SpaceX Manifest Discussion Thread

[DreamyPickle]

SpaceX recently asked FCC to approve 6 polar launches stating it has "an opportunity for a polar launch in December". Link: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=46726.msg2155812#msg2155812

Any idea how this maps to launches and boosters, and if this is going to happen from Vandenberg?

[Celestar]

How are they going to land a booster for a Vandenberg-Starlink launch? The booster cannot RTLS with 60 Sats and there isn't any barge to land on on the west coast is there? Maybe launch fewer Starlinks?

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[AndrewRG10]

How are they going to land a booster for a Vandenberg-Starlink launch? The booster cannot RTLS with 60 Sats and there isn't any barge to land on on the west coast is there? Maybe launch fewer Starlinks?

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Launch from Cape Canaveral I would say.

[Jansen]

SpaceX recently asked FCC to approve 6 polar launches stating it has "an opportunity for a polar launch in December". Link: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=46726.msg2155812#msg2155812

Any idea how this maps to launches and boosters, and if this is going to happen from Vandenberg?

We discussed this on the previous page. You’ll find the discussion here:

Possible Starlink polar launch in December:

[gemmy0I]

How are they going to land a booster for a Vandenberg-Starlink launch? The booster cannot RTLS with 60 Sats and there isn't any barge to land on on the west coast is there? Maybe launch fewer Starlinks?

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Using the Iridium missions (which were said to be just on the line for RTLS/ASDS) as a rough guide, I estimate that they can launch a half-sized Starlink mission of 30 satellites on a polar trajectory from Vandenberg and still RTLS.

Half as many satellites means the launch costs are effectively doubled. I don't think that's necessarily prohibitive, considering that with reuse launches have gotten a lot cheaper (~$15-20M/launch internally vs. $50-60M public pricing), and if they were to do this it would be entirely with boosters which would otherwise be sitting around unused (e.g. B1063 after Sentinel-6).

6 launches at 30 sats/launch would be enough to put 180 satellites in orbit. That should be enough for global coverage considering that Iridium does it with ~70 satellites from a similar orbit. Given these polar satellites are there to serve sparsely populated northern regions (i.e. Alaska), I suspect that will be plenty for their early customer rollout there. More satellites should only be needed to add additional bandwidth once they fill those up.

I could be wrong and they might be planning these all from Canaveral on the new polar trajectory. The FCC application did say that each polar plane would comprise 58 satellites, which sounds about right for a standard ASDS 60-satellite load de-rated for the increased delta-v requirements of a polar trajectory (including the dogleg to avoid Miami). But I feel like the Canaveral manifest is so busy right now that if there's an "opportunity" popping up in the December-January time frame, it's more likely at Vandenberg, since it'll be idle in exactly that timeframe after Sentinel-6.

At Canveral, they do probably have an "opportunity" or two to launch Starlinks in December, but that wouldn't really represent a unique opportunity for a polar launch, as they've got plenty of non-polar Starlinks lined up to fill such a void. If they are framing a Canaveral launch window as the "opportunity" for a polar launch motivating this request to the FCC, they are probably milking the language a little bit to cajole the FCC into giving them the conditional pre-approval they seek. Which is entirely possible, and par for the course in these FCC battles. They know Kuiper (Amazon) is years away from launching anything, and they've already reached an agreement with Kuiper to allow them to share this orbit band amicably; yet Kuiper will want to drag out the FCC's ratification of that resolution as much as possible to slow down their competitor. Anything SpaceX can do to create a narrative of "this delay will cause underserved customers to wait longer for high-speed Internet" helps give the FCC a reason to fast-track it instead of taking the path of least resistance of letting bureaucracy run its normal slow course. Framing the situation as an imminent opportunity they'll miss if the FCC doesn't act - even if it's a a bit pretextual - puts the onus on the FCC to fast-track their approval or risk appearing to be biased against them.

So, I guess we'll have to wait and see what they do. Assuming they get the approval, we should know in December if they're planning a Starlink launch from Vandenberg, or if they divert one of the standard Cape Starlink launches that month to take a polar trajectory. They may even do both, as time is money right now for them and any opportunity to get Starlinks in the sky at a reasonable price is a win for them. The question is whether paying 2x as much to launch them via RTLS from Vandenberg is still a good enough price in comparison to the value of expanding their paying customer base more quickly.

[scr00chy]

SpaceX recently asked FCC to approve 6 polar launches stating it has "an opportunity for a polar launch in December". Link: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=46726.msg2155812#msg2155812

Any idea how this maps to launches and boosters, and if this is going to happen from Vandenberg?

Where did you get 6 launches? The document only mentions one, I think.

[Jansen]

There is a slight chance it could be B1063.2, but it’s super tight for end of December. The fastest turnaround for a booster so far has been around 45 days. (That ended up going to 51 days due to weather and non-SpaceX delays).

You should not forget that all those landing wasn't on land. Transfer to port adds at least 5 days. 45-5 = 40 days - seems OK. Musk said that they need 2-3 weeks for maintenance. 14-21 day and 10 days for other preparations. BTW landing on LZ less stressful than on droneship. So maybe 35-40 days can be reachable for turnaround time.

I don’t see how turnaround would be that much faster at Vandenberg, when the fastest ever turnarounds have been at Florida where the majority of their personnel and infrastructure for refurbishment are.

