5 comments

• Dick Eagleson

  October 29, 2025 at 2:20 pm

  It is interesting that this latest load of Starlinks massed 575 kg more than the previously standard loads of 28 Starlink improved V2 Minis going to 53-degree inclinations – the mass of the additional satellite in the stack. SpaceX appears to have squeezed an extra sat onto this stack by cutting the altitude of the initial parking orbit for this particular load by about 10 mi. compared to the drop-off orbital altitude previously employed for batches of 28 birds going to the same orbital inclination.

  This means that these sats will take modestly longer to reach their operational altitudes and join the active ranks of the Starlink constellation, but there will be one more of them when they do arrive. I presume that SpaceX has run the numbers and found that this modification to previously standard practice will produce enough more bandwidth in service enough sooner to be worth the initial extra wait for arrival at operational orbital altitude. That won’t be true for this first such load considered in isolation, but it will be true, overall, as more such loads are lofted at the increasing Falcon 9 cadence SpaceX is still aggressively pursuing.

  This, as I see it, confirms that there will be a few years of overlapping Falcon 9 and Starship deployments of Starlinks that will continue until the final intended population of Starlink sats is reached – likely around the end of the decade. After that, the job of constellation maintenance will be one of replacing the smaller birds with the bigger ones only Starship can loft. The Falcon 9 will then be taken off of Starlink deployment duties and, in all likelihood, retired.

  That, in theory at least, could then allow LC-39A to be rebuilt as a second Starship pad at that site and SLC-40 to be likewise upgraded which would give SpaceX five Starship launch complexes at KSC-Canaveral. Doing the same with SLC-4E and SLC-6 at Vandy seems less likely – though not impossible – owing to the lack of a Starship production facility there and the difficulties of establishing one given the limited available real estate on the base itself. But never say never I suppose.
• Bill Buhler

  October 29, 2025 at 2:28 pm

  Dick, I think you’re missing a key point for future starship distribution. Since it will be 100% reusable i believe their only concern at a launch site is getting super heavy boosters to the site. Starship can be flown there… I would be interest in seeing how far a super heavy booster could go if it was launched with just a nose cone and a full fuel load, it would be wild if it could fly a parabolic arc to Vandenberg..

  If not I bet they would be willing to barge a few there even if its hard to do.
• Dick Eagleson

  October 29, 2025 at 2:43 pm

  Bill Buhler,

  You could well be right. Those sorts of logistics could prove workable, especially once the Starship stack reaches a point of maturity at which it requires little or no between-flights refurb – say the very early 2030s. That would limit the extent of the necessary support infrastructure, though local air separation and natural gas liquefaction and refining facilities would still be needed as well as a much larger tank farm than the Falcons require.

  If California is still in enemy – that is to say, Democratic – hands at that point, it would set up another fine showdown between Elon and the California Coastal Commission. Pull up some chairs and pop some corn. Excitement guaranteed as Elon likes to say.
• Robert Zimmerman

  October 29, 2025 at 2:45 pm

  I think we should not expect Falcon 9 to be retired as quickly as Dick supposes. Even though SpaceX might not need it for Starlink once Starship is operational, NASA is likely going to want it for awhile for ISS. Other stations might also want it to get crews to and from their stations. Dragon is in many ways a better fit than Starship for those stations.

  It is important to remember that in a truly free market, no one size fits all. Freedom encourages variety. The more businesses of many kinds we have in space, the more variety of launch vehicles and spacecraft will be required.
• Dick Eagleson

  October 29, 2025 at 6:25 pm

  For what it’s worth, I don’t think the Falcons, especially Falcon 9, will be retired until after both the ISS splashdown and the Starlink constellation reaching its intended maximum population. Both of those events seem likely to occur at pretty much the same time – 2030, plus or minus a bit.

  It’s certainly possible the Falcons will remain in service into the 2030s, but I doubt SpaceX would be willing to keep all four pads active. I think Starship ops demand will result in at least two of the Falcon pads being converted to Starship pads starting around 2030 – perhaps one on each coast. More likely, all four.

  The Dragons are certainly cheaper than any past or present alternatives, but they are still pretty pricey. And there aren’t very many of them nor do they have indefinite design lives. The ISS practice of keeping the crew delivery vessels around for months on end as lifeboats won’t be practical for a future with even a pair of commercial LEO stations.

  Dedicated “escape pods” of some kind, that can be hauled up on Starship, dropped off and attached for long-term service on commercial stations will be the likeliest alternative. A crew-carrying Starship could act as a LEO transit bus doing regular – and more-frequent-than-ISS – crew rotation runs for multiple commercial LEO stations on each excursion.