Elon Musk’s employee update released January 12th
I have embedded below an employee update of the status of all of SpaceX’s projects, given by Elon Musk and released publicly on January 12, 2023. The video has been edited only to remove the many enthusiastic applauses by Musk’s audience of co-workers in order to shorten it.
Though Musk provided a lot of general information about the company’s long term goals with Starlink, Starship, Mars, the Moon, and other topics, these are the most important take-aways relating to its ongoing efforts now:
- Falcon 9: The company is now upgrading its first stage so that it will be able to fly reused forty times, not twenty. Musk also noted that they have now reused the rocket’s fairings more than 300 times.
- They are now aiming for about 150 launches in 2024. (It appears now that the biggest obstacle to this goal will be weather, as seen by the weather delays that have stalled Falcon 9 launches this very week.)
- The Dragon fleet has now spent more days at and flights to ISS than the NASA’s entire shuttle fleet.
- Starlink: It is a supplement to present phone and internet service, not a replacement, serving remote areas. Its biggest obstacle now however to providing that service is government approvals. The company is blocked by regulators in many places where the service is operational.
On Starship/Superheavy, he revealed these facts:
- They are planning to double its payload capacity to 200 tons to orbit, twice the Saturn-5.
- Starship would have made orbit on the second orbital test if it had had a payload. To simulate the weight of payload it had carried extraoxidizer, and when it vented these as it approached orbit it caused problems that activated the self-destruct system.
- The third orbital test flight will thus almost certainly reach orbit, and will then test engine burns, some refueling technology, payload deployment, and de-orbit procedures.
Musk emphasized that they must be able to fly these tests frequently to get Starship/Superheavy functioning, not just for SpaceX but for NASA’s Artemis program. As he said, “Time is the one true currency.” With each launch they refine the system to make it more reliable and operational. Without those launches they can’t.
He did not mention why launches might not happen frequently, probably because the last thing he needs to do is antagonize the regulators who are slowing him down. I (and other journalists) however are not under that restriction. The biggest obstacle to SpaceX’s success is the red-tape being wound around it by the Biden administration and its love of strict regulation, possibly instigated by its political hostility to Elon Musk as a person.
This government action to stymie freedom must end, and the sooner the better.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
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I have embedded below an employee update of the status of all of SpaceX’s projects, given by Elon Musk and released publicly on January 12, 2023. The video has been edited only to remove the many enthusiastic applauses by Musk’s audience of co-workers in order to shorten it.
Though Musk provided a lot of general information about the company’s long term goals with Starlink, Starship, Mars, the Moon, and other topics, these are the most important take-aways relating to its ongoing efforts now:
- Falcon 9: The company is now upgrading its first stage so that it will be able to fly reused forty times, not twenty. Musk also noted that they have now reused the rocket’s fairings more than 300 times.
- They are now aiming for about 150 launches in 2024. (It appears now that the biggest obstacle to this goal will be weather, as seen by the weather delays that have stalled Falcon 9 launches this very week.)
- The Dragon fleet has now spent more days at and flights to ISS than the NASA’s entire shuttle fleet.
- Starlink: It is a supplement to present phone and internet service, not a replacement, serving remote areas. Its biggest obstacle now however to providing that service is government approvals. The company is blocked by regulators in many places where the service is operational.
On Starship/Superheavy, he revealed these facts:
- They are planning to double its payload capacity to 200 tons to orbit, twice the Saturn-5.
- Starship would have made orbit on the second orbital test if it had had a payload. To simulate the weight of payload it had carried extraoxidizer, and when it vented these as it approached orbit it caused problems that activated the self-destruct system.
- The third orbital test flight will thus almost certainly reach orbit, and will then test engine burns, some refueling technology, payload deployment, and de-orbit procedures.
Musk emphasized that they must be able to fly these tests frequently to get Starship/Superheavy functioning, not just for SpaceX but for NASA’s Artemis program. As he said, “Time is the one true currency.” With each launch they refine the system to make it more reliable and operational. Without those launches they can’t.
He did not mention why launches might not happen frequently, probably because the last thing he needs to do is antagonize the regulators who are slowing him down. I (and other journalists) however are not under that restriction. The biggest obstacle to SpaceX’s success is the red-tape being wound around it by the Biden administration and its love of strict regulation, possibly instigated by its political hostility to Elon Musk as a person.
This government action to stymie freedom must end, and the sooner the better.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Bob
You neglected to highlight the real staggering bit in the mention about Falcon 9 fairing recoveries which is the amount of money it has saved. Elon did not mention it verbally but the slide on this topic pegged the value at $6M per recovery. Even assuming that means just 150 total events (300 fairing ”halves” recovered mostly as complete “pairs” over 150 launches) that is $900M dollars! And if it’s really $6M per for all 300 units then it’s $1.8B.
These savings clearly demonstrate just how idiotic the claims by many SpaceX competitors are that re-use isn’t really that beneficial and why they are going bankrupt while SpaceX is wildly profitable.
