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SpaceX's giant Starship Mars rocket nails critical 10th test flight

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Re: SpaceX's giant Starship Mars rocket nails critical 10th test flight

#81

Post by NitpickLawyer »

nomilk wrote: post #19

Given the results of test 10 (successful splash down of Starship), any ideas what test 11 will entail? Could we be looking at a chopstick catch of the Starship itself?

They only have one more shipv2 right now. The next ones are shipv3. So my guess is that a ship catch doesn't make sense, since they're changing the architecture on the next ones. Would make sense to continue with limit finding (it's a disposable launch anyway, old gear) on things that carry over (i.e. thermal protection, ablative materials, crazy angles, etc)

One interesting point is if they actually go for orbit. It would take just a few more seconds to reach something like 200+km / 100km, a place where they could deploy some v3 Starlinks and gather data from the launch (i.e. vibrations, health, dinging on the door, etc). It would be a test where they get more data that's transferable to the new architecture, and relatively low risk of getting stuck in orbit. (low perigee would mean eventual re-entry anyway, hopefully over the ocean) The sats can probably raise themselves from there.

Re: SpaceX's giant Starship Mars rocket nails critical 10th test flight

#82

Post by fluoridation »

anonymars wrote: post #56
dylan604 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think they would/could have built the Saturn V without building the other engines first?

I think as phrased this is going to get way too pedantic. But I think it raises a larger point which is worthy to consider. Presumably what we're trying to get at is, in broad strokes, "is Starship more cost-effective to develop than Saturn V" (and I assume the follow-on for that will be to compare the "NASA approach" vs the "SpaceX approach") But you raise a good point in that the baseline playing field is completel…

>but I don't think it's possible for them to say anything meaningful for comparison on their own.

It depends on how different they are. Saturn V was launched 13 times in total. Starship is already 75% of the way there and hasn't orbited once. Ignoring R&D and just going by launch costs alone, that's USD 4B (2025) to orbit 1 Saturn V, vs USD x to orbit 1 Starship, where x >= 1B.

Re: SpaceX's giant Starship Mars rocket nails critical 10th test flight

#83

Post by 762236 »

Romario77 wrote: post #18

It was a significant progress, but I won't call it "nailed it". As there was an damage or explosion on re-entry where the skirt of the starship got damaged. And we could see pretty significant damage on one of the fins. Nailing it would be without the things above.

They compromised the ship to study failures of that nature.

Re: SpaceX's giant Starship Mars rocket nails critical 10th test flight

#84

Post by redox99 »

fluoridation wrote: post #47
stetrain wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that understanding of the consensus is incorrect. The mission plan for Artemis 3 is that a specialized Starship upper stage will be refueled in LEO and then transfer to lunar orbit where it will wait for astronauts arriving on SLS/Orion. Yes the mission profile is more complex, but that complexity can mostly be settled before the astronauts launch on their mission. NASA seems to think it is a viable plan whic…

Wikipedia: > After a multi-phase design effort, on April 16, 2021, NASA selected SpaceX to develop Starship HLS and deliver it to near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) prior to arrival of the crew for use on the Artemis III mission. The delivery requires that Starship HLS be refueled in Earth orbit before boosting to the NRHO, and this refueling requires a pre-positioned propellant depot in Earth orbit that is filled by…

You can easily mathematically prove that orbital refueling increases mission efficiency. This is a simple fact, it's not about Starship or whatever. Your analogy does not hold.

Re: SpaceX's giant Starship Mars rocket nails critical 10th test flight

#85

Post by Aeolun »

bad_haircut72 wrote: post #37
enraged_camel wrote: post #20

Incredible achievement, but what is more incredible is how many people (including almost all of my friends circle) have started rooting for SpaceX to fail due to the shenanigans of its founder. I think as a culture we've lost the ability to compartmentalize. We should be able to criticize and even despise the head of a company, and at the same time celebrate when the intelligence and hard work of the countless smart…

[flagged]

If the king managed to build their palace in the clouds? Yes. That’s a pretty awesome achievement. Not the kings’s achievement, but the achievement stands.

Re: SpaceX's giant Starship Mars rocket nails critical 10th test flight

#86

Post by nerdjon »

bilsbie wrote: post #78
nerdjon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something I am finding myself wrestling with a lot right now. On the one hand I am a major space nerd and I see the value of what SpaceX is doing. Especially with it really seeming like no one is anywhere near their level. What kind of scientific advancements will be possible once this thing can be used normally and launches like this become commonplace. But at the same time it is impossible to ignore the Elo…

I love the arrogance that anyone who disagrees with you is “anti-science”. Please tell us which culture war topics he’s anti-science on.

Do you mean Trump or Elon? No where am I stating that Elon is anti-science, only that he helped get an anti-science administration in place.

As far as Trump (and the administration in general) being anti-science. I really don't think I need to list examples of this.

Re: SpaceX's giant Starship Mars rocket nails critical 10th test flight

#87

Post by stetrain »

gtirloni wrote: post #48
ekianjo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And we could see pretty significant damage on one of the fin They specifically said they're testing lighter fins to see how much they would hold. Let's not invent problems when it's an experiment that was clearly stated.

Is it common to plan an explosion to test how something will react in these launches? Honest question, I know nothing about rockets. In SRE, we have chaos engineering so I'm wondering if it's the same concept.

I don't think "plan an explosion" is quite right.

They planned a test that would subject various components to stress levels outside of the normal mission profile. The various specific failures that resulted from that may be within expectations but not necessarily planned.

In engineering you want to know that a design will not just succeed at its rated limit, but have some margin percentage of safety above that. To measure that margin often involves destructive tests.

SpaceX's development methods differ a bit from more traditional rocket development by performing some of these potentially destructive tests with full-scale articles in real flight scenarios as part of an iterative process.

Re: SpaceX's giant Starship Mars rocket nails critical 10th test flight

#89

Post by bzzzt »

fhd2 wrote: post #54
ekianjo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They had virtually infinite budget at the time. SpaceX is much, much cheaper.

Is it though? I'm not knowledgeable on this at all, but it _seems_ like Space X is blowing up a lot more expensive equipment compared to NASA back in the space race days. Genuinely curious how it compares and how true my outsider impression is.

It's not as expensive as it looks, Starship plus booster costs around 100 million. A Saturn V Apollo mission cost 185 million in 1969 which, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V#Cost, would now be a bit less than a billion dollars.

Also, SpaceX is not building rockets, they are building a rocket factory. If they succeed they will have lowered the cost of putting stuff into space by an order of magnitude. The potential rewards are huge.

Re: SpaceX's giant Starship Mars rocket nails critical 10th test flight

#90

Post by rubzah »

Romario77 wrote: post #18

It was a significant progress, but I won't call it "nailed it". As there was an damage or explosion on re-entry where the skirt of the starship got damaged. And we could see pretty significant damage on one of the fins. Nailing it would be without the things above.

The damage was visible long before the explosion, during ascent (not sure if anyone has explained how it happened). Though your point still stands.

I was very surprised that that flap still held up during the stress testing on atmospheric re-entry.

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