Spaceception

Meant to be refueled in orbit, and they mention it being able to move the Blue Moon lander. A larger, upgraded, NG-dedicated version could move their Artemis lander, either replacing the Lockheed Cislunar transporter, or allowing additional missions. I've said this before, but Blue is developing all the technologies and capabilities ULA wanted for their Cislunar-1000 concept. Now they just need to put it all together, easier said than done.

Reminded me of that meme that asked what if we used 100% of the brain, and then the "we are not the same" meme right after. I didn't bother trying to edit text onto the picture, but here's my janky version.

This is an interesting thread from the creator behind Apogee. Lot of different graphs and examples, I picked a couple. (My thoughts) If SpaceX had never existed, the launch industry would probably be 2-3+ decades behind where it currently is. Few other startups (like Blue Origin and possibly Rocket Lab) would be around because they only got going long after SpaceX had succeeded and shown private spaceflight was worth investing in, and in addition, were founded or joined up by ex-SpaceX employees, so no Firefly, no Relativity, no Stoke. Speculating what this would look like: Kistler would've still gone under, as they started missing milestones for COTS before being terminated in 2007, so it would've been sole-sourced to Orbital ATK. Vulcan is probably still developed, as ULA still would've found value in a single rocket family, and more importantly, Congress would still mandate that they stop using Russian engines. Ariane 6 is likely foregoed or pushed back in favor of advancing Ariane 5. Starliner would still be limping along, though Dream Chaser might've gotten the second contract (or Boeing succeeds in getting it sole-sourced). Hard to know if they would be on schedule, or if they would face crew delays as well. Best case, the gap between the Shuttle and crewed US flights would be a few years longer. Rocket Lab might still develop Neutron (and would put themselves in a similar position as F9 did more than a decade previously in our time), but would be under much less pressure to do so without a strong competitor and the rise of internet constellations. On that note, Kuiper, or similar plans, would likely be delayed years or more without Starlink paving the way. Blue Origin is tricky. With Bezos' funding and no real competitor outside the established corporations, plus the cost of spaceflight being as expensive as ever... would they try to sweep up the industry by developing New Glenn earlier? Would it even be scaled down to be comparable with F9? Artemis is also tricky, SLS/Orion will definitely see continued funding, and without private HLV/SHLV development, the SLS upgrade paths would be seen as more of a necessity. Blue Origin's original Lunar Lander would likely be selected, so we wouldn't get the upgraded version for some time. This is the timeline where we get to see whatever Boeing proposed. With no hard push for reusability and lowering the cost of spaceflight in the current day, and few companies/individuals investing in it, I could see the global response (SMART/Vulcain and SUSIE/LM9/New Space companies) being delayed into the 2030s/40s rather than the 2010s/20s. So we're probably looking at the 2050s when things really get going across the board, instead of the 2030s. Oh, and this has a chance of coming true too

Yeah, that was honestly going through my head before I saw the 2nd booster touch down. Great launch though! Won't be able to watch the rest of the stream though

Well, 3-5 tonnes is well within medium lift. Stoke can handle all small payloads, and a fraction of medium payloads. I was just saying that they have more than enough capacity to handle anything in the smallsat sector, even including limited rideshare, and can take up the smaller end of medium payloads, but not the middle/upper end, I suppose I wasn't very clear. It will be interesting to see how the economics of reuse play out across a range of differently sized vehicles. SpaceX is betting that scaling up will work in their favor, while Stoke is going in the opposite direction (at least for now). New Glenn, if Jarvis works out, and possibly Terran R, will show how Medium/Heavy lift does. And from there, we'll find out the customer/internal cost of launch, overall turnaround/launch rate, individual vehicle turnaround/launch rate, and cost per kg, I wonder if we'll see the aerospace industry begin to converge on designs in the 2030s to the most effective one. With the possible exception of SpaceX, who will try to stick to Starship for Mars.

That's several billion in contracts lined up at this point, right? That's a lot of money to help fund Terran R development.

