Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Starship's Tenth Flight Test

spacex.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 245 posts

Re: Starship's Tenth Flight Test

#71

Post by ericcumbee »

floating-io wrote: post #68
pram wrote: post #62

Are the tiles on Starship going to need replacing after flight like the Shuttle? There isn’t a permanent material that can handle all the heat yet? Serious question, my space expertise is only from KSP.

Remains to be seen. That's what they want, but it's never been done before. (edit: clarity: they do NOT want to replace them after each flight.) They're currently experimenting with things such as actively cooled tiles (which I presume were installed on this ship, since they were on the last two). I personally think the likely best case is that they'll have to go over the ship and replace some here and there before l…

Even if they don't get to a no replacement....they still already have a massive improvement over Space Shuttle. The Space Shuttle basically every tile was unique, and and the pattern was different between the different orbiters. A good bit of the months of refurbishment of the Orbiter between flights was heat shield repairs. SpaceX has already shown from when they completely retiled one of the ships. they have cut down the time to replace a single tile down to minutes instead of the hours it took with the shuttle. The Tiles are also alot more standardized so they can be more mass produced than shuttle tiles.

Re: Starship's Tenth Flight Test

#72

Post by rlt »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #56
sbuttgereit wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Scott Manley's position on the "still hasn't gotten to orbit" take is probably still the best and most accurate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8htMpR7mnaM&t=420s

What Scott is missing is that the only reason "it did not get to orbit" is of interest at all is that SpaceX keeps claiming they got to orbit with starship. I believe that the trajectories have all been suborbital by design, but it still pisses me off that they keep claiming they got to orbit. The reason this matters is that if they get into an orbit in a short test, they need to exit that orbit with some sort of act…

What exactly do you think is the “more technology development than the current flights actually show“ needed to get into and out of orbit?

My impression is they just need to leave the engines on a little longer to get to orbit, then turn them on again with the ship pointed in another direction to get back to the suborbital trajectory they’ve already demonstrated deorbiting from.

The hard part is reentering through the atmosphere without burning up, flipping, and landing, which they’ve already demonstrated multiple times. There’s no additional atmosphere between where they’ve flown and “orbit”.

Re: Starship's Tenth Flight Test

#73

Post by bagels »

rlt wrote: post #72
pclmulqdq wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What Scott is missing is that the only reason "it did not get to orbit" is of interest at all is that SpaceX keeps claiming they got to orbit with starship. I believe that the trajectories have all been suborbital by design, but it still pisses me off that they keep claiming they got to orbit. The reason this matters is that if they get into an orbit in a short test, they need to exit that orbit with some sort of act…

What exactly do you think is the “more technology development than the current flights actually show“ needed to get into and out of orbit? My impression is they just need to leave the engines on a little longer to get to orbit, then turn them on again with the ship pointed in another direction to get back to the suborbital trajectory they’ve already demonstrated deorbiting from. The hard part is reentering through th…

A little more longevity and one more engine restart, unless the suborbital is very suborbital, then it also means a lot more delta v. It doesn't seem that far away at all.

Re: Starship's Tenth Flight Test

#74

Post by Teever »

kersplody wrote: post #65
Pigalowda wrote: post #6

So the starlink simulators its deploying right now are empty platters that will burn up in the atmosphere from what I understand. Next missions they’ll be real statlink sats. Are these different than regular sats? It sounds like they’re able to handle more bandwidth but I don’t know.

Next flight should be a mass simulator of at least 100 tons to orbit. This flight was around ~10 tons to almost orbit. The economics of Starlink basically require high cadence Starship launches with 50+ Starlink v3 satellites on each flight.

Isn't starlink a revenue generating endeavor already?

Re: Starship's Tenth Flight Test

#75

Post by dotnet00 »

rlt wrote: post #69
kersplody wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite, but it's a major milestone. Still quite a bit of work to go on the rapid reusability part (burnt flaps, oxidized body, missing tiles, tile waterproofing). Starship might actually deliver payload to orbit on flight 11.

They mentioned in the stream they were intentionally stressing the ship on reentry. But yes, “rapid reusability” is a ways off. I expect they’ll be spending weeks inspecting and repairing ship and booster before reflight for a few years, but they’ll drive it down over time. TBD how “rapid” the reusability ends up being in the end.

The push for rapid reusability seems somewhat at odds with the push for large scale production of ships.

It seems like if they can get boosters to rapid reuse (a much easier goal), and churn out ships at sufficient scale, they can afford to take time inspecting/refurbing each ship as part of a pipelined approach.

Re: Starship's Tenth Flight Test

#76

Post by bombcar »

schoen wrote: post #57
decimalenough wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes, it landed in the ocean by design and toppled over because that's what happens when you land a 50m tall spaceship vertically in water.

This sequence of events (even though expected!) reminds me a lot of the Monty Python and the Holy Grail speech: > Listen, lad. I built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started here, all there was was swamp. Other kings said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em. It sank into the swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So, I built a third one. Tha…

It’s basically a direct description of the reusable booster tests.

