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SpaceX Starship - Integrated Flight Test #3 - Discussion Thread
- Thread starter VIKING26
- Start date
FWIW scuttlebutt before flight 2 was as early as early Dec for flight 3.
It is my practice to ignore anything Elon says with respect to elapsed time. I just wait and see what the Starbase watchers spot. I figure that's the best way to guesstimate when SpaceX will go again. They've gotta complete and get approval for a mishap investigation, they undoubtedly have repairs to make, they have to adjust their existing hardware and/or software to correct the problems on this flight, they have to go through a static fire test campaign, and probably other stuff besides.
It seems to me they are planning on being ready much earlier than that. And SpaceX is a fan of rapid iteration and "failing fast".
So I'd bet the plans on SpaceX's side is most likely "Be ready as soon as the FAA concludes their next mishap investigation, or as soon as possible thereafter." (if a miracle occurs and the FAA wraps it up in a month).
My guess is that SpaceX is going to push to get the next SH/Ship on the OLM as soon as possible — maybe in 3-4 weeks and start static fire testing to show the world and the FAA that they are ready for IFT-3. But I don’t expect it to occur this year. Maybe February? SpaceX has a lot of IFT-2 data to learn from and then make adjustments for in hardware and software, as @JB47394 pointed out.
But there could come a time next year when we could see launches every 4-6 weeks. That will be awesome!
But there could come a time next year when we could see launches every 4-6 weeks. That will be awesome!
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Currently $100 million, which is about the same as a Falcon Heavy for twice the payload. Once they get into production and are reusing vehicles, they hope to get the cost down to about $10 million. What the price to customers will be is anyone's guess.
Little pedantic on this one, but this statement says: 'I think SX's baseline plan is a 4.5 month turnaround.'
While I do think it could take that long to actually launch (and that's probably what you're saying)--and of course there's zero credibility to anything that comes out of SX regarding development timelines (I should have put more context into my earlier post)--SX definitely thinks they can launch before then and they likely will launch before then.
It's really difficult to put a cost number on these launches because they're all wrapped up in R&D bookkeeping, and then on top of that there's the nebulous SX methodology in sharing R&D costs, and then of course on top of that there's the fact that they don't actually have to report any costs because they're not a public company so they can bookkeep however they want and tell us whatever they want about dollars and cents.
There are less than confirmed reports that the cost is somewhere around $100M. Ostensibly that's the recurring cost of a launch and includes the actual rocket hardware being used (engines, etc), the propellant, staffing, etc. But...because its R&D mode that number really isn't super useful because it stand on the back of hundreds of millions of dollars of work and is going to be perpetually improved on the back of hundreds of millions more dollars of development.
Price is much easier as its a known number...you just need a quote to know the number.
I think SpaceX will be able to make a profit of more than an order of magnitude times their launch cost, if they can achieve that goal of $10 million per launch.
If that can be achieved, it is likely many years away. Three, five, ten? I don’t know. But I would not bet against SpaceX achieving that goal.
A buddy and I were talking about what the ITF's are costing... as you point out there's obviously R&D costs... and I assume there's more cost than a what normal "operational" launch would likely be due to significantly more telemetry gathering/analysis, monitoring, etc... Subtracting those and the fized costs associated with fuel, GSE, etc.... I wonder what the actual hardware costs are?Little pedantic on this one, but this statement says: 'I think SX's baseline plan is a 4.5 month turnaround.'
While I do think it could take that long to actually launch (and that's probably what you're saying)--and of course there's zero credibility to anything that comes out of SX regarding development timelines (I should have put more context into my earlier post)--SX definitely thinks they can launch before then and they likely will launch before then.
It's really difficult to put a cost number on these launches because they're all wrapped up in R&D bookkeeping, and then on top of that there's the nebulous SX methodology in sharing R&D costs, and then of course on top of that there's the fact that they don't actually have to report any costs because they're not a public company so they can bookkeep however they want and tell us whatever they want about dollars and cents.
There are less than confirmed reports that the cost is somewhere around $100M. Ostensibly that's the recurring cost of a launch and includes the actual rocket hardware being used (engines, etc), the propellant, staffing, etc. But...because its R&D mode that number really isn't super useful because it stand on the back of hundreds of millions of dollars of work and is going to be perpetually improved on the back of hundreds of millions more dollars of development.
