FAA Grants License For SpaceX's Third Starship Launch (space.com) 62
The FAA today awarded a launch license to SpaceX for Starship's third-ever test flight on March 14. "The FAA determined SpaceX met all safety, environmental, policy and financial responsibility requirements," the agency wrote in a post on X this afternoon. Space.com reports: The megarocket has two test flights under its belt so far, which took place in April and November of last year. Starship's two stages failed to separate as planned on the April flight, however, which ended after just four minutes. Things went better in November -- stage separation occurred as planned, for example -- but both stages ended up exploding high in the sky on that mission as well. The FAA wrapped up its investigation into what happened on the November flight late last month. But the agency took some additional time before awarding a license for launch number three today.
Thursday's flight will be different, and bolder, than its predecessors. "The third flight test aims to build on what we've learned from previous flights while attempting a number of ambitious objectives, including the successful ascent burn of both stages, opening and closing Starship's payload door, a propellant transfer demonstration during the upper stage's coast phase, the first ever re-light of a Raptor engine while in space, and a controlled reentry of Starship," SpaceX wrote in a mission description. In addition, Thursday's test launch will aim to bring Starship's upper stage down in the Indian Ocean. The target splashdown zone for the first two test missions, by contrast, was the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii.
Thursday's flight will be different, and bolder, than its predecessors. "The third flight test aims to build on what we've learned from previous flights while attempting a number of ambitious objectives, including the successful ascent burn of both stages, opening and closing Starship's payload door, a propellant transfer demonstration during the upper stage's coast phase, the first ever re-light of a Raptor engine while in space, and a controlled reentry of Starship," SpaceX wrote in a mission description. In addition, Thursday's test launch will aim to bring Starship's upper stage down in the Indian Ocean. The target splashdown zone for the first two test missions, by contrast, was the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii.
Tiles (Score:2)
How many heat shield tiles are going to be shaken off in this flight? They really need a better solution for that if they're going for rapidly reusable.
Re:Tiles (Score:4, Informative)
That's the advantage of rapidly churning out new models: iterate, iterate, iterate. Wasn't an option for something like the Shuttle where every single orbiter cost a small fortune.
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They have switched to a new heat shield attachment mechanism on newer ships. This flight still has the old mechanism though, so we expect to see lots of loss of tiles on this flight.
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After watching the launch, I can confirm the final answer is "all of them"
That said, it's not clear if it was the tiles falling off that caused it to die
Re: Tiles (Score:3)
I think itâ(TM)s pretty clear that not being under control during reentry was the cause of the breakup. Only 3 or 4 tiles had visibly fallen off during ascent. On the other hand the engine bay was visibly full of plasma from coming down arse first.
"Awarded"? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: "Awarded"? (Score:2)
Re:"Awarded"? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is standard terminology. [google.com]
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'Awarded' makes it sound like the 23-year-old bureaucrat with a marketing degree has some moral authority over the rocket scientists at SpaceX she is 'awarding'.
It's propaganda.
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And I don't disagree with that.
I love that someone has thrown caution to the wind and is developing a rocket like this. The US could never engage in such development, the optics would sink the project at the first explosion.
And I'm still not convinced Starship will even end up being a winning gamble.
It is the largest rocket, and it's the most powerful in terms of raw thrust, but it isn't the most powerful
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If all else fails they still can just use a third stage for that.
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One wonders where they'd hide it.
If they make it much taller, you'll be able to step into orbit from the top of the fucking thing.
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Amazing (Score:4, Insightful)
Then they built a Heavy size rocket with 9 engines, a cargo ship, with less than $300M from the government (which was less than 25% of what they spent). Yet, a55holes like you pointed to N1, along with other private and government built rockets that failed and said that SX could not do it.
Then they got the F9 to land and was the first launcher/space craft that was TRULY reusable without requiring massive work. Yet, a55holes like you pointed to the Shuttle along with other failed private and government built rockets and said that it could not be done.
Then they got a Super Heavy Rocket with 3 stages, again, on their own money, and again, you a55holes said that SX could not do 27 engines because the Soviets failed on N1.
Then they got partially funded (far less than Boeing) to build a manned spacecraft with NASA's specs, and still got it done quickly. But a55holes like you screamed that SX could not do it and that only Boeing and old space could do it.
SX announced building a massive constellation of communication sats, and again, a55holes like you said that he was going to lose money and that it was horrible for him to use his money to do so. Yet, Starlink is already profitable.
Now, he is building the world's biggest rocket that has ever been built, and will go to the moon with 100+ tonnes of cargo being put on the moon (note that Saturn put less than 3 tonnes of actual cargo on the moon). Yet, a55holes like you continue to say that he can not succeed, that it will be a joke in space, and that it will be unprofitable.
Don't you a55holes ever get tired of being wrong all the fucking time?
Re:This one can fail (Score:5, Informative)
What the heck sort of metric is that supposed to be? T/W ratio determines how fast you accelerate. You want us to award "most powerful rocket" to ballistic missile interceptors [wikipedia.org] I guess?
