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Starship's Sixth Flight Test

spacex.com

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Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#91

Post by modeless »

nexus6 wrote: post #76
modeless wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally reasonable question. This is the first rocket ever that will (assuming further success) land in its entirety back on the launch pad, refuel, and go back to orbit the same day. Imagine that every time an airliner landed its cockpit was destroyed and you had to build a new one. A fully reusable airplane would be a transformational improvement. That's the level of achievement we're talking about here.

Is there such a need for a heavy launch rocket to launch routinely?

SpaceX already launches multiple times per month just to maintain Starlink. That will be much cheaper with Starship while enabling larger and more capable satellites. In fact, it's likely that one of the reasons SpaceX built Starlink is to create their own customer (and spur competitors) to plausibly use a significant fraction of Starship's capabilities. None existed at the time.

In the near term the biggest reason to do multiple launches in a day will be orbital refueling. This is required for sending much, much larger payloads to the Moon and Mars. It will require on the order of 10 launches to fuel up one moon lander in orbit, and obviously doing that as quickly as possible will be beneficial. NASA has already committed to this plan for Artemis.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#92

Post by inglor_cz »

thimabi wrote: post #70
fasteddie31003 wrote: post #64

[flagged]

Thanks to the wonderful SpaceX engineers who are actually responsible for the company’s achievements. What they’ve been accomplishing recently never ceases to amaze me.

Talented people are everywhere. Unfortunately, most of them sit in boring jobs and wear out their brains thinking how to push even more ads on other people etc. As a result, their trace in the world isn't what it could be.

Gathering many talents together, keeping them together and channeling their abilities towards a laudable goal is a huge feat.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#93

Post by [deleted] »

nexus6 wrote: post #76
modeless wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally reasonable question. This is the first rocket ever that will (assuming further success) land in its entirety back on the launch pad, refuel, and go back to orbit the same day. Imagine that every time an airliner landed its cockpit was destroyed and you had to build a new one. A fully reusable airplane would be a transformational improvement. That's the level of achievement we're talking about here.

Is there such a need for a heavy launch rocket to launch routinely?

[deleted]

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#94

Post by stetrain »

paul7986 wrote: post #67
modeless wrote: post #38

SpaceX just posted this video of the last test. It's one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI9HQfCAw64

Not into space things and while this is cool i wonder what the great significance of this is? I see lots signaling how great this is and it's lost on me.

It's a rocket in the same ballpark as the Saturn V but where the two stages can both be recovered and re-used.

SpaceX has demonstrated being able to fly the same rocket stage dozens of times with minimal refurbishment with their Falcon 9 family of rockets, but they still have to build and discard the second stage of the Falcon 9 for each launch.

Starship scales that up in magnitude and adds second-stage reusability.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#96

Post by inglor_cz »

lysace wrote: post #30
sebzim4500 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not groundbreaking but it's important. They are demonstrating in orbit relight capability of the raptor engines. This is an absolute requirement before they can put it fully into orbit because losing control of a Starship in low earth orbit would be catastrophic.

> because losing control of a Starship in low earth orbit would be catastrophic Why? Remote detonation wouldn't work in that case?

It would work, all too well. Especially if the speed was just slightly suborbital. Rain of steel over a random spot (or, rather, a trace) on the Earth's surface. You may be lucky and that trace might cross a desolate ocean; or you may not be lucky, and some Asian megalopolis with 25 million people may be below.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#97

Post by modeless »

eunoia wrote: post #89
modeless wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally reasonable question. This is the first rocket ever that will (assuming further success) land in its entirety back on the launch pad, refuel, and go back to orbit the same day. Imagine that every time an airliner landed its cockpit was destroyed and you had to build a new one. A fully reusable airplane would be a transformational improvement. That's the level of achievement we're talking about here.

> go again the same day. That seems like a stretch. What is the actual turnaround time for Starship? fwiw the Shuttle had a lot of lofty promises of reusability that were technically true as long as you didn't consider how long the turnaround time was.

It's a good question. The hurdle to clear for same-day reuse will be the heat shield. SpaceX hasn't yet demonstrated that Starship can reenter the atmosphere and remain fully intact. Doing it while sustaining near zero wear on the heat shield will be even harder. But I think it is not impossible, and I don't know of any other obvious blockers for same day reuse.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#99

Post by soperj »

eunoia wrote: post #89
modeless wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally reasonable question. This is the first rocket ever that will (assuming further success) land in its entirety back on the launch pad, refuel, and go back to orbit the same day. Imagine that every time an airliner landed its cockpit was destroyed and you had to build a new one. A fully reusable airplane would be a transformational improvement. That's the level of achievement we're talking about here.

> go again the same day. That seems like a stretch. What is the actual turnaround time for Starship? fwiw the Shuttle had a lot of lofty promises of reusability that were technically true as long as you didn't consider how long the turnaround time was.

With the Falcon 9 they're already at over 100 launches this year. It's multiple rockets, but the turn around is pretty quick and getting quicker every year. They're designing starship from the start with same day turnaround in mind. I wouldn't bet against it I guess.

Re: Starship's Sixth Flight Test

#100

Post by ceejayoz »

eunoia wrote: post #89
modeless wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally reasonable question. This is the first rocket ever that will (assuming further success) land in its entirety back on the launch pad, refuel, and go back to orbit the same day. Imagine that every time an airliner landed its cockpit was destroyed and you had to build a new one. A fully reusable airplane would be a transformational improvement. That's the level of achievement we're talking about here.

> go again the same day. That seems like a stretch. What is the actual turnaround time for Starship? fwiw the Shuttle had a lot of lofty promises of reusability that were technically true as long as you didn't consider how long the turnaround time was.

Some of SpaceX's first stages are getting close to the individual Shuttles' launch counts, with substantially less turnaround time and cost than Shuttle ever had.

Starship has work to do, but it's hard to argue they're not at least on the right path.

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