The US space enterprise is desperately waiting for Starship—will it finally deliver?
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After watching Ship 30 literally have a flap burned through and come down to the ocean for the first time, I've been convinced that Starship/Superheavy will work. It's only a matter of time. Berger's Law, after all, it will take longer than SpaceX is projecting, but there's never been any doubt in my mind that it is possible.
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"And after a long period of development and three years of test flights and setbacks, it kind of has to."
Is "I really need it to work; so it has to work" in the engineering annex to gambler's fallacies? I don't recongize it as one of the core ones; but it has much the same flavor.
Is "I really need it to work; so it has to work" in the engineering annex to gambler's fallacies? I don't recongize it as one of the core ones; but it has much the same flavor.
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Excellent article as always Eric! Definitely excited to see how things next launch goes!
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That would be a shame as I would like to see space stations and space telescopes being launched by Starship before then.
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The dependency problem is what makes this situation genuinely precarious. When a single vehicle becomes load bearing for multiple critical mission architectures simultaneously the risk profile changes from normal development uncertainty to something more consequential. Artemis lunar logistics, commercial crew backup capacity, and deep space mission planning have all been shaped around Starship capabilities that have not yet been demonstrated at operational scale.
The engineering progress is real and the test flight cadence has accelerated meaningfully compared to where the program was two years ago. but there is a meaningful gap between successful test flights and the kind of reliability that human rated missions require and that gap does not close quickly regardless of how impressive the hardware is.
been following the display technology side of mission control and astronaut interface development alongside the vehicle progress. been testing the Viper IntelliScreen for high resolution monitoring applications recently and the demands that space operations put on display clarity and reliability for critical data visualization are genuinely interesting from a hardware perspective. The human factors side of space operations gets less attention than vehicle engineering but matters considerably for mission success.
What is the realistic timeline before Starship achieves the flight cadence needed to actually retire the dependency risk rather than just demonstrating capability?
The engineering progress is real and the test flight cadence has accelerated meaningfully compared to where the program was two years ago. but there is a meaningful gap between successful test flights and the kind of reliability that human rated missions require and that gap does not close quickly regardless of how impressive the hardware is.
been following the display technology side of mission control and astronaut interface development alongside the vehicle progress. been testing the Viper IntelliScreen for high resolution monitoring applications recently and the demands that space operations put on display clarity and reliability for critical data visualization are genuinely interesting from a hardware perspective. The human factors side of space operations gets less attention than vehicle engineering but matters considerably for mission success.
What is the realistic timeline before Starship achieves the flight cadence needed to actually retire the dependency risk rather than just demonstrating capability?
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I'm pretty sure the issue was with the plumbing pressurizing the deluge system on the launch mount, not in the propellant manifolds on the Booster or in the tank farm (at the point of actual static fire, the propellant loading was already finished.)
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The biggest gating factor in this process has been, surprisingly, the ground equipment. We all forget that there is only so fast that you can build massive new launch towers and associated infrastructure, no matter how much money you throw at it. Concrete only cures so fast...
The rush and shortcuts on launch pad 1 really bit them in the tail and are the big reason for the delays now.
Ignoring the ponzi scheme aspects of the business now, I still have a soft spot for starship and hope to see it flying for real soon.
The rush and shortcuts on launch pad 1 really bit them in the tail and are the big reason for the delays now.
Ignoring the ponzi scheme aspects of the business now, I still have a soft spot for starship and hope to see it flying for real soon.
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Not this time; it'll be largely a repeat of flight 11, with some minor additions. All the hardware, from the engines to the stages to the launch tower, mount, and tank farm, is significantly redesigned. So nothing is going to orbit, until the basics are proven out yet again.
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It seems clear - SpaceX will beat Blue Origin
When it comes to the Moon/Mars and payload to orbit - the ability to reuse the entire ship will just have too many economies of scale and flexibility. I admire Blue Origin for sticking their landings very quickly, but they have much farther to go in upper stage re-usability. But, the competition is needed and productive. I fear ESA will be left far behind.
When it comes to the Moon/Mars and payload to orbit - the ability to reuse the entire ship will just have too many economies of scale and flexibility. I admire Blue Origin for sticking their landings very quickly, but they have much farther to go in upper stage re-usability. But, the competition is needed and productive. I fear ESA will be left far behind.
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Still suborbital. They don't seem confident yet in their ability to bring Starship down to the desired place from orbit.
Could be many reasons for that. They need to be sure their engines light and perform as expected, that they have adequate GNC, that they can carry enough fuel for a deorbit burn, etc. But doing at least one orbit would give them so much extra knowledge that either they don't think they can do it or they can't convince regulators that they can do it.