Given that it was literally designed for Mars, it distinctly is not. Even without refueling, its payload capacity to GEO is 27t (vs. 100-150t for LEO), which isn't even remotely "useless". By contrast, Delta IV Heavy is 14t to GEO. Vulcan is designed for 8,5t to GEO. Ariane 5 maxes out at 10,5t. Etc.
I assume you got this erroneous misconception based on the fact that its upper stage isn't hydrolox. But ignoring that it has higher ISP and than kerosene, and MUCH lower tankage mass than hydrolox, people who make this argument always boggle the mind to me. Because all this means is you change the optimal staging ratios. That is to say, a satellite designed for a launch vehicle with a hydrolox upper stage will generally have a smaller propellant tank and have the launch vehicle do more of the work, while a satellite designed for a vehicle with a non-hydrolox upper stage will generally have a larger propellant tank and do more of the work itself. Wherein what you effectively now have is a three stage rocket, which gives you far better performance for high-delta-V launches than a two-stage with a hydrolox upper.
But even ignoring that, the difference between hydrolox and methalox upper stages isn't THAT huge to the point where you can say "It's awesome in LEO but worthless beyond LEO!" It just doesn't work that way. There's greater falloff in performance with methalox, but if you have 100-150t LEO performance, you're still going to have great GEO performance.
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(Also, when seeing these numbers, keep in mind that Starship also has a lot of dead mass dedicated to being reusable)
Re:This one can fail (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess it depends on your definition of "good". There are examples (Delta-IV, for example) of rockets that are more efficient, in terms of payload fraction, or ISP, or what-have-you. But those rockets are all expendable, built one at a time (practically bespoke), fly infrequently, and are several times more expensive ($/kg to orbit) than even the Falcon 9. So if Starship is "not a good rocket" because it's built robustly and made for (inexpensive) re-use, does that make more elegant rockets "good", even if they're 5x-10x the cost with a years-long waitlist? That doesn't seem logically sound.
I'd argue that if your goal is to get X tonnes to a destination in space, finding a substantially less expensive way to get it there is going to count for a lot more than whether the delivery system is more mass-efficient.
Granted: Starship hasn't actually demonstrated that yet. But based in part on Falcon 9's success, I expect Starship will get there.
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So if Starship is "not a good rocket" because it's built robustly and made for (inexpensive) re-use, does that make more elegant rockets "good"
I don't think you grasp the level of inefficiency we're talking here.
It takes another fully loaded Starship + 150T of transfer fuel to move a single gram of mass past GTO.
The inexpensiveness of the venture is a quirk in economics. In terms of resources used, no launch that ever happened will come close to matching a single trip to the moon.
It takes 7 full Starships to put an Apollo 11 payload into LTO, or somewhere around 14 Saturn Vs.
I'd argue that if your goal is to get X tonnes to a destination in space, finding a substantially less expensive way to get it there is going to count for a lot more than whether the delivery system is more mass-efficient.
Depends. For Americans, it was cheaper than everyone else to buy SUVs.
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(Also, when seeing these numbers, keep in mind that Starship also has a lot of dead mass dedicated to being reusable)
Bingo. And therein lies the problem. Starship is not a good rocket.
Sorry, but that is just a dumb comment. Look, consider this example: A 40-ton truck contains a lot of dead weight dedicated to making it re-usable. I'm sure you could make a disposable truck that weighs a lot less, so it could carry more. The engine, the tires, the transmission - only good for one use. The frame and body could be lightened. Etc. At the end of every trip, throw away the truck.
Until recently, we didn't have the technology to make anything *but* disposable rockets. That has now changed, and
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Sorry, but that is just a dumb comment.
Sure isn't.
Look, consider this example: A 40-ton truck contains a lot of dead weight dedicated to making it re-usable.
A 40-ton truck is not subject to the rocket equation. Now this is a dumb fucking comment.
Until recently, we didn't have the technology to make anything *but* disposable rockets. That has now changed, and it is literally revolutionizing access to space. Look at the frequency of Falcon launches - there is no way SpaceX could achieve that with single-use rockets.
Correct. And that's awesome. But that has nothing to do with the fact that Starship is a shitty rocket.
Look at it this way.
Saturn V has about as much delta v left over going all the fucking ways to Mars orbit as Starship does, stripped down to nothing but bolts and fuel- at Earth geosynchronous transfer orbit.
It's a shitty fucking rocket.
It only becomes a cool rocket if you refuel it.
And that's an aweso
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Starship:
Stage 1: IFull: 3600, IDry: 200, TFull: 4900, TDry: 1500, Isp: 327: 3796.08m/s
Stage 2a: IFull: 1300, IDry: 100, TFull: 1300, TDry: 100, Isp: 355: 8929.51m/s
Stage 2b: IFull: 1300, IDry: 100, TFull: 1300, TDry: 100, Isp: 380: 9558.35m/s (refueled)
Total: 12725.59m/s
LEO: 3469.56m/s left. Can go: GTO
GTO: 1029.59m/s left. Can go: Fucking nowhere.
