SpaceX Tuesday...
Discussion
F20CN16 said:
Dog Star said:
welshjon81 said:
Apparently Musk just tweeted that they may try and fly SN15 again soon.
I suppose after a full study has taken place - why the hell not?!?!?
I see no such tweet, by the way - and they are on my VIP alert thing. I suppose after a full study has taken place - why the hell not?!?!?
Slight aside, is there anymore detail on the lunar version of starship? I'm intrigued, given it's current layout of rocket attached to fuel tank, about where the astronauts & their equipment goes?
F20CN16 said:
Dog Star said:
welshjon81 said:
Apparently Musk just tweeted that they may try and fly SN15 again soon.
I suppose after a full study has taken place - why the hell not?!?!?
I see no such tweet, by the way - and they are on my VIP alert thing. I suppose after a full study has taken place - why the hell not?!?!?
Elon Musk said:
Might try to refly SN15 soon
8:29 AM · May 7, 2021·Twitter for iPhone
8:29 AM · May 7, 2021·Twitter for iPhone
CraigyMc said:
F20CN16 said:
Dog Star said:
welshjon81 said:
Apparently Musk just tweeted that they may try and fly SN15 again soon.
I suppose after a full study has taken place - why the hell not?!?!?
I see no such tweet, by the way - and they are on my VIP alert thing. I suppose after a full study has taken place - why the hell not?!?!?
Elon Musk said:
Might try to refly SN15 soon
8:29 AM · May 7, 2021·Twitter for iPhone
8:29 AM · May 7, 2021·Twitter for iPhone
MiniMan64 said:
F20CN16 said:
Dog Star said:
welshjon81 said:
Apparently Musk just tweeted that they may try and fly SN15 again soon.
I suppose after a full study has taken place - why the hell not?!?!?
I see no such tweet, by the way - and they are on my VIP alert thing. I suppose after a full study has taken place - why the hell not?!?!?
Slight aside, is there anymore detail on the lunar version of starship? I'm intrigued, given it's current layout of rocket attached to fuel tank, about where the astronauts & their equipment goes?
Unofficial mock ups here - https://www.humanmars.net/2021/04/spacex-starship-...
Photos of Starship (and Falcon 9) never seem to do their sheer scale justice.
Beati Dogu said:
They're gonna need more landing pad water jets.
Assuming that was a leak and not some residual fuel in chambers etc then that is definitely going to need looking at. Let's see what they do with SN15, they've not hooked the crane on yet, but if they plop it back on the launch stand I guess it's going to go again without a full overhaul.
RizzoTheRat said:
A conventional transfer to Mars needs about 4km/s. Starship supposedly has 7km/s or so with a 100 tonne payload, so if it's not planning on landing there's also the potential for higher energy transfers, which means a much wider transfer window. Given that they're designed for entry in to atmosphere could it aerocapture to save even more fuel?
By the time they start launching towards Mars you'd hope any hardware issues have been solved by flights on the earth/moon, software issues could potentially be fiddled with iteratively, ie launch a few towards Mars and when the first one crashes make some software tweaks to the next one.
Although how many launches did they say it would need to fully refuel one in orbit? I seem to recall it was quite a few.
On the face of it, they need 10 launches to fully refuel Starship. ~110 tonne payload, 1200 tonne fuel capacity.By the time they start launching towards Mars you'd hope any hardware issues have been solved by flights on the earth/moon, software issues could potentially be fiddled with iteratively, ie launch a few towards Mars and when the first one crashes make some software tweaks to the next one.
Although how many launches did they say it would need to fully refuel one in orbit? I seem to recall it was quite a few.
I suspect they will try and combine re-entry testing with orbital refueling. Get two for the price of one. So:
- First orbital launch stays up there, and they make sure it has the ports for refueling.
- Second orbital launch carries a full fuel load, attempts orbital refuel. Might work, might leak, might blow up
- If it works, they try and do re-entry with an empty ship. Might work, might blow up ... or melt.
- Repeat until they have cracked re-entry and got a full load of fuel up there.
Now, the first Starship in orbit may be a shonky beast, but it will have a load of fuel on board, effectively for free. Send up a latest version, transfer the fuel to that, and punt it over to Mars orbit.
As for SN15 - check it, fuel it, launch it. Repeat until it fails. Lots to learn.
Edited by rxe on Friday 7th May 15:20
rxe said:
On the face of it, they need 10 launches to fully refuel Starship. ~110 tonne payload, 1200 tonne fuel capacity.
I suspect they will try and combine re-entry testing with orbital refueling. Get two for the price of one. So:
- First orbital launch stays up there, and they make sure it has the ports for refueling.
- Second orbital launch carries a full fuel load, attempts orbital refuel. Might work, might leak, might blow up
- If it works, they try and do re-entry with an empty ship. Might work, might blow up ... or melt.
- Repeat until they have cracked re-entry and got a full load of fuel up there.
Now, the first Starship in orbit may be a shonky beast, but it will have a load of fuel on board, effectively for free. Send up a latest version, transfer the fuel to that, and punt it over to Mars orbit.