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Not unlike some other things involving the same individuals.
Though intriguing would probably not be my choice of word.
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Clean sheet redesigns of the plumbing seem risky. Even though the v2 plumbing was pretty useless, you're likely to make new mistakes.
Oh well, excitement guaranteed on Wednesday. Unless the GSE breaks again.
Oh well, excitement guaranteed on Wednesday. Unless the GSE breaks again.
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I do love the show.
But as much as this might draw hate from the pure science and space folks, I'm hoping for more fireworks in a nice shade of RUD.
I really don't want that whole data centers in space thing to happen. I'm HOPING that's all just a Musk BS promise like autonomous cars (which still aren't autonomous enough in any way that can pass inspection). I don't want Musk to succeed this reimagining of Starship's mission at all.
This isn't me being anti-tech. It's me being anti-Musk. I'm fine if SpaceX succeeds, without him. Because with him, he's going to destroy it, just like he's destroyed Tesla.
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Just a minor note: it's unlikely to actually go on Wednesday (not least, because there were seemingly some additional engine tests scheduled on the Booster for yesterday or today, but were then cancelled and will probably be rescheduled for a future date). And the rest of the week past Wednesday is looking not-great weather-wise. Can't launch during Memorial Day long weekend (forbidden from closing the beach). So actual launch is probably no earlier than mid- to late next week...
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The only way to avoid dependency to a (prospective) singular service is to not plan to use that service. That's not particularly forward looking.
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Since we've also mentioned the race back to the moon, how about an article on what China is building and how far along they are to accomplishing their stated goals (test launches, orbits, hardware proof, etc)? I know we have recent articles on recent milestones and tests, but maybe a combined piece on the planned equipment, status of that equipment, and past/future milestones on the track to 2030.
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When you step back and think about it, building a fully reusable rocket is an incredibly ambitious undertaking. After all, rocket science remains one of the proverbial hard problems. So ultimately, only time will tell: the line between genius and insanity is measured by success.
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For rockets anywhere near Starship's size and complexity, it's completely typical for development to take at least 10 years if not longer. Never mind that full reuse has never been done before.
So yes indeed, stepping back from the perennial blithering nonsense of Elon Time and Ketamine-fueled tech bro fantasies, the program has actually made remarkable progress to date and seems to be well on track to operational readiness within the next year or two.
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I believe that a planned not-quite-orbit is a better idea than a yeet-it-up-there with no care where it comes back...
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Not that it's anything more than a moronic PR claim, but I'd rather have datacenters in space using solar power than on the ground sucking power and water from small towns and nature areas.
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Yep, the act of achieving orbit is just a few well-placed yeets. Executing a full mission profile is a larger matter.
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They need to demonstrate Raptor ignition on orbit first. In fact they did this several times already in earlier flights with both v1 and v2 but since there have been so many changes they need to demonstrate it all over again.
If all works out with this flight the next flight will go to orbit. Note that this isn't about performance, it's about making sure to not strand such a monster in a slowly and randomly decaying orbit.
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Some at SpaceX refer to the launch mount and systems as Stage Zero - which is probably a fair way to think about it.
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I'd rather not fling more useful materials into space to vaporize on reentry than makes sense. Communications and observation satellites? Sure. But chatbot processors? No.
The power problem can be addressed easily. Solar and wind exist and datacenters are almost the perfect use-case scenario. Run them when there's sufficient sun and wind. Idle them when there isn't. The compute doesn't have to happen in one place; while Lat/Long X,Y isn't producing enough power, Lat/Long A,B is. Distribute them geographically and build up some redundancy and a lot of problems are solved.
I mean... except maximizing profit.
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The constellation will only grow larger. Last I checked, SpaceX has applied for permission to launch up to 40000 total satellites just for Starlink alone.
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The moral version of "move fast and break stuff" is in the codicil - ", but not people"
Dropping 100+ tons of Starship randomly, possibly on people's heads, would be bad.
It's good that SpaceX are not doing this.
See the fun with Chinese rocket stages and the brief worries concerning Blue's second stage.
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For starters, ESA is not involved in building rockets, Arianespace is.
And currently, for ESA, Arianespace is on par with SpaceX when it comes to launch cost.
Souce: https://europeanspaceflight.com/esa-spent-e82-million-to-launch-sentinel-1d-satellite-on-ariane-6/
When it comes to competitiveness in the future, the current goal is to halve the current launch costs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_Next) which may or may not be competitive when it comes to Starship, but given the current polital climate just have space access independently from the USA may be just as important.
Edit to add: and on top of that, it keeps the funds spent for the launch in the EU in stead of paying an US launch provider.
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