing "flight grade" hardware on the actual launch pad for some time now

Con: It's huge
Con: It's new
Con: It's still untested (in the sense it has not successfully demonstrated its ability to launch all the way to orbit)
Con: Still no launch license

Based upon absolutely nothing more than that I want it to succeed, I think they do have a good chance to max out their 5 launch attempts from Boca Chica this year and shatter the previous 3 launches in the first year benchmark, and be on their way to a 10-20 launch second year.

Offline alugobi

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Re: HLS Landing - this year(2023) -What would it take?
« Reply #24 on: 01/20/2023 08:32 pm »
Whoa.

Offline eric z

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Re: HLS Landing - this year(2023) -What would it take?
« Reply #25 on: 01/20/2023 08:49 pm »
 So, 2028/9 gets us back on the pre-Trump schedule: No harm, no foul!

Offline oiorionsbelt

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Re: HLS Landing - this year(2023) -What would it take?
« Reply #26 on: 01/21/2023 03:44 am »
The impatience of fandom knows no bounds.
  given how optimistic Elon Time is,
While probably true the alternative is far, far bleaker.
Quote
In July 2010, Boeing stated that the capsule could be operational as early as 2015

Offline Negan

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Re: HLS Landing - this year(2023) -What would it take?
« Reply #27 on: 01/21/2023 04:52 am »
Their realistic assessment is a first uncrewed lunar landing attempt in 2026, with the crewed landing NET late 2027/early 2028.

And yes, I'm willing to eat crow if my sources are wrong and the first uncrewed lunar landing attempt is earlier than 2026. Same for the first crewed landing it that happens before 2027.

Where does that put Dear Moon?

Offline laszlo

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Re: HLS Landing - this year(2023) -What would it take?
« Reply #28 on: 01/21/2023 11:26 am »
Nobody is mentioning the other things going on in our world that could impact the effort. Even if SpaceX could pull off the technical details perfectly, there's still the war in Ukraine, the general state of the US national economy, the world economy and now the US Congress posturing about the US debt limit.  Toss in the possibilities of natural disasters like massive winter storms disrupting transportation and supply chains, Gulf and Atlantic storms impacting the SH/SS launch sites and a new COVID variant and you don't need any help from SpaceX or Elon at all to delay well beyond 2023.

For example, the current US debt limit impasse is now forcing austerity measures onto US spending to delay the default and shutdown as long as possible (currently estimated to be June). Until that gets resolved, the priority in US spending will be the interest payments on US debt instruments and payments under the federal insurance programs like Medicare and Social Security, not issuing launch licenses, completing environmental impact statements or funding oversight of lunar lander development. Even if SpaceX was ready to go right now, there'd be a delay.

Offline Oersted

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Re: HLS Landing - this year(2023) -What would it take?
« Reply #29 on: 01/21/2023 12:06 pm »
Thank God Starship is not a state-run effort! 

Offline Valerij

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Re: HLS Landing - this year(2023) -What would it take?
« Reply #30 on: 01/21/2023 02:00 pm »
According to Wayne Hale in the NAC, they think SpaceX could even attempt a Moon landing this year??
<snip>

Stop right there. Wayne Hale is ill-informed in this case. Probably not his fault, but courtesy of someone at either NASA or SpaceX not updating the schedules.
   
There is absolutely no chance that SpaceX will be able to send a Starship HLS to the Moon this year. But there is a very good chance that SpaceX will send third-party landers and/or orbiters to the Moon under the CLPS program. Naturally, SpaceX will launch them on Falcon-9 or Falcon Heavy rockets.
   
Furthermore,
The Starship HLS is not designed to return to Earth or Earth orbit, and will not have heat shield tiles or aerodynamic panels.

Offline Valerij

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Re: HLS Landing - this year(2023) -What would it take?
« Reply #31 on: 01/21/2023 02:07 pm »
[None of the sources I have spoken at SpaceX deem an uncrewed Moon landing attempt possible this year. 2024 Is out of the question as well. The very earliest they see it happen is 2025, and then only if everything goes OK. Which, needless to say, will probably not be the case.

Their realistic assessment is a first uncrewed lunar landing attempt in 2026, with the crewed landing NET late 2027/early 2028.

And yes, I'm willing to eat crow if my sources are wrong and the first uncrewed lunar landing attempt is earlier than 2026. Same for the first crewed landing it that happens before 2027.
   
I won't argue with you, but it seems likely to me that you will have to eat your crow.

