Flavio hc16

Hmmm May the Force (4th) be with you!

Also: Raptor 3 thrust: SL 280 tons Vacuum: 306 tons Raptor boost: 330tons Compared to raptor 2: SL 230 Vacuum 258 Raptor 1 SL 185 Vacuum 200

So, as I predicted, we are going to see also a SH stretch.

That rover really loves!!! ( in the good sense) also I love how they called it "moon racer". the 2nd one looks like it is more a pickup for heavy duty stuff the 3rd is a light quadricycle

So, math time ( again). Let's say 17 tons of dry mass for the BO lander and 3 tons of payload to the moon. For a trip from NHRO, to land, and back to NRHO you need around 3.9 km/s of DV, with margin let's say 4km/s. Let's say that the B3U has 410s of ISP, quite high performance but not insane. With a total mass "usable" of 20 tons and 35 tons of props, so total mass of 55 tons you have 4.1 km/s of DV. How do we throw 55 tons to NRHO? We need to give this payload around 4km/s from LEO. A single raptor vacuum with 380 of ISP, and 25 tons of dry mass between tankage and engine ( wayyyy too heavy, but I want to be conservative), with 170 tons of props gives yoo 4.2 km/s. So a launcher that can loft into orbit 250 tons can get a fully fueled Blue moon lander to NRHO, so it can go and do his mission happily If the dry mass of the raptor stage is 15 tons you get down to 210 tons into orbit. If the B3U has a 450s Isp the mass of the lander goes to 50 tons, and the total stack needed into orbit is 200 tons.... We might actually arrive at a point were you can launch a Blue moon lander fully fueled with a reusable Starship. The world is not ready. Edit, ok I used the wrong data ( direct transfer), so all above works for an Apollo style, not for Artemis

And of the 4 V1 Ships, probably we will see only another 2 fly by my guess, the other 2 will be scrapped and they will start to fly the ships v2

And probably even the SH will need to get taller

Imho we will see the V3 reach 160 meters of total stack: 90 for superheavy and 70 for Starship, with 5000 gross tons for superheavy and 2500-3000 tons for starship ( in normal and tanker configuration respectively), at 10k tons of thrust that's still a respectable 1.3 of TWR at liftoff. Utter insanity, and we are all here for this. In the end SH will have something like 20x350 tons raptor boost and 13x 300 raptor SL that gimble, and the starship will have 6x350 tons raptor vacuum fixed and 3x300 tons SL gimballing raptors, for a total of 11k tons for SH and 3k tons of thrust for starship. This will give a 1.5 TWR for normal starship stack and 1.2 for Starship in particular, and 1.4 and 1 for the tanker version. Let's do some math: So, assumptions: - Isp avg of raptor 2 sea level during ascent: 350 ( it's 330-360 at sea level and vacuum respectively) - Isp of starship during ascent: 370 ( sea level is at 360, raptor vacuum at 380). - starship empty weight 150 tons - superheavy empty weight: 300 tons - remaining props and deltaV for starship to deorbit and land: 950 m/s aka 50 tons prop at 350 Isp, and I'm being very conservative. (100 meters/seconds for deorbit like Shuttle and 800 m/s for landing) - remaning props and deltaV for superheavy for boost back and landing: 400 tons, good for 2900 Ms/s of DV - payload: 200 tons - so total mass that has to reach orbit: 400 tons (150+50+200) - DV needed to reach orbit : 9.2-9.4 km/s of DV ( probably even lower for starship because it has a lot of thrust so way less gravity losses, but it is a good ballpark). - total mass of 2nd stage: 2700 tons (2350 tons of prop, 150 starship, 200 tons payload) - total mass at stage separation: 3400 tons (2700+ 300 SH +400 SH prop for boost back and landing) Total weight of the stack: 7500 tons, 4500 tons are props for the 1st stage, of witch 4100 will be burnt before staging. So: 1st stage gives the 2nd stage 2700 Ms/s of DV ( if you want to calculate with a DV calculator: full mass 7500 tons, dry mass 3400 tons, Isp 350) 2nd stage DV with 400 tons of stuff ( 200+50+150) with 2300 tons of props burnt , 2700 tons full mass and 370 of ISP: 6900 Ms/s of DV Total DV: 9.6 km/s of DV total, way more than needed. I would say that that if they can make the raptor really to 350 tons for the fixed/vacuum ones and 300 tons of thrust of the gimballing ones, we are golden, and 200 tons of payload might be conservative.

