The Way Too Early IFT-6 Predictions Thread

[Russell_C]

I know we are only a week removed from flight test 5, but i'm wondering what everyone thinks we will see out of flight test 6.  Full orbital flight?  A starship landing back at starbase?  SN33?  What are your predictions?

[InterestedEngineer]

Skip whatever the next V1 is, and straight to V2 SN33.  Same flight plan, shooting for reliability metrics so IFT-7 can attempt a lading at BC.

[gtae07]

Depends on the marginal cost of flying the last V1 ship, how long V2 will take to be ready, and whether there's more to be gained pulling the engines off the "old flight 6" vehicles.

My guess would be, if the last V1 flies and is capable of doing so...
- engine relight in "orbit" to allow true orbital flight.
- payload door test (if equipped, IDK)
- possibly an evening launch so ship EDL is in daylight?

But past that I don't see anything that wouldn't be testable on V2.

[Russell_C]

Depends on the marginal cost of flying the last V1 ship, how long V2 will take to be ready, and whether there's more to be gained pulling the engines off the "old flight 6" vehicles.

My guess would be, if the last V1 flies and is capable of doing so...
- engine relight in "orbit" to allow true orbital flight.
- payload door test (if equipped, IDK)
- possibly an evening launch so ship EDL is in daylight?

But past that I don't see anything that wouldn't be testable on V2.

I think we've seen our last of V1, it just seems counterintuitive (to me, a layman) to test tech that is known won't be moving forward with the design.

My question is, how far can they deviate from flight 5's profile without triggering an FAA License investigation.  Say they still planed a soft landing in the Indian ocean, but wanted to go orbital first, are we looking at another 3 month wait for the OK?

[JohnsterSpaceProgram]

Hello once again everyone! Now that it's been a few days since Flight 5 launched and made history on October 13th, 2024, with the first successful catch of the Super Heavy booster, and since I didn't end up doing one for Flight 5, I thought I would start a predictions thread for Flight 6.

Like in the previous flight prediction threads, you can either reply here with your predictions, or enter them into the Flight 6 predictions spreadsheet.

Also, you can find my previous flight prediction threads here...
IFT-3: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=60003.0
IFT-4: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=60549.0

And you can find the predictions sheet I've created for Flight 6 here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qsZh5qyczpJZHCB0j5s4VmNTDoYSv0dmG24vfH2zxSE/edit?usp=sharing.



With those introductions out of the way, I would like to share my predictions for the sixth integrated test flight of Starship.

Vehicles: Booster 13/Ship 31 (B13-S31)

Launch Date: Sometime between late November and early December 2024

Flight Success Chance: 90% Successful

What I Would Consider As A Success: The ship surviving re-entry with less or no burn-through on the forward flaps than was seen on Flight 5's ship, another successful booster catch, but with less damage to the booster, and all primary/major flight objectives completed.

Something new on this predictions sheet, which the previous ones did not include, are the addition of major and minor mission objective predictions.

Here's what I think the major and minor objectives might potentially be for the flight.

Major Flight Objectives: Another successful booster catch, and the ship completing an in-space raptor relight.

Minor Flight Objectives: Additional in-flight tests, perhaps another payload bay door test, or a tank-to-tank transfer like on Flight 3.

Also, don't forget to check out this Flight 6 launch predictions poll (https://forms.gle/Te4dQTVEfAbKUDax5) as well! You can also find it in the "Form Responses" tab on the predictions spreadsheet.

So, what are your predictions for flight 6?

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Two flight 6 prediction threads merged.

[ThatOldJanxSpirit]

In flight test of a hot gas thruster.

Edit to include my reasoning:

Since the IFT3 loss of control SpaceX have appeared to be very cautious over attitude control. I’m suspecting that their reason for not attempting a raptor re-light is a lack of confidence that the ACS can remain functional through burn pointing/prop-settling and re-entry.

Hot gas thrusters are on the critical path for the fuelling demo. They may also be critical path for re-light and therefore any orbital operations.

[TomH]

They actually could fly 13/31 by mid-November. They've taken Ship 13 out for SF, so it looks like they plan to fly. I don't see too much more they can learn with V.1, however, so I would not be surprised if they decided within a couple of days simply to go straight to V.2. Of course, regulatory approval for that may engender more regulatory delays. Perhaps they have already filed for that approval and may be preparing to fly Ship 13, in case they don't soon get the permit for V.2. But if they do get the approval for V.2, I would expect them to just leapfrog straight to it.

[gin455res]

Maybe delete the forward flaps and do an early test of this configuration.

[gtae07]

I think we've seen our last of V1, it just seems counterintuitive (to me, a layman) to test tech that is known won't be moving forward with the design.

Even an old configuration vehicle can still provide useful test data, depending on what's changed.  We know the forward flaps are changing, but what's changing propulsion-wise?  If V2 is still using Raptor 2 engines and the same basic propellant/propulsion setup, maybe there's value in conducting the in-space relight so that the first V2 flight can go orbital. 

