More Starship 1

Apparently there is only so much that can be known about how to make Starship successful by working in the SpaceX office. At some point, no more progress can be made until they send their current version of Starship into space and see what happens.

As the former NASA head Jim Bridenstine said a few years back, SpaceX has something NASA has lacked, a "willingness to fail." He says they "fly, test, fail, fix" - repeatedly.

Yes. Starship has been developed through a process of "fly, test, fail, fix" over and over again. Trial #28 took place on March 14. Starship, the space vehicle which will carry people in the future, was launched into space on the booster Super Heavy for only the third time that combination has been tested together. 

Super Heavy detached at the right time and turned back to earth, while Starship fired its own three rockets and continued on to orbital velocity. Both exploded before they could finish all of their mission. But they got further than ever before. Watch:

(cont'd tomorrow)

Test flight #4

Starship's test flight #4 took place this summer already on June 6, advancing toward the goals of safe, rapidly reusable human transport to the moon and beyond.

A new summary video of its fourth test flight is out. It includes SpaceX team's live reaction to the safe splashdown of Starship's booster (Super Heavy) and the independent flight of "Ship" itself (Starship spacecraft) powered by its own six Raptor engines.

Terminology reminder: "Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, consists of two fully reusable elements — a huge first stage called Super Heavy and an upper-stage spacecraft known as Starship, or simply Ship."

Tomorrow: ready for test flight #5

from Space

More Starship 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

What if airplanes were not re-usable, what if they were destroyed after every flight? It would be so expensive to fly to your destination that you would be lucky to fly once ever in your life. 

It used to be that way with space launches. Up until recently, a brand new rocket had to be built for every single launch. SpaceX was first to put a rocket into orbit and return it safely for another flight, a huge cost savings.

photo

From the beginning, this was the SpaceX vision. They've done it with Falcon 9 over 300 times, and Starship will be reusable as well. It's a game changer, no question: a spaceship to transport people safely in space, usable again and again like an airplane. It will take NASA astronauts to the moon (Artemis mission).

Starship will also carry cargo. The price to get your satellite or experiment into space will drop something like ten-fold. NASA's old Space Shuttle had to charge $25,000 per pound of payload. Starship will probably be able to charge about $1500 per pound.

from Business Insider

Super Heavy 2

 (cont'd from yesterday's post)

A Super Heavy booster is on the launch pad right now at Starbase (near Boca Chica, Texas). This prototype was built only to be ground-tested.

But the next Super Heavy booster will fly. It will launch the spacecraft Starship into orbit, then descend back to earth and land. Standing 230 feet tall, it's the first stage of SpaceX's fully reusable transportation system for space travel which was "designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond. Starship will be the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed, with the ability to carry in excess of 100 metric tonnes to Earth orbit.

Starship itself is 165 feet, so the two stages combined will be nearly 400 feet tall. It will surpass the 363-foot Saturn V, which flew NASA astronauts to the moon in 1969.

Note: Confusingly, "Starship" can refer to just the first stage spacecraft launched on top of the Super Heavy booster rocket, or to the combined two-stage transport system.

from Space

Starship V3

How can we make it better? That's a central question which SpaceX addresses to its Raptor engines, but it doesn't stop there. Innovation keeps coming with regard to the "ship" spacecraft which is the top half of the integrated "Starship." 

Version 2 is currently being used for test flights, but V3 is coming (see this video from one of the many avid SpaceX watchers to learn the details) and it's full of upgrades. 

It's bigger, to accommodate both more fuel capacity and bigger payload. Elon's X post shows Starship 3 in comparison to Falcon 1, the first rocket they produced (still in use). 

Vast improvement was made in the relative cost to put payload into orbit: 400x better. (Click on the image to see the small print.)

Test flight #7

Yesterday was the seventh test flight of Starship and its booster Super Heavy rocket. A lot of modifications were tried (including a 25% increase in propellant volume and an additional 6.5' of length for "Ship") with some success and some failure.

Super Heavy performed beautifully, the megazilla "chopsticks" catching it out of the air just as they did in flight test #5. A thrilling success.

Starship ("Ship") didn't fare as well. There was a rapid unplanned disassembly (SpaceX term for explosion) over the Atlantic ocean, and a beautiful sky show as the debris streaked to earth.

There may be as many as 25 test flights of Starship this calendar year, every one being an opportunity to get more things right.

Raptor engine

Dozens and even hundreds of improvements are made as a result of every Starship test flight.

The Raptor engine has evolved from its first design to a simpler one.

Much of the "fiddly bits" on Raptor 1 have been "deleted, combined, simplified on Raptor 2: a gigantic difference in complexity." 

It's simplified, and yet it's more powerful. The first version produced 185 tons of thrust, the simplified version 2 produces 230 tons of thrust. 

When the next test flight (#9) of Starship launches, it will reuse the same booster and 29 of the same Raptor 2 engines used in test flight #7. It will be the first time for booster and engine reuse in a Starship flight.