MDN: I missed those numbers in the slide, as I was focused on listening to Musk himself. Quite impressive indeed. Thank you for noting.
That “150 launches this year”, up from 144 not long ago, is purely aspirational. It’s sometimes known as the “happy path”, where nothing goes wrong, nothing gets in the way, and everything works first time. It’s the small things that accumulate – weather delays, scrub for a sensor replacement, scheduling at the cape (which is slowly but surely becoming an issue). Crew flights and Falcon Heavy will limit pad 39A’s availability for routine F9 launches. So it goes.
All that aside, they did sneak a Starlink launch in between weather fronts at Vandenberg last night.
OF COURSE it’s aspirational. So is a .366 batting average.
Last year SpaceX batted .351, enough to put them in the hall of fame at #5. Or, if you prefer, they scored 96 on the final exam.
I will also note that 96% of 150 is… 144.
I have to wonder; if a fairing pair costs northwards of $6 million, what exactly is RUAG doing? Are they made of hand spun unicorn hair or something?
Diane E Wilson: I am glad you noted last night’s launch. I thought it had been delayed and thus hadn’t posted it. It is up now. Thanks.
David Eastman: What is RUAG?
Diane E. Wilson, LC40 is being upgraded to handle Dragon launches, so the only thing that will impede a higher tempo at LC39A is Falcon Heavy launches.
Bob,
RUAG – which has recently re-branded itself as Beyond Gravity – is a European producer of large payload fairings. It used to sell mainly to Arianespace but has now taken over production of fairings for ULA and will even be supplying SpaceX with the longer fairings needed to launch things like certain DoD payloads and the first two Gateway modules on Falcon Heavy.
I must have misremembered, or confused reading that they were going to supply the larger fairings, I thought that RUAG was the current supplier for SpaceX. It turns out that they are involved, but mostly as a provider of some starting expertise and machinery. But the basic question remains: how in the world does what is basically just a big piece of fiberglass cost $3 million or more?
“These savings clearly demonstrate just how idiotic the claims by many SpaceX competitors are that re-use isn’t really that beneficial and why they are going bankrupt while SpaceX is wildly profitable.”
Heck, Robert Oler was making that very same argument again this week over at The Space Review.
It’s amazing how hard that mindset dies among the old guard of space. They just don’t want to admit that SpaceX fundamentally changed the launch game, and changed it for the better.
That 3 mill was more than likely the first price for the first fairings.
I bet that per unit price has dropped now that everything has been worked out on them.
I wonder how much the fairings really cost as well but expect they are more expensive then you might imagine.
These structures have to be both light (as their weight comes out of the vehicle’s payload margin) as well as quite strong as the take the fill brunt of MaxQ. As such they are not simple fiberglass, but carbon fiber, and aerospace grade composite structures require a high temperature autoclave to manufacture and these parts need a BIG one so the manufacturing infrastructure is not cheap. Plus, for SpaceX they are designed to survive jettison and recovery as well as salt water exposure. So all in all $3M a copy doesn’t seem obscenely high imho.
MDN and David Eastman: That $3 million cost is amortized significantly if the fairing half is reused from ten to twenty times, as it appears SpaceX is successfully doing.
Musk should not antagonize regulators, but it would have been nice if he had announced a new platform, Ultraheavy, meant to launch all the Leftists to Venus.
F–
“UltraMagaheavy”
A question:
How many of these launches are devoted to Starlink?
wayne: Musk stated that about two-thirds of the Falcon 9 launches were Starlink.
SETI Goes Woke
“Hello.” [to the aliens we have just encountered] “Sorry we’re so white.”
Steven Tucker
While Mr. Musk is trying his best to convert human beings into ETs, it appears that SETI has gone totally woke.
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/01/09/is-e-t-pc-the-scientists-attempting-to-contact-woke-aliens/
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/seti-overtaken-woke-ideologues-more-interested-debating-transphobia-whiteness-searching
This would all be darkly humorous if it weren’t so indicative of the mindset that has taken over what passes for “science” in our society.
I am not so concerned about the future of SETI — I never took them that seriously because, almost to a person, they have steadfastly refused to even consider that aliens might already be here visiting us — but this shows just how well the Jacobin left has succeeded in subverting our language and curtailing our ability to think.
The problem of inter-species contact is indeed an issue*, but loading up our efforts to communicate with an alien intelligence with Critical Theory and self loathing**, as Mr. Tucker suggests, is not going to be helpful. There is a real problem here that is worthy of study, but woke and “serious inquiry” do not belong in the same building.
*Cf, along the lines that Whitley Strieber has written about. Different intelligent species, when they meet, will likely inhabit such different perceptual / conceptual worlds that it may be very difficult to find much common ground. If you doubt this, recall your
last conversation with a committed Democrat.