My question is, how far can they deviate from flight 5's profile without triggering an FAA License investigation.  Say they still planed a soft landing in the Indian ocean, but wanted to go orbital first, are we looking at another 3 month wait for the OK?

That's the big question.  I don't think the FAA will approve an actual orbital flight without an in-space relight first. 

If 13/31 can fly in a couple weeks with minimal/no regulatory churn and at the cost of "just" some propellant and labor hours, vs. a couple months of waiting to finish getting 33 ready and modify the licensing for a new test... might as well fly and demonstrate that relight.  Might also be easier/faster to combine the "new entry protection system" and "orbital" into one license modification process vs. two separate ones. 

I'd also argue that perhaps the full orbital approval is possibly more important than the forward flaps from a near term perspective.  Fly 31, demonstrate relight, then 33 can (if equipped) dispense some payload as a secondary test objective.  Then your test flights can start doing useful things as well, while you iterate the TPS.

[Riccardo11]

Ships S31 and booster 13 appear to be ready: testing an in-space engine relight makes a lot of sense, so that they can go orbital with the first V2.

They need a license modification, however FAA already approved an engine relight for IFT3, so it should be straightforward.

[KSC Sage]

Skip whatever the next V1 is, and straight to V2 SN33.  Same flight plan, shooting for reliability metrics so IFT-7 can attempt a lading at BC.

The V2 vehicles need to launch off Pad 2.  Pad 2 won't be ready for use until early next year.

[dondar]

They actually could fly 13/31 by mid-November. They've taken Ship 13 out for SF, so it looks like they plan to fly. I don't see too much more they can learn with V.1, however, so I would not be surprised if they decided within a couple of days simply to go straight to V.2. Of course, regulatory approval for that may engender more regulatory delays. Perhaps they have already filed for that approval and may be preparing to fly Ship 13, in case they don't soon get the permit for V.2. But if they do get the approval for V.2, I would expect them to just leapfrog straight to it.

V1 is still useful to test engine relight and controlled landing  outside of ballistic corridor.
They also need to assemble statistics about Booster landings, they also need to test some simple failure modes.

[Russell_C]

Two flight 6 prediction threads merged.

Is that like...crossing the streams in Ghostbusters?  Should I be worried?

[alexterrell]

I would have thought that if they did a controlled landing in the Indian ocean, they could have travelled a bit further and landed on an empty Australian beach. Then they could have measured exactly how much burn through there was on the heat shield.

Maybe something for Flight 6, if they don't go for a full orbit?

From a project point of view, re-entry is still the one they haven't proven, and if they lose a Star Ship each time, the testing is expensive. Flight 5 came in at sub orbital speed. Future flights might come in with double the kinetic energy. 

The other thing that might be interesting is to reuse the same booster (after checking and measuring any damage).

[InterestedEngineer]

Skip whatever the next V1 is, and straight to V2 SN33.  Same flight plan, shooting for reliability metrics so IFT-7 can attempt a lading at BC.

The V2 vehicles need to launch off Pad 2.  Pad 2 won't be ready for use until early next year.

V2 booster yes, but V2 starships flying with V1 boosters are already on the official-ish plan, so tossing S31 and going straight to S33 is entirely plausible.  Depends when they can get S33 to Massey's.

[sanman]

Sorry for the small digression -- but since people here know a lot about scheduling plans, then when is Raptor-3 scheduled to fly? Will it debut with the V2 vehicles, or a little later?

Btw -- Felix from WAI says there are rumors of Nov 11 as the tentative date for Flight 6 (sounds a little early, if you ask me, but another flight within this year seems quite reasonable)

[rpapo]

Maybe delete the forward flaps and do an early test of this configuration.

Why would you omit the forward flaps and not omit the aft flaps?  Both are required for EDL, and neither are required if you are not planning on returning the ship, as in using it as a fuel depot or sending it to land on the moon.  For that matter, you would simply leave off the tiles in both cases too.

[gin455res]

Maybe delete the forward flaps and do an early test of this configuration.

Why would you omit the forward flaps and not omit the aft flaps?  Both are required for EDL, and neither are required if you are not planning on returning the ship, as in using it as a fuel depot or sending it to land on the moon.  For that matter, you would simply leave off the tiles in both cases too.

I think Elon said (IIRC) that it might be possible to re-enter (and I guess belly-flop) without them and they might at some point get rid of them. I guess this might only apply to ships coming back empty-ish and not Mars ships which would have a lot of mass in the front.


 Deleting them would save weight and complexity.


Current flaps on V1, are obsolete now, why not lose them on the next test flight.

[tenkendojo]

Maybe delete the forward flaps and do an early test of this configuration.

Maybe also delete the aft flaps and the heat tiles, and send it to lunar impact trajectory. For science of course.