As for SN15 - check it, fuel it, launch it. Repeat until it fails. Lots to learn.
One of the nice things about cheap, fast manufacture is that you can build a fleet as large as you like.I suspect they will try and combine re-entry testing with orbital refueling. Get two for the price of one. So:
- First orbital launch stays up there, and they make sure it has the ports for refueling.
- Second orbital launch carries a full fuel load, attempts orbital refuel. Might work, might leak, might blow up
- If it works, they try and do re-entry with an empty ship. Might work, might blow up ... or melt.
- Repeat until they have cracked re-entry and got a full load of fuel up there.
Now, the first Starship in orbit may be a shonky beast, but it will have a load of fuel on board, effectively for free. Send up a latest version, transfer the fuel to that, and punt it over to Mars orbit.
As for SN15 - check it, fuel it, launch it. Repeat until it fails. Lots to learn.
Edited by rxe on Friday 7th May 15:20
I get the feeling some are imagining a refuelling of an on-orbit starship as being done by one tanker going up and down frequently. If Elon's proved anything with how he does stuff is that he doesn't think very small.
I'd imagine there will be multiple tankers, and more than one refuelling at once. They could build half a dozen tankers and refuel in a day.
The first time two individual starships dock to each other in orbit, that'll be the most massive thing humans have ever put in space -- by far.
ninja-lewis said:
Photos of Starship (and Falcon 9) never seem to do their sheer scale justice.
Only just appreciated how huge Starship actually is today on this video showing post landing work and folk walking around the bottom of it:https://youtu.be/mGkhrRw3VnY?t=384
Legmaster said:
ninja-lewis said:
Photos of Starship (and Falcon 9) never seem to do their sheer scale justice.
Only just appreciated how huge Starship actually is today on this video showing post landing work and folk walking around the bottom of it:https://youtu.be/mGkhrRw3VnY?t=384
The way I look at the "big" starship (the one with a 1st and 2nd stage) is that it's 5000 tons.
This is just under 5000 tons:
The full stack is basically hurling something the weight of a Type 23 frigate into space. It's unprecedented.
Dog Star said:
Beati Dogu said:
They're gonna need more landing pad water jets.
Assuming that was a leak and not some residual fuel in chambers etc then that is definitely going to need looking at. Let's see what they do with SN15, they've not hooked the crane on yet, but if they plop it back on the launch stand I guess it's going to go again without a full overhaul.
Coming up on Sunday: The Starlink-27 launch from Florida.
This will be the booster's 10th flight.
Launch time: 7.42 am UK time (2.42 am EDT)
Launch site: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida
The Crew-1 dragon arrived back in Port Canaveral yesterday. The astronauts were flown off the recovery ship by helicopter, then on by plane to Houston. Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi has now flown on the Shuttle, Soyuz and Dragon. He was asked in the press conference how he would compare them:
https://youtu.be/H2TenoCOgV8?t=1721
This will be the booster's 10th flight.
Launch time: 7.42 am UK time (2.42 am EDT)
Launch site: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida
The Crew-1 dragon arrived back in Port Canaveral yesterday. The astronauts were flown off the recovery ship by helicopter, then on by plane to Houston. Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi has now flown on the Shuttle, Soyuz and Dragon. He was asked in the press conference how he would compare them:
https://youtu.be/H2TenoCOgV8?t=1721
Beati Dogu said:
Coming up on Sunday: The Starlink-27 launch from Florida.
This will be the booster's 10th flight.
Launch time: 7.42 am UK time (2.42 am EDT)
Launch site: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida
The Crew-1 dragon arrived back in Port Canaveral yesterday. The astronauts were flown off the recovery ship by helicopter, then on by plane to Houston. Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi has now flown on the Shuttle, Soyuz and Dragon. He was asked in the press conference how he would compare them:
https://youtu.be/H2TenoCOgV8?t=1721
Very interesting comments by Noguchi.This will be the booster's 10th flight.
Launch time: 7.42 am UK time (2.42 am EDT)
Launch site: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida
The Crew-1 dragon arrived back in Port Canaveral yesterday. The astronauts were flown off the recovery ship by helicopter, then on by plane to Houston. Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi has now flown on the Shuttle, Soyuz and Dragon. He was asked in the press conference how he would compare them:
https://youtu.be/H2TenoCOgV8?t=1721
xeny said:
craig_m67 said:
5000 tonnes displacement.. not weight
Doesn't Archimedes' principle say that if it displaces 5,000 tonnes it weighs 5,000 tonnes ?
ker(I’d like to say I was being a pedant, but yeah - I was just wrong .. currently out with Bacchus)
Beati Dogu said:
Coming up on Sunday: The Starlink-27 launch from Florida.
This will be the booster's 10th flight.
Launch time: 7.42 am UK time (2.42 am EDT)
Launch site: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida
Well, the Falcon 9 booster made it up and down successfully for a record 10th time. Impressive stuff.This will be the booster's 10th flight.
Launch time: 7.42 am UK time (2.42 am EDT)
Launch site: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida
The second stage continues on for satellite deployment.
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