Starship/Superheavy update
Link here. SpaceX is moving on several fronts in preparation for the next Starship/Superheavy tests:
- Engines have been installed in Starship prototype #20 which will be tested this week
- A new Raptor engine factory is under construction
- Launch tower construction continued
- Future prototypes continue to be built
Lots of details and videos at the link. Based on road closures, the prototype #20 static fire test will occur today, and will be the first such test on a Starship using orbital Raptor engines.
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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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Link here. SpaceX is moving on several fronts in preparation for the next Starship/Superheavy tests:
- Engines have been installed in Starship prototype #20 which will be tested this week
- A new Raptor engine factory is under construction
- Launch tower construction continued
- Future prototypes continue to be built
Lots of details and videos at the link. Based on road closures, the prototype #20 static fire test will occur today, and will be the first such test on a Starship using orbital Raptor engines.
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.
The entire aspect of ‘catching a booster’ with Mechazilla, is utterly insane, and they are about to install the catcher onto the launch tower. These people are coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs, and it is awesome to watch!
Someone tried to make a render of what Mechazilla is going to look like. Based on the parts we have seen, it looks reasonable as a render. Just crazy as an idea! Yee ha!
https://twitter.com/Bl3D_Eccentric/status/1447968702184439808
“Just crazy as an idea!”
That is the SpaceX story in a nutshell.
The first successful catch is going to *blow* our collective mind.
Catch #100 is going to be like the hundredth Falcon 9 landing — “this never gets old.”
By catch #1000, catch towers are going to be as common as launch pads are today.
I was initially skeptical of the catch on landing concept too. However Elon noted a significant consideration driving this decision in one of his talks, and that is that it stresses the booster in TENSION, not compression as landing with legs does. This is much preferred structurally since the tanks are empty and could “crinkle” pretty easily. Another benefit of coarse is that it saves a lot of weight and the complexity a landing leg system. Finally, watching the Falcon 9 landings for 2 years now I also note that they CONSISTENTLY land within just 1-2 meters of the target circle so they have the tracking and flight control tech totally figured out.
What impressed me from this article is that SpaceX is already up to number 78 in Raptor engines built (not even counting RVacs!). I looked it up and Rocketdyne only built 46 RS-25s for the entire Shuttle program, are now executing a contract for an additional 18 over the next 8 years to support the SLS program, and this program expends the engines on each and every flight while Raptor is designed to fly many, many times. THAT illustrates the futility of NASA’s dinosaur “Big Space” thinking in a nutshell.
You want to keep hydrolox going just as American exceptionalism. I worry the grid fins might curl a bit…maybe a water hammer due to engine count. I would love to see one winged Super Heavy.
This is an important question (aside Musk’s Mars plans):
“Is There Demand for Starship? | Starship Series Ep. 1”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1GmMASMOEY
Questioner,
Nice video. I agree with its statement that its timeline is conservative. I suspect that Starship will become operational sooner than the video’s timeline and that it will be man-rated sooner. The Artemis plan is that Orion return people to Earth, so Starship’s reliability on reentry, rapid flip, and landing will not be needed as soon as 2024, but SpaceX will be working hard on that reliability for the dearMoon project, which they still want to do in 2023. I think that it will be performed before the 2026 timeline in the video.
Another conservatively estimate on the part of the video is its assumption that Starship will remain a 100-ton launcher. SpaceX believes that its current expectations for Starship performance (including Raptor engines) are low and that they will be able to get better performance from the Starship-Super Heavy system. Better performance translates into fewer refueling launches for translunar and solar system voyages. Of course, this would also translate into fewer launches to achieve the same goals mentioned in the video, but that just makes space travel that much less expensive.
Space tourism is really taking off (yes, pun intended), so I expect many, many manned tourism flights shortly after the dearMoon mission is complete (orbital, translunar, maybe even onto the lunar surface). So this would partially offset launch reductions due to the increased performance.
I suspect that due to the need to verify long voyages to Mars and back, SpaceX will launch a few Starships in the early years as test platforms for their long duration requirements, and these may be able to perform the same tasks as space stations until other companies get their own independent space stations into orbit.
Once Mars has its first settlement, the ability for Starship to return people from Mars makes that planet yet another tourist trap. Can you imagine Hiltons and MacDonalds on Mars and the Moon? Would you like fries with that?
I like that the video shows a justification for a (surprisingly?) large number of Starship flights over the course of the decade.
Edward:
It will be interesting to see what effect the availability of Starship with extremely low launch costs of a few hundred dollars / kilogram has on the commercial satellite market – especially on the many small new launch vehicles – whether these are pushed out of the market or not?
This story from CNBC seems a bit alarming. Not sure if it is sensationalist reporting; if Musk is trying to light a fire under the employees; if it is genuinely a threat of something of all of that.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/30/elon-musk-to-spacex-starships-raptor-engine-crisis-risks-bankruptcy.html