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It’s a pretty light spacecraft. Could be going to a higher energy transfer orbit? Maybe it’s a planned first stage retirement anyway.

It’s easy to imagine it being split into US (or ROW?) and Russian…maybe even more segments? From a re-entry predictability/demiseability perspective I think it’s better as smaller chunks, of course at the expense of more discrete things to re-enter. I’d guess there’s also a pretty strong...

From Atlas 2/3?

Subjectively I've also always been partial to the shape, side boosters, and copper center core, but that's just me... Regardless, its actually pretty well thought out considering its a 25 year old design. The side boosters are configurable (from 0 to 5 sticks) to enable a wide range of...

Can also WAG acceleration maths using time instead of distance. Using SX's tlm data I get about 8.2 m/s2 (or .84g) Its worth pedantic-izing that this is all average acceleration. Max instantaneous acceleration on landing burn is probably a good bit higher--maybe 2-3g's? Maybe a bit less...

The same g’s the rocket experiences? 😛

Always fun to see rocket tests. Score by Hans Zimmer (or so I assume).

Great shot of the throttle up at 4 seconds and shock diamonds pushing out.

A few random things that come to mind: 1. Its worth noting that renderings of aspirational things like space stations--especially when released far in advance of any actual hardware manufacturing--are not necessarily rooted in deep engineering, so its premature to claim foul on the size of an...

While its worth noting that most [significant] things in this world benefit from third party oversight to some degree or another, its unfortunate that state entities don't understand...or more likely don't trust other state entities to perform said oversight. In this case, there's already...

Interesting pivot. The "had to go to a different orbit" is pretty odd given Falcon's ability to go polar on the eastern range...maybe NRO wanted to bump up the altitude and that exceeded Falcon's dogleg capacity? If the payload is two sats as speculated, there's also a chance that NRO wants to...

***Just so nobody reads into the above linked two year old article incorrectly, Blue Origin has been headquartered in Kent for over 20 years.

Yes--its the simplest of hydrocarbons, so there's at least upside over, for instance, RP1 (basically, kerosene). Agree on that for sure!

Definitely the current constellation doesn't close the gaps--and certainly if Starlink goes lower than ISS, having ISS act as a UT is a non-starter. But...I think the contemplated ph1 constellation gets there. Downsides of ISL is that Starlink wold need to dedicate heads to point toward ISS...

FWIW hydrogen as rocket propellant its mostly a mass thing. Compared to a hydrocarbon that has that pesky carbon mass that's sort of dead weight, hydrogen is all business. There's a bunch of downsides though, notably that hydrogen requires much more volume (and so larger/heavier tanks), has a...

IIRC Dima's statement that he's taking his ball and going home was contingent upon "illegal sanctions". Since there's no illegal sanctions, we're good to go! :p

I've got a bunch of long emails in this thread and also the options thread (back before I had to stop reading for sake of my sanity...) that are probably worth finding...but in general, technical analysis is all about statistically relevant pattern recognition and that's all I'm doing. There's...

Bummer. Crappy way to learn lessons. Either go with the hypermile to KC or just get a tow to KC. The latter will take longer and obviously requires The Stupid Tax…but it seems like a better deal than running out of juice on some back road in the Central Valley…

Definitely fun thought experiment. I lean toward a space-rated UT, FWIW. I think its a more KISS solution (which is SpaceX's MO) and I think NASA will be much more receptive to RF comms. (To say nothing of some congress-dope screaming about SpaceX "shooting lasers at the ISS"...) In both...

Buddy pointed out this uptrend to me--look for a sizable drop if we make a strong break below the TL.

A number of entities are working the the satellite refueling problem FWIW. Northrop Grumman (via their Orbital acquisition from years ago) is probably in the lead with MEV. (While it does have a few missions under its belt it hasn't actually transferred propellant on orbit yet). A big...

I mean, technical trading is all about informed guessing--we can't predict the future, we can only aggregate "the signs" in a probabilistic analysis environment. --Right now 200ma is trying to provide support. I don't read it as an entry point if it holds, but its still something to watch...

A few plausible pieces of the pie: 1. Its really acceleration that's doing the lion's share of moving the fluids in the no-pump scenario, not velocity. So for the entire duration of the load transfer the vehicles would need to ~constantly be firing thrusters, otherwise its going to be a...

Its mostly a function of depth vs breadth for the media outlet. There's a set of superfans that want to consume hyper detail, and so a few folks in the media cater to that market. But even when you jump up to broader space outlets, the market appetite for that level of detail simply isn't...

In addition to @Grendal's response, there's really not a lot of upside to the exercise. Besides the fact that we are SOOO far away from PTP travel that a demonstration like this doesn't really prove any points or move any needles, as soon as Starship starts returning (and certainly as soon as...

There's a temporal element to that metric, of course...

Surprised this hasn't been linked yet--its been making the news cycle lately: SpaceX discusses Starlink service with Delta Air Lines Clever use case extrapolation in the comments section about a fundamental shift in safety by streaming 'black box' data.