Raptor 3, a new design, is still in the testing process.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Starhopper

Elon Musk's original, ultimate goal for SpaceX was to enable humans to land on other planets. Those trips will be made with the rocket they're working on, called "Starship." It's been in design mode for years,  while rockets Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy set satellites in space and did cargo flights to the International Space Station.

SpaceX built a prototype called "Starhopper" for the purpose of testing facets of Starship's development. Starhoppper successfully flew its fourth and final test just this week.

Elon congratulated the SpaceX staff, and tweeted:

"One day Starship will land on the rusty sands of Mars."

Super Heavy

"Starship" is the new spacecraft that SpaceX is developing to go to the moon and then to Mars. Its last test flight in May successfully achieved an altitude of about six miles and came back down safely (the previous prototypes exploded). 

But it won't really get away from planet Earth without a booster rocket. 

So SpaceX is also developing the Super Heavy rocket to do that. The rocket plus the new spacecraft constitute the Starship system. Together, the two components will do a test flight soon to launch Starship (the upper stage of the system) into orbit around Earth.

But first the new rocket has to be tested, and it's already on the launching pad.

image

 from Space

(cont'd tomorrow)

Lunar lander 2

 (cont'd from yesterday's post)

If the time line works out as planned, SpaceX's spacecraft Starship will put two astronauts on the moon by 2024. That's 52 years after the last time we put people on the moon. 

NASA's Artemis mission to the moon will begin paving the way to permanent habitations and an orbiting space station. The moon will be our best bet for launching missions to Mars. Elon Musk wants to build a thousand Starships to transport people and cargo for the purpose of  establishing a colony there. Both Starship and its Super Heavy rocket will be fully reusable.

Watch an animation of what it will look like when Starship is launched to orbit while its booster (Super Heavy) turns around and heads back to earth for a safe landing:

 

Meanwhile, routine business continues. Today at 5:49 a.m. SpaceX launched four astronauts from Kennedy Space Center on a flight to the International Space Station. The pilot, Megan MacArthur, is the wife of Bob Behnke who flew SpaceX's very first crewed mission last year. They will dock with the ISS Saturday morning.

Watch the launch from pre-dawn Florida here.

from Business Insider

Test flight #10

Win or lose, "the goal is always to collect as much data as possible," to learn what works and what doesn't, to test for weaknesses. Test flights take place so SpaceX can intentionally stress Starship.

If you want to fly to Mars, you have to get out of the office and up into real space so you can learn what you don't know: like how to build the world's first "reusable orbital heat shield." It's never been done. But it will be.

After two scrubbed launch windows, Starship test flight #10 got off the ground Tuesday evening. SpaceX posted a two-hour live video full of information about work they did after the last flight and what they hope for in this flight. Actual launch starts at 46:45.

Test often

SpaceX is still working on the original goal Elon Musk had in mind from the beginning: to make humanity "inter-planetary" as a backup plan, because he thinks people may need to flee from a toxic environment, hostile AI, or some other threat.

Starship is the vehicle designated to transport cargo or passengers (up to 100) through space.  This week it was tested with its first-stage booster to see if Starship could achieve orbit. It was the 24th iteration of the vehicle since the prototype (2019).

The test failed in about four minutes, ending in "rapid unplanned disassembly" (RUD). Failed  to complete the mission, yes--but progress was still achieved. According to the Systems Quality Engineering Manager, “The purpose for today’s main milestone is to clear the [launch] pad . . . Every milestone beyond that is a bonus. The further we fly, the more data we can collect.”

Elon congratulated the team.

photo

from Salvo

SN15 next

 (cont'd from yesterday's post)

Last week, April 8, the next Starship prototype to be tested rolled out to its launch pad. They skipped SN12-14, so this one's called SN15 and it's the result of those "hundreds of design  improvements" mentioned in yesterday's post. 

New and improved prototypes keep coming out of the factory. By year end there should be an SN20 capable of orbit.

Both the final version of Starship and the first stage it will ride on (Super Heavy) will be fully re-usable for multiple launches, which is the essential key to routine space travel. Otherwise, the costs would be (ahem) astronomical and prohibitive.

Elon Musk put it this way: "It's absolutely profound to have a reusable rocket . . .This is the holy grail."

Only with reusable space vehicles and rockets can the human race even consider colonizing Mars, and that's the goal he's always been going after.

See SN15 transported by "tankzilla" (starting about 8:40), workers attaching lift jig to the nosecone, and an enormous crane placing SN15 on its pad:

SN15 did it

SpaceX accomplished it at last, launching the new version of Starship (SN15) six miles up and returning it to the ground in a soft landing. All the previous prototypes ended in "rud" - rapid unplanned disassembly, i.e. explosion.

As you know, Starship is being developed by the private corporation SpaceX for NASA to use on its crewed mission to the moon, perhaps by 2024. SpaceX also plans to use this craft for its own commercial flights.

