SpaceX Makes Plans For Up To 24 Starship Launches A Year From Florida (spacenews.com) 35
schwit1 quotes Space News: SpaceX plans to build facilities at the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A for launches and, eventually, landings of its next-generation launch vehicle, according to a newly released report.
An environment assessment prepared by SpaceX, and released by NASA Aug. 1, discusses plans to develop additional facilities at LC-39A, which currently hosts Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches, for use by the company's Starship vehicle and its Super Heavy booster.
The plans outlined in the document call for the construction of a new launch mount at the complex near the existing one used by the Falcon 9 and Heavy. The modifications to the pad would also include a tank farm for the methane fuel used by the Raptor engines that power Starship and Super Heavy.
The Super Heavy booster would land at a ship in the ocean downrange from the launch site, although the report noted that SpaceX may later have the booster return to land. The Starship upper stage would initially land at the company's existing Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, but the company plans to build a pad near the new launch mount at LC-39A for to support Starship landings at a future date.
The facilities will be able to support up to 24 Starship/Super Heavy launches a year.
An environment assessment prepared by SpaceX, and released by NASA Aug. 1, discusses plans to develop additional facilities at LC-39A, which currently hosts Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches, for use by the company's Starship vehicle and its Super Heavy booster.
The plans outlined in the document call for the construction of a new launch mount at the complex near the existing one used by the Falcon 9 and Heavy. The modifications to the pad would also include a tank farm for the methane fuel used by the Raptor engines that power Starship and Super Heavy.
The Super Heavy booster would land at a ship in the ocean downrange from the launch site, although the report noted that SpaceX may later have the booster return to land. The Starship upper stage would initially land at the company's existing Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, but the company plans to build a pad near the new launch mount at LC-39A for to support Starship landings at a future date.
The facilities will be able to support up to 24 Starship/Super Heavy launches a year.
Alexander Peter Kowalski lost APK Hosts File brand (Score:1)
You started drinking early today Al, Slow down or you will pass out before everyone gets to see your important message
I would not be too hard on him going on a bender. He's been trying to build up his personal brand, APK Hosts File, for a couple of decades, pissing off the internet with his spam.
It must have come as a shock to him that anyone searching for "APK Hosts File " using Google, DuckDuckGo , Bing, or Yahoo is instead directed to Nilhcem Host Editor Pro.
APK Hosts File is dead!
Today we celebrate. After more than 2 decades of trying to create APK Hosts File as a personal brand to shill his crap shareware, the Internet routed around his damage.
Searches for APK Hosts File return software for Android developer Nilhcem and their APK Hosts Editor Pro [apkeditorpro.us].
Decades of spamming has resulted in him creating awareness for a competitor who offers it on Android, the #1 personal computing platform on the planet.
Will Alexander Peter Kowalski threaten to sue Nilhcem for trade appropriation? Kind of hard to see how, since he doesn't have an official business presence. But crazy is as crazy does, and any such threat of a lawsuit should be good enough reason to grab some popcorn.
So how is he going to sell his crap? Spamming the internet didn't work. Searches return Nilhcem products. I guess all he can do is troll his brains out, but again, that just makes him look nuts while bumping up his competitors brand.
It doesn't take an Amazing Kreskin to see that there is no future for Alexander Peter Kowalski. Trying to sell shareware to use on the internet without even a web site was a fatal error.
Then again, spending 25 years spamming + no job = no money for a web presence.
Who's LOLing now, Alexander?
APK Hosts File is dead. Long live Nilhcem APK Hosts Editor Pro.
It's Christmas in summer :-) He can try to deflect attention from this simple fact, but when nobody can find you on the internet, how are you going to sell yo
Good thing (Score:2)
What is the "Starship"? (Score:2, Redundant)
quoth the wiki: [wikipedia.org]
Starship is the fully reusable second stage and space vehicle of the SpaceX BFR [wikipedia.org] "Super Heavy" rocket currently under development by SpaceX. It is a long-duration cargo- and passenger-carrying spacecraft that also serves as the BFR launch vehicle second stage and integrated payload section.[4][5]
Basically, it's a shuttle that gets mounted on top of the BFR which uses 35 Raptor rocket engines [wikipedia.org] (liquid oxygen / liquid methane propellant). For comparison, the best known reusable rocket, the Falcon 9 [wikipedia.org] uses nine Merlin rocket engines [wikipedia.org] (liquid oxygen / kerosene propellant).
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
The Starship is far more capable than the Shuttle. and far bigger. It also doesn't have wings or land like an airplane. It's also fully reusable and will not require months of work between flights.