Yeah, that's a fair perspective. Its definitely a big problem to solve that has no easy answer. The strength of the US perpetually leans on the ever-fluctuating balancing act between public and private entities, and limiting the ability for a public project to execute would certainly throw a...

There is literally just one reason: They don't have to. Conversely, SLS HAS to have a very open book with respect to budgets, suppliers, etc. That's how government cost plus programs work. Nobody on the program WANTS to have a massively horizontal supply chain like that--the rails set by...

FWIW the X variant was a direct result of ULA's push to drive down manufacturing cost across Vulcan elements relative to previous revisions--especially at this volume they're probably looking at sub $10M/unit. That's still of course a huge wad of cash (~$35M for engines on each vehicle), but...

Hard to say how big of a deal this is really going to be, but France just rescinded Starlink's license. It mostly seems like the initial approval just didn't follow the proper process; one can probably assume that its just going to go back to square 1 and then get approved at some point and the...

No. You're just reading into the "...and from there to Mars" too much.

Yes. A delta pro outputs at 120V; you need the bridge cable (which you can now pre-order) to combine two 120V units to properly output +120/-120. Agreed on that. :p But still a fun thought experiment. Its worth noting that like most storage batteries, Ecoflow units (or at least the ones...

Its hard to imagine a world where time-shifting the base PGE TOU plan ever breaks even--on any battery, and certainly not your proposed mega-deep cycle. You've got AC-DC-AC conversion losses which are probably in the 10% range round trip (PGE TOU peak summer rate is currently 16% higher than...

Fair, and I'd give it more like 2050. I mean, there's no question its going to happen. You walk around Starbase and it is palpable (not to mention contagious). The vibe, to me anyway, feels like it probably did in the 40's in Los Alamos--everyone is at Starbase for one thing, they're all...

Probable case, it will be used to fill the megaconstellation demand over the next decade. While certainly Ambition Is King these days with mega constellations (beyond Starlink, today there's Kuiper, OW/OW2, Telesat, Transport and whatever that ends up becoming, Blackjack, AST Mobile...

FWIW the past few weeks has been very by the books. --First, there was the mid-jan to mid-march trendline (lower purple line) that ~stabilized with 20MA (yellow). While that isn't in itself a classic trendline (which starts as a peak or a bottom) over time it shaped up very nicely with...

As is always the case in conference season, lots of news going on these past few weeks. Notably: We're going to show you a picture of a Kuka!!! Subtitle: Let's See How Much Of A Trigger Word "Wuhan" Can Be. While obviously the reported CAST and CASIC aspirational production rates pale in...

That's right. And Amazon has a globally accepted service in Prime vs historically crap-shoot service from Elon-co. And Amazon has a history of their in-house brand undercutting prices on products that have no material differentiator (which will generally be the case between Starlink and...

Its a really heavy payload (pretty high SSO) AND its doing the dogleg mission AND its RTLS...they're probably trying to push the envelope of capacity on this one so the booster is likely going farther downrange than usual.

Its a good thought experiment. Certainly Starship isn't going to be the the 2022 solution...but I'm not sure more Falcons is either. I think there's a practical asymptote to how quickly they can huck up F9's from their two pads, and I think they're going to be pushing up against that rate more...

This will be a good case study on the hybrid solution. Intelsat has some decent GEO sats that can actually pump useful amounts of data, and starting with The Man as the customer takes the edge off worrying about competitive pricing. It also makes SpaceX's part a lot easier, as they don't have...

Big money is hard to pass up, especially when you really really need big money... In reality I don't think there's going to be much impact to the service starlink can offer, so it makes for a good story while providing a much needed influx of revenue.

SpaceX outfits Starship prototype with unique Starlink satellite dispenser

Is, at this point, pretty irrelevant. We've been over this quite a bit in the big starlink thread, but bottom line, Starlink's near term future is all about current internet service subscribers. I always come back to the same statement: There are VERY few people in the US that want good...

PSN is buying another big GEO and plans to send it on a Falcon. Also, its another satellite services case study that doesn't fit the Starlink narrative. Basically, someone convinced someone else to spend half a $B+ on a GEO that can pump 160Gbps.

One of Starlink's biggest strengths and biggest sources of revenue is going to be the ability to outcompete the terrestrial options for folks that are on the fringes of terrestrial service. Jacking up prices is at odds with that; There's simply not enough "no other practical option" revenue out...

Its worth noting that one of, if not the driving tenant to SpaceX's approach to relationships with external entities is a unique evaluation of LOE. While business relationships generally factor in level of effort required to realize revenue into contractural/pricing models (=more difficult...

That sure aged well. 😕 Unrelated but on topic (or maybe technically anti-topic?), Telesat's financial woes continue. Seems like they can't squeeze enough loons out of Hunky Justin, and bankers around the world are [I assume] concerned that there's almost literally nothing to show for a...

FWIW, there's been a taller dispenser in work for A6 for some time now, as A6 has always been the aspiration for OW. That hardware would port over to F9 pretty easily, as their respective launch environments are pretty close. One issue with more capability on F9 in the near term is that OW...