The two other companies that were considered by NASA for the job were Blue Origin and Dynetics. They lost the bid to SpaceX. Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin has filed a complaint with the government. So, for now, NASA is unable to give SpaceX any money for the job. If it isn't settled quickly, that moon mission goal may well be delayed. In fact, the 2024 goal is expected to slide under the current administration anyway.

from Space website

Test flight #9

Starship test flight #9 finally got off the ground (after some delays in FAA approval) yesterday.

After the first stage booster separated to leave Ship (second stage) in space, its engines shut down and then did a "boost back burn" to turn and come back to the launch site. A landing burn to slow it down would have been next, but control was lost. It was the first re-use of a Super Heavy booster, and some vital data was gained before its end in the Gulf.

Ship's engines ignited at separation and burned for a couple of minutes to propel Ship toward orbit. Then they stopped at SECO (ship engine cutoff). The SpaceX narrators seemed very relieved at the achievement of this important milestone.

One of the goals of this flight was to push Starship to its limits. One hundred heat shield tiles were intentionally removed over critical areas in order to see what would happen during re-entry. Unfortunately it didn't make it to re-entry.

So both stages eventually failed, but vital data was gathered.

The catch

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

To remind yourself why they would try to do something as monumentally difficult as catching a rocket in mid-air, go here. 

What a moment that turned out to be. After boosting "Starship" through the thickest part of the atmosphere, seven minutes after launch "Super Heavy" disengaged from it and came hurtling back to earth. 

Precision firing of its raptor engines slowed the 250-ton rocket down til it hovered right over its target. It slowly descended into the "chopstick" arms of the "mechazilla" launch tower, back into the position where in the future it will be readied for the next flight in as little as one hour. 

This process will help attain the goal of the rapid reuse of Starship, essential to Elon's vision. He posted on X: "Big step towards making life multiplanetary was made today."

Starship test 4

SpaceX staff were thrilled last week with the results of another test flight: Starship, consisting of the space craft itself ("Ship") and its booster ("Super Heavy"), flew into space and returned separately to a soft splashdown. No RUD, rapid unplanned disassembly, this time.

Super Heavy was powered by 32 of its 33 Raptor engines, which you can see as lighted circles in the video below. When it makes its soft landing at about 7 1/2 minutes after liftoff, you can hear the SpaceX crowd explode with joy and relief.

They like to say that "the data is the payload" for this flight. Live, visual data is recorded by cameras and transmitted by Starlink, the network of internet-service satellites owned by SpaceX.

Ship flew further and faster into space (up to ~26,000 KM/H) powered by its own engines after Super Heavy separated. Surviving re-entry, it executed its "flip" and landing burn, and achieved its own soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

SpaceX update 2

(cont'd from Tuesday's post)

Note: all of this is from the video

To build "Starship" has always been the goal of SpaceX, to create a safe and reusable system for human travel in space.

Stage one is the Super Heavy booster which will launch stage two, the space ship itself. The booster will spend two minutes in ascent and four minutes returning safely to earth ("excitement guaranteed"). They will build many more Starships (stage two) than boosters because that booster, according to plan, will be reusable and available for a new mission in just one hour.

If you're interested in its payload capacity, its new Raptor engine (half the cost and twice the thrust), how much it can carry to Mars in one mission, or how it compares to Saturn V, it's all in minutes 5-34 of the video below.

Why do all this? Elon's mission for SpaceX hasn't changed since it started: making life multi-planetary starting with Mars. It's the first time, he says, in earth's 4.5-billion-year history that this has been possible. 

"We need to seize the opportunity and do it as soon as possible to secure the future of life . . . I must be frank, civilization is feeling a little fragile these days." When the fully reusable Starship is complete and routine, it will be an "utterly profound breakthrough" with possibilities we can't even imagine now.

SpaceX Mk-1

SpaceX has been developing its 100-passenger"Starship" for years, the vehicle that will help humans colonize Mars. The first small prototype, Starhopper, was a stubby version used for testing purposes and retired in August. More prototypes (Mk-2, Mk-3, Mk-4) will follow.

Last Saturday Elon Musk revealed the very first full-size (165 feet tall) Starship prototype, Mk-1. Its test mission will be an uncrewed launch within two months, reaching about twelve vertical miles.

Elon's comment: "This is the most inspiring thing that I've ever seen."

Waiting for #5

Follow up to this post 

"Starships need to fly.  The more we [SpaceX] fly safely, the faster we learn; the faster we learn, the sooner we realize full and rapid rocket reuse."  

Like some of you, I'm anxious for test flight #5 of Starship. What's holding it up? 

Well, it's not SpaceX. "The Starship and Super Heavy vehicles for Flight 5 have been ready to launch since the first week of August."

"Unfortunately, we continue to be stuck in a reality where it takes longer to do the government paperwork (photo) to license a rocket launch than it does to design and build the actual hardware. This should never happen and directly threatens America’s position as the leader in space."

The FAA estimated a late September launch, but now has delayed it to late November. "[T]he licensing process has been repeatedly derailed by issues ranging from the frivolous to the patently absurd." 

Does the government have other issues going on here? A future post topic.

 from SpaceX