It will have 7 or so raptor engines itself, be able to hold 100+ people (plus up to 150 tons of cargo when launching with the superheavy 1st stage). I'm hearing that SpaceX is talking about the prototypes possibly getting to orbit in the next year, if that's the case, they will be doing so without the superheavy 1
Re: (Score:2)
Well, without in orbit refueling it's a lot less useful than the Saturn V for going to the moon and other high energy orbits, it's too much mass without fuel. Pretty neat for Starlink deployment though, I guess that's their primary driver now. But if they can make that work - seems rather mundane to everything else they're doing really - then a fully refueled Starship will be massively more powerful than anything that's ever flown before.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, without in orbit refueling it's a lot less useful than the Saturn V for going to the moon
To reproduce Apollo, it would need to match the 48 ton payload to TLI (with a small fuel reserve for landing).
If they are talking 100ton to LEO, that means a single refuelling launch should be needed?
But what you really want is to reach lunar orbit, and return, carrying a lunar lander, with BFS acting as command and service module.
The Apollo lander had a 16 ton launch mass. Do we still have the spares in storage?
All those fumes... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
I wonder why nobody has ever asked E.Musk that when he yucks about the global warming.
We see through you, douchebag.
Just saying. ;)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure the technology exists for an electric-powered rocket.
Re: (Score:2)
It's called an ion drive. It's not suitable for boost from gorund, but quite useful for space-space maneuvers....
No it's not hypocrisy (Score:1)
If all Teslas were diesel rather than electric would they produce more emissions than all those rockets? I wonder why nobody has ever asked E.Musk that when he yucks about the global warming.
A) Teslas aren't diesel so that is a meaningless strawman question
B) The amount of carbon in the kerosene used for SpaceX rockets is not large enough to be a major contributor to climate change even given that the impact clearly is greater than zero.
C) Getting internal combustion vehicles replaced with electric ones can in principle take about 1/3 of all carbon emissions off the table.
D) There is no chance that a few dozen rocket launches is going to overcome the impact of switching all cars to electric
E)
Re: (Score:1)
The first stage mass is 3,065 metric tons. If you assume all of that is CH4, that is equal to the average CO2 emissions of roughly six hundred cars.
For scale, there were 270 million registered vehicles in the US in 2017. It is a drop in a bucket of annual CO2 emissions.
Re: (Score:2)
Love him or hate him, it's fair to acknowledge that Elon has been a major force in moving the rocket industry towards a more sustainable future.
Starlink (Score:4, Interesting)
They need a good launch cadence to put up 14,000 satellites in the next few years.
Even at 60 per on a fully-loaded F9 that's nearly 250 launches.
At 420 per launch it's achievable at 33 launches, or just under two years after Starship/Heavy are going.
JRTI is headed to Panama now to wind up at the Cape. Probably getting retrofitted for Starship/Heavy stack landings.
.
STARLINK IS COMING.
.
Re: (Score:1)
Those satellites are going to be launched in bunches, not one per launch.
4:20 space (Score:1)
Shuttle planned 130 launches per year (Score:3)
A 1976 NASA booklet (SP production) outlined each orbiter will have a 2-week turnaround. Of five orbiters planned (though only four as Enterprise not feasible for spaceflight), this works out for 130 launches a year. In other discussions the question of where will all those payloads come from. Obviously Shuttle never reached that flight rate. And yes the STS program was oversold.
Let's see how Starship flight rate works out though the facility is being built up for capacity and not necessarily flight rate? What about weather? Many Shuttle flights were delayed because of weather (some delayed per return-to-launch-site abort, weather at TAL sites). It will be interesting with multiple launches per spectator sites, will it become "boring" except few that go to airports to look at planes taking off and landing?
Increase in Space Launches Hurts Environment (Score:2)
How much environmental damage is done with a single space launch? As humankind ramps up space launches, how much are we speeding up the destruction of our fragile planet?
Re: (Score:3)
How much environmental damage is done with a single space launch? As humankind ramps up space launches, how much are we speeding up the destruction of our fragile planet?
1. Most of the Kennedy Space Center is closed off to the public. Which makes it ideal habitat for wildlife. It's also part of the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. [wikipedia.org] Go on a KSC tour. Not only will you see a lot of history, you see a lot of wildlife as well!
2. The SpaceX Starship is designed to run on methane. Methane burns cleaner than kerosene and can be produced in a carbon-neutral way by using the Sabatier reaction. [wikipedia.org] While I believe SpaceX's current methane source is fossil fuel based, the p