I think that's less of a risk given they're starting with the 2nd stage and the associated systems to reuse it. And to be fair, I think there's still a path for Terran R to become fully reusable, it's more capable than F9R, and with a similar upgrade path, they could create the margins needed to fully reuse it.

Oh yeah, they're definitely gunning to become a legitimate rival to SpaceX. Orbital refueling? Interplanetary missions? On top of normal satellite operations and even satellite return/reorbit (?), their increased performance to LEO in addition to full reuse means they have a lot of flexibility. I'm am really interested in whatever successor to Nova they have in mind, because I don't imagine even Nova will be enough to carve out a decent niche in the launch market. I do think 3-5 tonnes (whichever is the reused-value) is high enough for plenty of single payloads, and puts them in a good place among the small-sat sector, but it's still just short or too underpowered for many others. Orbital refueling could pick up the slack on some of that though, expend whatever fuel they would've used in landing, and just get it back from a depot in orbit. Nova will be an incredibly important vehicle to demonstrate their ability and commitment however, so for now, I'm very much looking forward to seeing development unfold. I can't wait to see their tests on the first stage engine.

I'm looking forward to Hypernova myself. Also, lift to LEO was increased to 3 mt reusable? Which means it edged itself into the medium lift category.

If it's not too early to speculate, are they deprioritzing on just what they need to complete for milestones at the moment, or downscaling the station itself?

When you want to speedrun the Kola Superdeep Borehole. On topic, I'm going to revise my prediction for upcoming Starship flights, given the FWS paperwork that needs to go through, we'll probably scrape by with IFT-2 this year, while IFT-3 will follow early next year. Though provided how well IFT-2 goes, I still think they'll manage 4-5 flights next year. It would've been nice to have 3 test flights this year, but I think it'll end up being too tight. 2 is still possible imo.

It's a little mean, but when I saw unread messages here, my first thought was "what's wrong this time?" At least it's just a summary of where the program is to date. I found this quote interesting, Which is roughly equal to the quoted cost overruns Boeing has had to take.

Can't launch the SHLV they want, so they're launching the SHLV they have. It's been a pretty big year for SpaceX all things considered, 3 launches of FH with 1 more on the way, maybe 2 this year, outstripping their annual launch record with almost half a year to go, completing their crew contract, and making the first test flight of their next generation vehicle. And like they posted recently, its only been 15 years since their 1st rocket succeeded in flight.

So back in May, Helion signed a deal with Microsoft to provide a 50 MW reactor by 2028. https://www.helionenergy.com/articles/helion-announces-worlds-first-fusion-ppa-with-microsoft/ And today, Helion announced another deal with Nucor (a steel manufacturing plant) to build a 500 MW reactor. No date has been given. https://www.helionenergy.com/articles/helion-nucor-collaboration-to-deploy-500-mw-fusion-power-plant/ Personally, between these two announcements, I'm tentatively optimistic that Helion is the real deal. But really, the company can only go one of 2 ways. Either Helion is the next Theranos, or they are legitimately in a position to crack fusion first.

As many as they can get away with, which likely depends on how well IFT-2 goes, and if the new pad holds up. If it does, we can expect them to push for IFT-3 immediately after, if not by the end of the year, then early 2024, with subsequent flights every couple months or so, give or take. So I vote 4-5 next year, with the possibility of at least one successful landing attempt by the booster and/or ship before 2025. And this can either be on land, or a soft water splashdown. 2025 will be the year the Starship program really gets rolling, as they'll transition from testing to operations, and begin achieving critical milestones for both their internal and HLS goals, like reuse and refueling.

Its been a long time coming, but I'm really looking forward to seeing a fully stacked New Glenn on the pad. I hope it's not much longer, relatively speaking.