Offline kdhilliard

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Re: HLS Landing - this year(2023) -What would it take?
« Reply #32 on: 01/21/2023 02:31 pm »
Forgetting the 2023 part, hypothetically, how many fully expendable (both Superheavy booster & Starship upper stage) launches would be needed to attempt a lunar landing of a stripped down HLS Starship?

Offline eriblo

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Re: HLS Landing - this year(2023) -What would it take?
« Reply #33 on: 01/21/2023 04:11 pm »
Forgetting the 2023 part, hypothetically, how many fully expendable (both Superheavy booster & Starship upper stage) launches would be needed to attempt a lunar landing of a stripped down HLS Starship?
Likely 3, 2 if you have really good performance:

Minimum dv from reference LEO to Moon surface is generally set as ~5.7 km/s. Average Isp of 365 s gives a mass ratio of 4.9.

Assuming say a stripped HLS is similar to a reusable tanker (say 120 t) and no payload gives 470 t of propellant. This is  HLS + 4 tankers if nominal payload is 100 t. Expendable payload has been estimated as ~2x reusable which gives HLS + 2 tankers with quite a bit of margin for boiloff and residuals.

If HLS is <100 t empty or nominal payload is 150 t you might get away with a single tanker.

Offline InterestedEngineer

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Re: HLS Landing - this year(2023) -What would it take?
« Reply #34 on: 01/21/2023 06:24 pm »
]Expendable payload has been estimated as ~2x reusable which gives HLS + 2 tankers with quite a bit of margin for boiloff and residuals.

There's no way it takes an extra 100t of propellant to reuse a Starship.

1.2x I'd believe, but not 2x

Offline DanClemmensen

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Re: HLS Landing - this year(2023) -What would it take?
« Reply #35 on: 01/21/2023 06:29 pm »
]Expendable payload has been estimated as ~2x reusable which gives HLS + 2 tankers with quite a bit of margin for boiloff and residuals.

There's no way it takes an extra 100t of propellant to reuse a Starship.

1.2x I'd believe, but not 2x
It's not just the propellant. If SS is designed to be expendable it does not have TPS or Elonerons.

Offline InterestedEngineer

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Re: HLS Landing - this year(2023) -What would it take?
« Reply #36 on: 01/21/2023 06:47 pm »
]Expendable payload has been estimated as ~2x reusable which gives HLS + 2 tankers with quite a bit of margin for boiloff and residuals.

There's no way it takes an extra 100t of propellant to reuse a Starship.

1.2x I'd believe, but not 2x
It's not just the propellant. If SS is designed to be expendable it does not have TPS or Elonerons.

Do the math, you still don't get 2x

Offline kdhilliard

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Re: HLS Landing - this year(2023) -What would it take?
« Reply #37 on: 01/22/2023 12:11 am »
...
Do the math, you still don't get 2x

Even with the fully expended Superheavy booster?

(Perhaps not a likely scenario, but was inherent to my question.)

Offline Vahe231991

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Re: HLS Landing in 2025
« Reply #38 on: 01/22/2023 12:36 am »
Even if the first Starship launch is successful, the fact that the HLS is the lunar landing component of all Artemis missions starting with Artemis 3 means that SpaceX is most likely to start manufacturing components for the HLS on the eve of the Artemis 2 mission, since Artemis 3 is a long way off. Add to that the fact that SpaceX would also have to manufacture additional Starship/Super Heavy rockets because the Starship would have to be refueled from another Starship while en route to the Moon.

Offline CorvusCorax

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Re: HLS Landing in 2023 - What would it take?
« Reply #39 on: 01/22/2023 07:33 am »
I see a decent chance that SpaceX will start doing in orbit prop transfer tests in 2024.

Pulling that forward to 2023 might be possible but is very unlikely - depending on SpaceX priorities.

Prio 1 is obviously "Make orbit"

Prio X is "launch Starlinks"

Prio Y is "achieve full reusability"

Prio Z is "in orbit prop transfer ( depot )

SpaceX must Assign 2,3,4 to X,Y,Z

At first it looked like Y=2 X=3 Z=4

Then SpaceX started removing recovery hw from newly built prototypes, suggesting

X=2 Y=3 Z=4

But now they have welded the dispenser slots shut. That might just be to not infer with Prio 1 - make orbit.

Unless Prop Transfer suddenly is more important than both other goals, it likely won't start to happen this year. And there's good reason to get reusability - at least of booster - to work before starting simultaneous multi vehicle operations. You also want decent reliability and reliable engine restart in orbit already demonstrated.

This is a long roadmap. Even at SpaceX speed. ( which wasn't all that fast in 2022 )






Tags: Starship HLS Artemis 
 

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