New Charity Bet: Date of first time Starship reaches orbit.

[nativewolf]

Well made me read the application, they applied for a 6 month window starting June 20th, gives them til December. 6 months of guessing....

SpaceX outlines first orbital Starship test flight

SpaceX has disclosed details for the first orbital test flight of its Starship launch system, but the company is still far short of the required approvals.

spacenews.com

Just a quick overview for the curious but busy reader

 

[e-FTW]

e-FTW want to give us your stock picks?

Haha! Yes, I say buy some SpaceX...

My bet took into account Elon’s stated goal of July, adding a dash of months for usual delays and technical issues, then take out a few months for the pressure to beat SLS (not that tough now, but still a factor). We’ll see if the cake rises, baking is hard.

 

[adiggs]

hats off to @Cosmacelf for a prescient charity bet thread. Little did you know Spacex would upstage it within days. So, why not start a new thread now? We know spacex is shooting for June22 but frankly it could be any ol day. To me if if it can go up to orbital altitude and perform a controlled descent than it has answered the major questions re heat shields, multiple engines, structural/mechanical integrity, etc. It will be a shame to not recover it. Oh well.

I have a proposal for the next charity bet (or at least A charity bet). And I think one with (it turns out) relatively simple measurement that will stimulate less discussion.

Launch date for first commercial / paying payload of the combo starship plus super heavy. I expect this to bypass an initial test launch that incorporates a mass simulator (how about a Signature Model S this time - maybe even SN 1!) as that isn't a commercial / paying customer.

This will include something as small as a cubesat. But if its riding along on a test flight for free then that doesn't count. Commercial / paying customer.

 

[e-FTW]

Interesting related piece of data on engine production:

Video here:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1404487423145517062

 

[e-FTW]

Ah yes, evil regulations pushing this out of July:

SpaceX likely to miss July date for Mars rocket test

SpaceX has been targeting July for the first orbital flight of its gargantuan Starship system, which will be the most powerful launch vehicle ever created -- and, the company hopes, will eventually take humans to Mars. But the company is not likely to hit that goal, CNN Business has learned.

www.cnn.com

 

[Cosmacelf]

Ah yes, evil regulations pushing this out of July:

SpaceX likely to miss July date for Mars rocket test

SpaceX has been targeting July for the first orbital flight of its gargantuan Starship system, which will be the most powerful launch vehicle ever created -- and, the company hopes, will eventually take humans to Mars. But the company is not likely to hit that goal, CNN Business has learned.

www.cnn.com

I like how they call it the Mars rocket.

 

[scaesare]

Ah yes, evil regulations pushing this out of July:

SpaceX likely to miss July date for Mars rocket test

SpaceX has been targeting July for the first orbital flight of its gargantuan Starship system, which will be the most powerful launch vehicle ever created -- and, the company hopes, will eventually take humans to Mars. But the company is not likely to hit that goal, CNN Business has learned.

www.cnn.com

#unlike

 

[Cosmacelf]

Sorry Xepa777, I had to close the bet/contest after the FCC submission about the first orbital attempt became public. So the official entrants are:

e-FTW: 9/15/21
Ben W: 10/31/21
Cosmacelf: 12/1/21
dkemme: 2/22/22
UltradoomY: 3/17/22
Grendal: 5/4/22
Nikxice: 5/6/22
adiggs: 6/2/22

And right now, I've got to say that e-FTW is in the pole position AGAIN.

So based on latest info, looks like first attempt won’t happen until September, so there is still hope for people not named e-FTW.

Elon Musk says SpaceX's second Starship booster prototype is almost finished

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says that the second Starship booster prototype is “almost done” and has revealed that work on the first flightworthy booster has yet to begin. For unknown reasons, SpaceX has recently changed the naming scheme for Starship and Super Heavy boosters. The booster SpaceX is...

www.teslarati.com

 

[Nikxice]

So based on latest info, looks like first attempt won’t happen until September, so there is still hope for people not named e-FTW.

It's an unusual occurrence when on this same day we hear Gwynne sounding more aspirational than Elon. Here she is speaking earlier today at the International Space Development Conference. Gwynne is interviewed between 1:37:20 and 1:46:00. Just after 1:42:00 she mentions shooting for a July 2021 Starship orbital attempt. I'm definitely leaning more towards the Elon timeline.