Something that crosses my mind when I see stuff like this, even though it's probably already evident, is that it's interesting that they took a lot of inspiration for Falcon 9's development in Starship's test program. Where they started out with basically a minimum viable rocket, and gradually upgraded everything over time to block 5, Starship is going down a similar path while still in development before they declare it operational. Raptor 1-3 (and possibly 4+ in the next several years), stretching Starship's tanks, adding hot staging, not to mention the more fundamental changes like carbon fiber to steel, and 12 to 9m. If they had decided to freeze the design earlier and focus on orbit, could they be flying right now? Maybe, maybe not, steel was still a relatively recent change for that, but they also likely want to avoid getting themselves stuck in a potentially limiting design like Falcon 9, and not having more room to work on reusability and turnaround, at least not without more of a cost. So they're working on a design they like while everything is still in flux.

As of late last year, 1.65 tonnes, fully reused. Not bad https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/10/stoke-space-aims-to-build-rapidly-reusable-rocket-with-a-completely-novel-design/ Which is pretty high for most small lift vehicles. Falcon 1 was about 670 kg max, Electron does 300 kg, Firefly Alpha can do just over a ton, 1,030 kg, and Terran 1 can do just short of 1.5 tonnes, 1,470 kg.

They managed their first landing within a month of SpaceX's. So it was impressive that they beat them there, but it wasn't by much. I really look forward to seeing Stoke's first full launch. There's a lot of players working on small lift vehicles before making their way to medium lift. SpaceX was (one of) the first, but there's also Rocket Lab, Relativity, Firefly, and (not really) Blue Origin who are doing the same. So I hope Stoke has similar plans, though I'll admit I haven't seen the EDA video about it, so they could've mentioned something.

This has to be teaching SpaceX a lot about spacesuit development, I wouldn't be surprised if they're getting started on more advanced EVA suits for planetary environments (or already have a while ago), given how the development of this, comparatively, simpler suit is going.

Webb discovers Methane, Carbon Dioxide, in atmosphere of K2-18 b. https://www.nasa.gov/goddard/2023/webb-discovers-methane-carbon-dioxide-in-atmosphere-of-k2-18 This looks incredibly interesting. "A new investigation with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope into K2-18 b, an exoplanet 8.6 times as massive as Earth, has revealed the presence of carbon-bearing molecules including methane and carbon dioxide. Webb’s discovery adds to recent studies suggesting that K2-18 b could be a Hycean exoplanet, one which has the potential to possess a hydrogen-rich atmosphere and a water ocean-covered surface." "The abundance of methane and carbon dioxide, and shortage of ammonia, support the hypothesis that there may be a water ocean underneath a hydrogen-rich atmosphere in K2-18 b. These initial Webb observations also provided a possible detection of a molecule called dimethyl sulfide (DMS). On Earth, this is only produced by life. The bulk of the DMS in Earth’s atmosphere is emitted from phytoplankton in marine environments. The inference of DMS is less robust and requires further validation. “Upcoming Webb observations should be able to confirm if DMS is indeed present in the atmosphere of K2-18 b at significant levels,” explained Madhusudhan."

Wen launch? This sounds pretty promising for a license in the near future though, with a launch attempt within a week or so if IFT-2 has a similar timeline as IFT-1. The license then was given 3 days before the first attempt.

I don't believe so, which could mean that they concluded it was minor enough to go forward with flight. Do we know what they consider minor though? Superheavy can get by with 3 engines out, and they likely accept higher odds of something like that happening in early test flights, considering IFT-1.

Yeah, but I want to temper my expectations, so I'm sandbagging a bit. And while GSE/sensor issues could be the root cause behind the premature engine outs in B9's static fire, we still don't have all the details, so if it was something that may need more of a fix, and other engines face those same issues, then there's no guarantee that IFT-2 will go all the way.

Predictions for this one? I think it'll make it to stage separation and ignition of Starship. Bit more iffy whether it'll burn the full duration to its semi-orbit, and definitely uncertain if it'll survive reentry. The booster should make boostback, and possibly a soft ocean landing after. And the pad will survive. Overall, it'll be a much smoother test than IFT-1, even if I still don't think it'll meet its objectives.