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General Discussion => Q&A Section => Topic started by: PM3 on 12/23/2020 08:45 am

Title: Starship and Super Heavy Q&A
Post by: PM3 on 12/23/2020 08:45 am

I've been looking for statements on the reusability targets of Starship and Super Heavy, but didn't find them. AFAIR there were some numbers out there like using interplanetary Starship 10 times, tanker 100 times, Super Heavy 1000 times or similar, probably based in Elon tweets. But not sure if I remember that correctly.

Could you point me to any sources where SpaceX's reusability targets were communicated?

Title: Re: Starship and Super Heavy Q&A
Post by: IanThePineapple on 12/23/2020 08:35 pm

I recall seeing those numbers around the times of ITS. I haven't heard anything about current targets.

Title: Re: Starship and Super Heavy Q&A
Post by: PM3 on 12/27/2020 09:06 am

Yeah right, what I remembered were actually numbers for the ITS, in a paper by Elon Musk in 2017: 1000 uses for the booster, 100 for the tanker and 12 for the interplanetary spaceship.

Title: Re: Starship and Super Heavy Q&A
Post by: geza on 12/27/2020 10:18 am

Elon stated this in his IAC lecture in 2016, together with presenting his Mars architecture first time:
https://www.spacex.com/media/making_life_multiplanetary_2016.pdf

No confirmation since then, as far as I am aware of.

This numbers were present in a table about costing of a Mars mission. In this context he assumed higher level of reusability for a booster than for a second stage. Probably because of the hypersonic entry by the second one, I guess. I see no reason to assume lover reusability for a crewed spacecraft, than a tanker. However, he could not count reusing a Mars spacecraft 100 times within decades, because of the synodes.