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Tim Dodd makes many great videos. But when he’s in Elon’s presence his mind seems to go blank. Here he has Elon’s attention for at least an hour (this latest video is part 2 of 3 parts, one more coming) but spends almost no time asking questions. It’s obvious he has not prepared questions in advance. Elon is very open and willing to talk. It’s a huge missed opportunity.
I want to know:
What remains to be done to Stage Zero for it to be mission ready? Is the GSE complete?
When a stage comes back are the chopsticks fully off to the side of the OLM? How high up the tower do they start and how much are they expected to drop before making contact with the stage?
Is the stage going to come straight down and then go between the chopstick arms before they start to close or will there be some X-axis translation almost right up to the point that they make contact? If the chopsticks miss the two small “catching pins” (don’t know the proper name) can the grid fins act as a backup; can they support the weight of the booster?
SpaceX has obviously learned a lot from landing F9 boosters, what Super Heavy/Starship characteristics that are different from Falcon need to be taken into account when determining how to program the landing at Stage Zero given that they will be caught in midair as opposed to touching down on a solid surface?
Is the Stage Zero being built in Florida essentially the same as at Boca Chica or has SpaceX already figured out how to build the second Stage Zero cheaper/better/faster?
What Super Heavy/Booster production rate does SpaceX think can be achieved at Boca Chica once the new building is operational?
Is Boca ultimately going to just be a test facility or is it planned to support regular commercial LEO and Mars flights?
Those are just the questions I can come up with off the top of my head in a few minutes. Surely Tim can do much better.
I want to know:
What remains to be done to Stage Zero for it to be mission ready? Is the GSE complete?
When a stage comes back are the chopsticks fully off to the side of the OLM? How high up the tower do they start and how much are they expected to drop before making contact with the stage?
Is the stage going to come straight down and then go between the chopstick arms before they start to close or will there be some X-axis translation almost right up to the point that they make contact? If the chopsticks miss the two small “catching pins” (don’t know the proper name) can the grid fins act as a backup; can they support the weight of the booster?
SpaceX has obviously learned a lot from landing F9 boosters, what Super Heavy/Starship characteristics that are different from Falcon need to be taken into account when determining how to program the landing at Stage Zero given that they will be caught in midair as opposed to touching down on a solid surface?
Is the Stage Zero being built in Florida essentially the same as at Boca Chica or has SpaceX already figured out how to build the second Stage Zero cheaper/better/faster?
What Super Heavy/Booster production rate does SpaceX think can be achieved at Boca Chica once the new building is operational?
Is Boca ultimately going to just be a test facility or is it planned to support regular commercial LEO and Mars flights?
Those are just the questions I can come up with off the top of my head in a few minutes. Surely Tim can do much better.
From part 2 and previous interview: Arms set wide and offset from OLM. Stage has 2-3m/s descent rate between them. Arms close with gap and track booster until final 'grab' (doesn't squeeze).
Hypotheses: If pins miss there are bigger problems because it's lost altitude control. With arm tracking, it seems the only way to miss pins would be if booster was rotated.
I expect the arms to move up to the pins to minimize contact shock. First zero the stage velocity/ inertia and then use cable stretch/ motor torque to ease into the load transfer. Otherwise it's moving booster contacting stationary arms, conservation of momentum is not their friend.
Build process is definitely more optomized. Tower sections are more prebuilt. Things they did after stacking in TX are being done before.
Plus, they always improve things.
I always take what this website says with a grain of salt, but the story does contain a summary of what happened during Ship 24‘s latest ambient pressure test and what repairs are being made.
SpaceX repairing upgraded Starship prototype after first test
The fact that the ship is being left on the pad while being repaired may indicate that the damage sustained was minor.
SpaceX repairing upgraded Starship prototype after first test
The fact that the ship is being left on the pad while being repaired may indicate that the damage sustained was minor.
Elon tweeted that S24 passed a cryo test after being repaired. Still multiple large areas where tiles need to be installed.
SpaceX slide deck from all hands metting. Shows Starlink 2 dispensing.
Guessing support and anti-snag guard for the gimbeling engine thermal protection system.
Or maybe... Anti bell collision guard in the event a thrust vectoring actuator fails?
I wouldn’t put too much stock in quantity shown in the deck or quantity on early (and in general, BC) launches.
V1 sats were 260kg. V1.5 are 295kg, and V2 are 1,250kg so over 4 times the mass. 54 x 1,250 = 67,500kg or 67.5 metric tons. So less than the planned 100 metric tons to LEO that SpaceX plans for Starship but it will not be possible to take 108 V2 sats to LEO.
However, V2 sats are 7m on their long axis. Starship payload bay is 9m in diameter and 18m high. Some payload bay space is needed for the dispenser mechanism. So there are space limitations. It may not be possible to fit more than 54 V2 sats in the payload bay.
X2, I wouldn’t put much stock in the animations or any early activity as representative of planned evolution.
Remember that F9 early iterations pale in comparison to the current models.
Remember that F9 early iterations pale in comparison to the current models.
The animation shows them stacked inside the ship, so it seems representative. New propsed constellation has 110 or 120 sats per plane, so 54 means two lauches per and either a few precessed filler sats or they cram in another 1-6 sats (single wide?).
The reality of launching a large constellation is such that you want to put as many satellites on a vehicle as possible, and that’s still going to be the case for Starlink v2. While I agree there’s convenient symmetry in what’s shown, a constellation would rather launch more sats and deal with asymmetric precession (of the ‘extra’ sats) rather than limit launch stacks to easily divisible quantities. Planning for the inevitability of DOA/infant sats becomes a non-issue at that point, as you simply don’t plan around the statistical probabilities.
(Polar is a different story since precession is untenable)
Sure, what I'm pointing out is that a single launch to fill a Gen 2 config 1 plane is not feasible, so setting things to (mostly?) fit in two launches is reasonable.
The FAA submittal called out the advantage of not needing to wait for precession so they would probably rather avoid split plane launches.
Also, the render shows the double wide launcher fills the uniform out, so 54 may be the max without a lot of added complexity.
V2 Starlink co-developed with Starship means they get to influence each other. I think Elon has recently mentioned making Starship larger, which could allow 50%+ planes per launch.
Yes he has talked about the possibility of stretching Starship to increase propellant tank capacity and therefore payload capability, with the diameter remaining the same.
Which is what happened to F9. It was stretched between V1.0, V1.1, and V1.2 FT. Block 5 didn't change the size but it did change the internal materials and external heat shielding. I expect a lot of similar things to happen with Starship and SH. I expect a similar 5 to 10 year process of upgrading and fine tuning to happen. A major difference will be that the manufacturing end will also be fine tuned and upgraded at the same time.
It also seems that there will be specialized Starships. The current Starship with pez dispenser would not appear to be able to perform any other role than Starlink deployments.
Agreed, though given the relative ease of working with stainless steel, and SpaceX’s growing expertise in doing so, it does not seem out of the question that a Starship first built to put Starlink sats in orbit could be converted to other uses if necessary.
There could eventually be quite a few specialized Starship variants; multiple commercial sats to LEO, single super large sat to LEO or GTO, humans to LEO, HLS for Moon landings, cargo only to the Moon, cargo only to Mars, humans to Mars, and beyond…
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