Saturn V:
Stage 1: IFull: 2214, IDry: 137, TFull: 2833.2, TDry: 756.2, Isp: 168: 2176.13m/s
Stag
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As it is, Dear Moon mission will not require a single refueling. It is capable of sending 6+ people around the moon and returning without that. So that quickly destroys one of your comments.
No, it doesn't, you ignorant shit-for-brains.
A flyby of the moon is just a large orbit of the Earth.
It requires almost no additional delta-v to go from GTO to TLI.
A Delta IV can swing 9 tons around the moon. That's not impressive.
Thank you for confirming that you have no fucking idea what you're talking about, though.
But, you continue to go after this screaming about fuel costs. What is the cheapest part of a rocket? You already know this. Fuel. The expense is in 2 main items: The rocket itself and the launch.
The fuel costs about as much as the launch for Starship.
It costs ~$5m USD to fuel both stages.
If you have to refuel, that's another $5m.
If you have to put something in orbit around the
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It will never send anything to Venus without serious gravitational boosts.
Which we can do right now already with better rockets.
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Starship is a reusable 2nd stage.
Wrong. What I said was correct:
Starship *is* an expendable (or reusable) second stage.
Starship can be configured to be re-used, or not.
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The Starship system is designed for cost efficiency as its primary metric. If and when it becomes operational, we will see how effective they were in meeting their objectives, but older, more traditional rockets were designed around optimizing other metrics, but not sure how optimizing for cost and tonnage to orbit could make it a "bad" rocket...
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The Starship system is designed for cost efficiency as its primary metric.
It gets that by default. All SpaceX rockets are cheap, because its competitors rockets are built using Cold War labor and contract structures.
A reusable Starship could be 10x more expensive to build, and if it hits the marks Musk thinks it'll hit, it would still be a fraction of the cost of one of its competitor's rockets.
If and when it becomes operational, we will see how effective they were in meeting their objectives
Indeed. And that was literally how this thread started- me saying I'm skeptical they will.
but older, more traditional rockets were designed around optimizing other metrics
Yes, like efficiency.
but not sure how optimizing for cost and tonnage to orbit could make it a "bad" rocket...
You aren't?
If your optimization means unconscionable waste of materials and
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Nobody said anything about the rockets themselves being Cold War rockets. Are you even able to fucking read?
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The most efficient rocket is almost by design non-reusable. This means that very expensive and exotic materials are never re-used and then end up at the bottom of the ocean. Thus, even if the labor was free (which it assuredly is not), these rockets would not be inexpensive in materials nor time, as well as the pollution generated by the mining, production and the discarding of these throw away rockets.
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Thrust, dry mass, and wet mass aren't meaningful metrics at all. Meaningful metrics involve things like how heavy the payload can be, how large it can be, and what it costs to put it up there.
I guess the Sprint ballistic missile interceptor had the highest payload ever then! *eyeroll*
In its expend
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I mostly agree. But if it fails due to something they've already seen before, that could be considered a failure, because it'd mean they haven't fully learned or corrected something that was already shown to be wrong.
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Musk would simply say that it was a success because they learned a bit more about the problem.
Again, I have no problem whatsoever with their approach to its development. I think it's fantastic, and a breath of fresh air.
But the metering of a launch as a "success" or a "failure" is a joke that is hard not to look at cynically.
I'm quite confident there is no possible outcome of the test that he would call a failure, rendering any such classi
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I wish he'd just come out and say, directly, "There's no such thing as a failed test launch"
I'd say that's pretty heavily implied by "test launch".
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Everyday Astronaut (Score:3)
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Theres an old saying that if architects designed houses the way software engineers design software, the first woodpecker to come along with collapse civilization.
Are we *sure* we want to apply software processes to frigging rocketships. That sounds like some silicon valley brained nonsense.
Re:Everyday Astronaut (Score:5, Insightful)
Are we *sure* we want to apply software processes to frigging rocketships. That sounds like some silicon valley brained nonsense.
Ten years ago I would've agreed with you, but it does seem to have worked out pretty well for SpaceX so far.
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Theres an old saying that if architects designed houses the way software engineers design software, the first woodpecker to come along with collapse civilization.
Are we *sure* we want to apply software processes to frigging rocketships. That sounds like some silicon valley brained nonsense.
Falcon disagrees.
I think SpaceX uses the software iteration thing in the way it should work when it comes to their vehicles. Improve with each increment, without need to add marketing driven bells and whistles which makes each iteration just slightly more useless and shitty. Software processes are infested with marketing and sales initiatives. SpaceX has an end-goal they slowly increment toward, with very few "must haves" added after each test that wasn't already a part of the plan.
I'd love to work somewher
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apply software processes to gigantic hardware
Just load all the Agile scrum masters into the capsules until the rockets stop blowing up.
From 12 NOON - UTC/GMT (Score:4, Funny)
(for those wondering WTF zone texas is in, and/or if they use DST .)
The flight is planned to last around one hour, before ending somewhere in the vicinity of MH370.
watch live (Score:4, Informative)
Where is the link to the live feed, you ask?
here [youtube.com]. You are welcome.
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The FAA Awarded (Score:2)