Price is much easier as its a known number...you just need a quote to know the number.
I assume Raptors are th single biggest item, and they are thought to be somewhere around $250K each. That's ~$10mil for engines. Is the rest of the ship that much? Could a Starship stack be $25mil in terms of cost to build?
Employee costs are probably the lion's share right now. SpaceX employs 1,800 people at Starbase, with jobs ranging from a Laser Technician at $42,000 to a Principal Software Engineer at $178,000. Tack on 30% for benefits (excluding stock). How many of that number are dedicated to stack construction, testing and operation, but neither infrastructure development nor technology research and development?
If half of them are part of the cost of building and flying Starships, and we say that their cost is $100,000 a head, including benefits, then that's $90 million per year in employee costs. Let's say three stacks got completed this year, for an employee cost of $30 million per stack.
Beyond that, you've got the engines, heat tiles, grid fins, electronics, big electric motors and battery packs, facility electricity, cryogenic liquids, the cost of trucking everything to the Mexico border, and probably a bunch of other stuff that only SpaceX could possibly appreciate. It adds up. The 304L steel itself is only around $1 million for a full stack if we assume market prices despite SpaceX using a custom chemistry. Well, plus trucking costs.
In time, they'll be able to get more efficient about everything, but the real gain will come from scaling production. If they can crank out a stack a week, then you're talking more like $2 million per stack in employee costs. Less, if they can reduce the headcount through automation.
Then there's the question of what you do with a couple hundred Starship stacks. I hope it's a case of "build it and they will come".
NSF believes that B10/S28 are planned to be used for IFT-3. But B11 is on the engine installation stand in the MegaBay and S29 is also pretty far along. B12 is also in the MegaBay and S30 and S31 are nearly complete.
That’s a lot of hardware! Wouldn’t it be great to see a Starship launch every month in 2024?
That’s a lot of hardware! Wouldn’t it be great to see a Starship launch every month in 2024?
That is the maximum allowed for the Starbase facility in a year. 12 is it, unless they change the rules.
If SpaceX could do 12 test flights next year they could make a tremendous amount of progress. At this point, I think the next flight is likely to result in booster and ship landing attempts; if not that flight then very likely the next one and all subsequent ones. Later in the year they could send one or two ships around the moon and back (without crew) and, if they really want to push it, send a ship to Mars just to see if they can at least do the burn to put it in Mars orbit.
Of course testing inflight docking and then refueling is a high priority. But to do that you need to get two ships to LEO within days of each other, and I don’t know if the FAA will be able to handle that next year.
How long can these cryogenic liquids stay liquid without boiling off when in space?
Where does that 12 number come from?
I've heard of two restrictive numbers:
1. The FWS says that SpaceX can use the deluge system 30 times in a year. With two static fires before each launch, that's 10 launches per year.
2. The FAA says that SpaceX can launch 5 suborbital Starship launches and 5 full stack launches per year. That's again 10 launches (max) per year.
I'm assuming that the FAA considered IFT-2 to be one of the five full stack launches, so that seems to say that they can only fly five times in 2024, though they could play with Starship suborbital flights to try out landing again, I guess. If the FAA allows more launches, and SpaceX can avoid doing so many booster static fires (e.g. by reusing boosters), then it would seem possible to get up to 30 launches per year without a new environmental review. Not that SpaceX will be in any condition to fly that frequently for a while.
I don’t think anyone really knows yet. NASA let a small contract to four industry partners to come up with on orbit refueling concepts a couple of years ago. SpaceX will have to engineer something for their depots. It might involve active cooling with energy from solar panels. Certainly the JWST showed how you can super cool something in space for an extended period of time.
To add to @Cosmacelf's answer, I'll add a point of reference: the James Web Space Telescope is sitting at a Lagrange point with a sunshield, and the mirrors remain at 55K. Oxygen stays liquid between 54K and 90K. Methane is 91K to 112K. So if you can isolate from energy coming from Sun, Earth and Moon, you're in pretty good shape.
Hydrogen needs roughly 20K to 30K to go liquid, depending on pressure.
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