 

[Cosmacelf]

It's an unusual occurrence when on this same day we hear Gwynne sounding more aspirational than Elon. Here she is speaking earlier today at the International Space Development Conference. Gwynne is interviewed between 1:37:20 and 1:46:00. Just after 1:42:00 she mentions shooting for a July 2021 Starship orbital attempt. I'm definitely leaning more towards the Elon timeline.

Good catch. I never thought I'd see the day when this occurred!

To be fair, in the link I gave, Elon really said August, maybe slipping to September, and Gwynne said maybe July, so they both do kinda converge on August. Nonetheless, Elon is indeed more pessimistic! Gotta be a sign of the apocalypse.

 

[qdeathstar]

May 2, 2022

 

[EVCollies]

May 2, 2022

Uggh, I hope we don't wait that long...

 

[qdeathstar]

Uggh, I hope we don't wait that long...

I don’t know if they want to piss the locals off shouting down beaches and such. I saw that the are already over trying number of hours they are supposed to have them shut down for this year.

seems the Biden administration might not be as space x friendly either, FAA wise. (Which maybe is OK, most rules we have were written after disasters)

 

[e-FTW]

So based on latest info, looks like first attempt won’t happen until September, so there is still hope for people not named e-FTW.

Elon Musk says SpaceX's second Starship booster prototype is almost finished

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says that the second Starship booster prototype is “almost done” and has revealed that work on the first flightworthy booster has yet to begin. For unknown reasons, SpaceX has recently changed the naming scheme for Starship and Super Heavy boosters. The booster SpaceX is...

www.teslarati.com

I still feel good about my bet.
But you may be right: an attempt does not guarantee success, far from it! That giant stack might just go boom on the pad, blow out the whole county’s windows and SpaceX will be told by an army of functionaries that they will not get to try that again on land (cue the floating launch platform). Then the most pessimistic bet here would win by default.

 

[Cosmacelf]

So, sure enough, SpaceX has thrown us a curveball. Their first "Orbital" flight might not actually make an orbit? Hard to tell from the FCC submission. It is a 90 minute flight, so maybe it is actually one orbit.

Actually, reading it again, it isn't one full orbit. Just shy of one orbit.

https://apps.fcc.gov/els/GetAtt.html?id=273481&x=

Given we've just been given more information, I'm stopping new submissions for this bet. This would affect a lot of people's perceptions of timelines.

As far as whether this almost-a-full-orbit launch should count? Any ideas? My gut tells me it should not count since the Starship could become a ballistic uncontrolled rocket after stage separation, and should that count? Starship should really demonstrate full second stage capabilities to get to orbit and then a deorbit burn to get back. This partial orbit thing could be a simpler effort.

But would be happy to hear other people's thoughts.

Ok, Elon gave more info about what the first launch attempt will look like in the second part of Everyday Astronaut’s interview. He said the velocity and perigee will be orbital. All they would have to do to stay in orbit would be to burn out just a little bit of propellant (Elon said they could even use ullage gas, so slight) to stay in orbit.

So, again, this upcoming launch attempt will count. Ship must reach intended “orbit” and start descending toward Hawaii to count. Likelihood of it actually surviving to a soft ocean splashdown is very low in my opinion, but won’t alter the validity of the bet.

The way things are going, the FCC may be the gating critical path item

 

[scaesare]

Likelihood of it actually surviving to a soft ocean splashdown is very low in my opinion,

Out of curiosity, why?

 

[Cosmacelf]

Out of curiosity, why?

Heat Shielding has to work perfectly, never been tested yet.

 

[scaesare]

Heat Shielding has to work perfectly, never been tested yet.

Ah yeah... that could be a gotcha.

I was also thinking of the full compliment of Raptors with all of the plumbing necessary... some significant complexity there untested for the descent phase(s).

 

[e-FTW]

Elon must want me to win. Am sure that’s it.

With a single photo, SpaceX sent a not-so-subtle message to FAA regulators

Holding back Starship means holding back this progress, Musk was saying.

arstechnica.com

 

[Electroman]

I think Eric is reading too much into it.

Given that the booster has not flown at all, won't it be better to fly the booster on its own (of course with a nose cone attached) without the Starship on top , get it to land on a drone ship, learn from it before putting the Startship on?

Imagine if it fails to reach the intended trajectory and height, you are better off without a fuel loaded Starship on top of that. I would rather get the Booster with 29 engines to fly successfully before putting the fuel laden payload (Starship) on top of that.