**Paraphrasing Ian Punnett’s famous tag line about the tastiness of Canadians, “we’re awful; please eat us first.”
Mr. Zimmermann,
I have to correct you again in this special matter. SpaceX did not release fuel (that would be methane) unused during the second test flight of “Starship”, but rather liquid oxygen, which has the task of the oxidizer. I know you’re not an engineer, but you should understand the difference between fuel and oxidizer. Note: It is more effective to let the oxygen go overboard than the methane because there is four times as much of it in the tanks.
I also don’t believe that the “Starship” had additional oxidizer (LOX=liquid oxygen) on board because there would be no additional space in the tanks. You misunderstood that. The oxygen tank (LOX) was simply nominally completely full. Well, since there was no payload on board, not all of the onboard oxidizer was needed, which is why some of it was thrown overboard unused at the end of the stage’s burn time. An action, which caused a fire in the engine bay.
Questioner: I have amended the post, but not as you suggest. I am not sure or convinced that only oxygen was released, as you say. I suspect it was more likely extra methane because though it takes up less space, it is far heavier and thus a better material to simulate a payload mass.
Unless someone can provide a source to clarify this, I have edited the post to suggest either/or.
According to numbers I found on the net, LOX has a specific gravity of 1.14 and liquid methane 0.42 approximately.
When they burn CH4+2O2 ->CO2 +2H2O. I know they burn slightly fuel rich on Starship but molecular weight of methane is 16 and oxygen 32 so you have 16 units of methane by mass and 64 of oxygen.
Getting rid of just the oxygen is the most effective by far and avoids the possibilities of explosions near the ship although that plan did not work out. Scott Manley’s early analysis also showed it was the oxygen quantity that depleted rapidly during the Starship burn towards the end.
I also watched Elon’s presentation and I’m pretty sure he mentioned dumping just the oxygen.
Mike Borgelt: Thank you for this added information. I revised the post again to mention only oxidizer.
Saturn V put 130-140 tons to LEO depending on who you talk to….or about 400 tons above the sensible atmosphere had an interim pulse-Orion been atop the first stage.
So Starship can launch half-again as much as Saturn V.
“Time is the one true currency.”
Time is all any of us have and memories are all we make.
“Time is the one true currency.”
From a late, great, Poul Anderson story: “Time is the bridge that burns behind us”.
Thank you Mike Borgelt, I was preparing a response similar to yours but you covered it quite well. The only change I would make, which is a pet peeve of mine, is your writing out of the combustion residue of 2(H2O) to a personal preference of H4O2. (I recognize that it’s the same thing, but I seldom see the true molecular form of water spelled out in it’s actual form… H2O, which is an algebraic simplification, does not exist except in the laboratory)
Elon’s explanation for the starship explosion doesn’t ring quite right…. oxygen released will not cause an explosion anymore than a rocket launching at sea level with 20% atmosphere of oxygen surrounding it will cause an explosion unless there’s a fuel leak. The gauges for the booster and the starship showed a rapid decrease in oxygen levels and I assumed it was a unintended leak, he says it was being released. This is only dangerous if fuel (methane) is being released at the same time. (was star ship flying through a coronal mass ejection of methane and ammonia from the sun? Not likely)
The only clue that I can accept is that there was a malfunction that led to the premature oxidizer release and/or blow back separation damage.
Elon hinted at the oxygen release triggered a circumstance that caused the auto destruct to trigger. His mentioning of oxygen in the presence of fire/flame of active engines is not relevant without fuel present.
When the thrusters are mounted just under the Crew cabin for lunar / Mars landing, the necessity of a hot ring will be eliminated resulting in less weight for structural protection of the booster tank, and the mass of the ring itself. A much safer way to separate with less unknowables to go wrong.
Max, the Raptors run fuel rich, implying either unburned methane and/or disassociated carbon and hydrogen in the exhaust. Add heaps of oxygen and what happens?
If the propellant release caused problems that activated the self-destruct system, we cannot assume that it was a fire or an explosion. It could have been other factors.
If SpaceX has saved almost a billion dollars just from the fairings, imagine the savings from recovering and reusing the booster.
_______________
My additional takeaways:
– They are aiming for a 24 hour pad turnaround by the end of the year. They did a practice run on this a decade ago, without a launch, just to show that it was physically possible with the hardware.
– I think he called Starlink a separate company.
– Rapidly reusable reliable rocket [the four ‘R’s]. Do it fast, do it cheap, do it well.
Edward:
What do you speculate? Just listen to what Elon Musk said. He spoke of a fire that was caused by the dumping of the LOX.
Questioner,
Good point. I had listened to that a few times and thought that he said something else, something I didn’t understand, but just now, with closed captioning turned on and with earphones, I saw and heard that he said, “We vented the liquid oxygen, and the liquid oxygen ultimately led to fire and an explosion.” The word “ultimately” was garbled, and I thought it was a different word. Darn my tinnitic ears!