Someone did here's the https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.technologyreview.com/2021/12/07/1041420/spacex-starship-rocket-solar-system-exploration/amp/Article, ( and there was a open letter by some people at NASA talking about using starship and that NASA need to start to dream big). Just to give an example: a deep space fully refueled V3 starship can give a 9KM/s DV to a 150 tons payload. And if that payload is a 15 tons probe, and 135 tons fuel with an engine with storable propellant that has 300 seconds of ISP, this gives the 15 tons probe 7 km/s, enough for a direct transfer and propulsive brake to Neptune. With a probe 20 times heavier than voyager. But transfer time with a Hohmann is 30 years to get there. If we could speed up and down 0.5km/s (1km/s total) the travel time get cut to 12 years, and we would probably still talk about a 10 ton probe. And numbers get even more stupid if we start to refuel starship to a tanker that is fully fueled on a highly hell optical orbit, like getting a 500 ton probe to Jupiter orbit, or 200 tons to orbit one of it's moon, all done with only propulsive method.

Holy excrements guys...you really relived a 10 years old post? Like seriously?

and...you know....the license

I'm sorry to tell you that your math ain't mathing.... ....because a 18 meters starship, even without it getting taller, would carry to orbit at least 600 tons, because a doubling in diameter get you 4 times the area and so volume. And this is without considering: The better usage of space and a more advantageous tank/fuel fraction ( you need only double the tank mass to store 4 times more fuel), and the fact that at that point you will stretch the rocket a bit. Right now a starship stack can lift around 250 tons expended, and 150 tons reusable, with a weight of 5000 tons, so 5% payload expended, 3% reusable. It would be not unrealistic to see an 18 meters starship let's say 200 meters high, with a liftoff mass of 30k tons, putting into orbit 2000 tons expended (6.5% payload) and around 1200 tons reusable (4%). It would make it also heat less on reentry, slow down more and more controllable. The problem would be at liftoff with 130 raptors generating 40-50k tons of thrust, just the sound would probably melt everything in a couple miles.

Maybe yes, maybe not, but the rumors are adding up, as I said a couple of pages prior : tail end of February- first half of March. Then for ift-4 all depends on what happen with ift-3, if all is norminal we are probably looking at another 4/20 launch, if it is an ift-2 Electric bongaloo we might slip to may-june. If it is a catastrophic RUD 1 year+

It's so funny and mental than this is becoming normality and nobody basically cares anymore to watch the stream ( thanks also to the demented idea of streaming on Twitter X).

Incapable of controlled flight .

Yeap, DOD did a 24 hour-notice launch, if I'm not mistaken with Firefly. It was an insane feat of logistic and well worth of an Astroaward by Everyday Astronaut. And what is more insane is that went basically unnoticed by the community, I didn't know even. Mod, sorry for the OT

Internally they said they will be ready by end of the month, and soon after will be ready report-wise, NET February, IMHO it will be tail end of February/ start of march

ITS BACK!

Yeap, the weather screw them over in the 1dt half of December. But it's still an insane result.

People who say this are ignorant of the amount of F1 that went kaboom on the stand, especially when they were doing all up testing

Spacex VP of Launch Kiko Dontchev Kiko’s full tweet (note OG = Octagrabber): "Super disappointing and sad to lose booster 1058. Tippy boosters occur when you get a certain set of landing conditions that lead to the legs having uneven loading. Heavy wind or sea state then cause the booster to teeter and slide which can lead to even worse leg loading. In this state, securing with the OG is super challenging and often only partial successful We came up with self leveling legs that immediately equalize leg loads on landing after experiencing a severe tippy booster two years ago on Christmas (first felight of 1069). The fleet is mostly outfitted, but 1058, given its age, was not. It met its fate when it hit intense wind and waves resulting in failure of a partially secured OG less than 100 miles from home. One thing is for sure… we will make lemonade out of lemons and learn as much as possible from historic 1058 on our path to aircraft like operations." https://x.com/turkeybeaver/status/1739640175183945860?s=46&t=u9hd-jMa-pv47GCVD-xH-g

Imagine being so unknown and a joke that you have to write the name of the rocket, ON the rocket itself, imagine having a F9 with gigantic FALCON 9 written on its side, or a shuttle with written SPACE SHUTTLE, and then also writing it in an orientation that will make it awkward to read when you rocket is doing work. Or maybe this is the correct orientation because it's never going vertical...the jokes writes themselves.

Angle of ballistics makes this wildly differently, starship has basically no Y vector speed when going for orbit, and it's very close to the atmosphere, a minutemen is going to 1000 km, and actually more if you consider that it's using the earth curvature to it's advantage. If it was going at a 45° angle it will go even further. This is a graph of range of a projectile with the same speed, but different angles, and this get actually improved when we are talking about orbital/semi orbital velocities https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Ideal_projectile_motion_for_different_angles.svg

Then you haven't played KSP enough: try to reach 88% of orbital velocity in KSP, and you will see that you will cover less than 20% of the planet. It's the last few hundreds m/s that makes you go places. And this is eve more pronounced with a bigger Kerbing, aka Earth.

I truly hope they start to push hard for a December launch, as they are limited by 5 test/year.