Re: Starship's Tenth Flight Test

#77

Post by sbuttgereit »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #56
sbuttgereit wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Scott Manley's position on the "still hasn't gotten to orbit" take is probably still the best and most accurate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8htMpR7mnaM&t=420s

What Scott is missing is that the only reason "it did not get to orbit" is of interest at all is that SpaceX keeps claiming they got to orbit with starship. I believe that the trajectories have all been suborbital by design, but it still pisses me off that they keep claiming they got to orbit. The reason this matters is that if they get into an orbit in a short test, they need to exit that orbit with some sort of act…

Where are they claiming that?

For example, this is from their Flight 4 press release (https://www.spacex.com/launches/starship-flight-4):

"Flight 4 ended with Starship igniting its three center Raptor engines and executing the first flip maneuver and landing burn since our suborbital campaign, followed by a soft splashdown of the ship in the Indian Ocean one hour and six minutes after launch."

Note that they clearly say since the start of their suborbital campaign. And this from their Flight 6 press release (https://www.spacex.com/launches/starship-flight-6):

"Starship completed another successful ascent, placing it on the expected trajectory. The ship successfully reignited a single Raptor engine while in space, demonstrating the capabilities required to conduct a ship deorbit burn before starting fully orbital missions. With live views and telemetry being relayed by Starlink, the ship successfully made it through reentry and executed a flip, landing burn, and soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean."

And from today's pre-launch press release (https://www.spacex.com/launches/starship-flight-10):

"The Starship upper stage will again target multiple in-space objectives, including the deployment of eight Starlink simulators, similar in size to next-generation Starlink satellites. The Starlink simulators will be on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship and are expected to demise upon entry. A relight of a single Raptor engine while in space is also planned."

To be fair, there were two press releases where they didn't correctly use "sub-orbital" and used orbital instead. Releases 3 and 9. Neither said they achieved orbit, but more causally talked about the "orbital coast" and the worst: "Starship's six second stage Raptor engines all started successfully and powered the vehicle to its expected orbit" from flight 3. It's true these statements are incorrect, but they aren't asserting a direct claim to having reached orbit (though they imply it), when they make an assertion about the nature of the program they seem fairly consistent in talking about their "suborbital campaign" as well as talking about their orbital missions being in the future.

The way I'm reading it, it looks like they get sloppy with language sometimes, but it doesn't look like they are directly asserting anything other than being in a suborbital program.

Re: Starship's Tenth Flight Test

#78

Post by kragen »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #56
sbuttgereit wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Scott Manley's position on the "still hasn't gotten to orbit" take is probably still the best and most accurate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8htMpR7mnaM&t=420s

What Scott is missing is that the only reason "it did not get to orbit" is of interest at all is that SpaceX keeps claiming they got to orbit with starship. I believe that the trajectories have all been suborbital by design, but it still pisses me off that they keep claiming they got to orbit. The reason this matters is that if they get into an orbit in a short test, they need to exit that orbit with some sort of act…

Is it really a lot more technology? If they were landing 100 km away I'd agree, but aren't they basically reaching the required orbital speed and reentering and landing under retrorocket control? I'm no expert on orbital dynamics, so I might be missing something important.

Re: Starship's Tenth Flight Test

#79

Post by ACCount37 »

dotnet00 wrote: post #75
rlt wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They mentioned in the stream they were intentionally stressing the ship on reentry. But yes, “rapid reusability” is a ways off. I expect they’ll be spending weeks inspecting and repairing ship and booster before reflight for a few years, but they’ll drive it down over time. TBD how “rapid” the reusability ends up being in the end.

The push for rapid reusability seems somewhat at odds with the push for large scale production of ships. It seems like if they can get boosters to rapid reuse (a much easier goal), and churn out ships at sufficient scale, they can afford to take time inspecting/refurbing each ship as part of a pipelined approach.

The stated goal was always to have a lot of ships, and also to have them be reusable.

Starship is a fuel-hungry beast - it can get to LEO by itself, but it needs a lot of tanker launches to go beyond. And if your goal is a Mars colony, you don't want to be limited to one launch per launch window.

Re: Starship's Tenth Flight Test

#80

Post by paulhart »

dotnet00 wrote: post #75
rlt wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They mentioned in the stream they were intentionally stressing the ship on reentry. But yes, “rapid reusability” is a ways off. I expect they’ll be spending weeks inspecting and repairing ship and booster before reflight for a few years, but they’ll drive it down over time. TBD how “rapid” the reusability ends up being in the end.

The push for rapid reusability seems somewhat at odds with the push for large scale production of ships. It seems like if they can get boosters to rapid reuse (a much easier goal), and churn out ships at sufficient scale, they can afford to take time inspecting/refurbing each ship as part of a pipelined approach.

Their scenario is that the ships are mostly going to be "fuel mules" to ferry propellant to the ship that is destined to go somewhere (i.e. Mars) - so if you want an armada to travel to another planet, you need a much larger fleet of supply vehicles to prepare your armada. Hence the need to mass produce them.
Post reply on HN