Vandenburg hasn’t even been used by SpaceX since June 2019. That’s 17 months of inactivity.

The current thinking that B1063 will be based at VAFB is based on speculation. The opportunity cost alone of having a useful booster sitting on the west coast when there is a shortage of boosters for commercial customers makes this highly unlikely.

[Jansen]

SpaceX recently asked FCC to approve 6 polar launches stating it has "an opportunity for a polar launch in December". Link: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=46726.msg2155812#msg2155812

Any idea how this maps to launches and boosters, and if this is going to happen from Vandenberg?

Where did you get 6 launches? The document only mentions one, I think.

From the first full paragraph of page 2:

Specifically, SpaceX requests that the Commission authorize deployment of one of the sun synchronous polar shells proposed in the modification, composed of six orbital planes with 58 satellites in each at 560 km altitude.

[scr00chy]

I don’t see how turnaround would be that much faster at Vandenberg, when the fastest ever turnarounds have been at Florida where the majority of their personnel and infrastructure for refurbishment are.

Vandenburg hasn’t even been used by SpaceX since June 2019. That’s 17 months of inactivity.

The boosters meant for VAFB are refurbished in Hawthorne, IIRC.

[Jansen]

I don’t see how turnaround would be that much faster at Vandenberg, when the fastest ever turnarounds have been at Florida where the majority of their personnel and infrastructure for refurbishment are.

Vandenburg hasn’t even been used by SpaceX since June 2019. That’s 17 months of inactivity.

The boosters meant for VAFB are refurbished in Hawthorne, IIRC.

That’s kinda my point, the refurbishment at VAFB is non-existent and requires shipping off site. Any time saving from a RTLS are negated by additional transportation time.

[gongora]

https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/1150

NET June 2021 from SLC-40

Those NROL-85 and 87 dates on Michael's site just look like placeholders to me, I'm going to ignore them for now.

[DreamyPickle]

Isn't there a performance penalty when doing polar orbits from Cape Canaveral? Launching 58 starlinks at a time into polar orbit might not even be possible.

A few months ago there was an announcement of a 4th droneship "A shortfall of gravitas". Maybe it will be ready to support Vandenberg launches from December?

[Jansen]

Isn't there a performance penalty when doing polar orbits from Cape Canaveral? Launching 58 starlinks at a time into polar orbit might not even be possible.

A few months ago there was an announcement of a 4th droneship "A shortfall of gravitas". Maybe it will be ready to support Vandenberg launches from December?

Slight performance penalty, that’s why it’s 58 sats instead of 60. SSO are a type of polar orbit so not much difference from what has been demonstrated.

Shortfall of Gravitas will be east coast. All three will support increased launch cadence and FH triple recovery.

Edit for clarity.

[Alexphysics]

SpaceX recently asked FCC to approve 6 polar launches stating it has "an opportunity for a polar launch in December". Link: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=46726.msg2155812#msg2155812

Any idea how this maps to launches and boosters, and if this is going to happen from Vandenberg?

Where did you get 6 launches? The document only mentions one, I think.

From the first full paragraph of page 2:

Specifically, SpaceX requests that the Commission authorize deployment of one of the sun synchronous polar shells proposed in the modification, composed of six orbital planes with 58 satellites in each at 560 km altitude.

They're only saying the number of planes and satellites that will go in each plane not the number of launches. If they want to launch from Florida these polar Starlinks they'll need to cut down on payload to at least 50 Starlink satellites. To launch from Vandy and allow RTLS to LZ-4 they would need to cut it down even further to 30 satellites at the very least

[Jansen]

They're only saying the number of planes and satellites that will go in each plane not the number of launches. If they want to launch from Florida these polar Starlinks they'll need to cut down on payload to at least 50 Starlink satellites. To launch from Vandy and allow RTLS to LZ-4 they would need to cut it down even further to 30 satellites at the very least

I think we can agree on “at least six flights” for the polar shells.

I believe Starlink launches to LEO are volume constrained, not mass constrained. There is additional margin there that can be used for polar  orbits, but I don’t think those figures are available publicly.

[gongora]

I believe Starlink launches to LEO are volume constrained, not mass constrained. There is additional margin there that can be used for polar  orbits, but I don’t think those figures are available publicly.

Elon said they were mass constrained at a press conference when they started launching the Starlink flights.

[Jansen]

Elon said they were mass constrained at a press conference when they started launching the Starlink flights.

Do you have a link handy? Would love to have it as a reference.

[gongora]

Elon said they were mass constrained at a press conference when they started launching the Starlink flights.

Do you have a link handy? Would love to have it as a reference.

I don't have a link

[wannamoonbase]

I believe Starlink launches to LEO are volume constrained, not mass constrained. There is additional margin there that can be used for polar  orbits, but I don’t think those figures are available publicly.

Elon said they were mass constrained at a press conference when they started launching the Starlink flights.

That can also be confirmed by reducing the number of Starlinks per flight when they have rideshare partners.

[Jansen]

I believe Starlink launches to LEO are volume constrained, not mass constrained. There is additional margin there that can be used for polar  orbits, but I don’t think those figures are available publicly.

Elon said they were mass constrained at a press conference when they started launching the Starlink flights.

That can also be confirmed by reducing the number of Starlinks per flight when they have rideshare partners.

Those were definitely a volume issue. Skysats only weigh 110 kg and Blacksky around 50kg each.

Each Starlink is ~260kg.