totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[RealKerbal3x]

I stole this from a comment on the Telsarati article, but...

Quote

My name is AMOS-17. You killed my brother AMOS-6. Falcon booster, prepare to die!

 

Edited August 4, 2019 by RealKerbal3x

[tater]

 

[tater]

 

[CatastrophicFailure]

The circle is now complete. 

 

(SpaceX’s original business model was based largely on smallsats.)

[Ultimate Steve]

Quote

For payloads who run into development or production challenges leading up to launch, SpaceX will allow them to apply 100% of monies paid towards the cost of rebooking on a subsequent mission (rebooking fees may apply).

"Monies"

[tater]

41 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

"Monies"

This is correct.

[CatastrophicFailure]

So, given the speed of the average govt bureaucracy, these permits should be approved around 2357. Of the next aeon. 

38 minutes ago, tater said:

This is correct.

Quite, it’s usually used in a financial/contract sense, referring to various deposits, wire transfers, and other agreements. 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

"Monies"

Its not a typo :3

It’s a plural you often find amongst legal jargon.

Ive never thought about it before but the grammar surrounding money is pretty interesting.

Edited August 5, 2019 by Guest

[Ultimate Steve]

55 minutes ago, Dale Christopher said:

Its not a typo :3

It’s a plural you often find amongst legal jargon.

Ive never thought about it before but the grammar surrounding money is pretty interesting.

 

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

2 hours ago, tater said:

 

Quite, it’s usually used in a financial/contract sense, referring to various deposits, wire transfers, and other agreements. 

 

2 hours ago, tater said:

This is correct.

Aha. I had never seen it used in an official sense and had assumed it was just slang. Learn something everyday.

[tater]

https://www.spacex.com/smallsat

[Xd the great]

4 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

The circle is now complete. 

(SpaceX’s original business model was based largely on smallsats.)

If a Starship launch costs below 6 million, it could be even cheaper than Rocket Lab.

Imagine launching your oversized Mars colonial class ship for a single cubesat.

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, Xd the great said:

If a Starship launch costs below 6 million, it could be even cheaper than Rocket Lab.

Imagine launching your oversized Mars colonial class ship for a single cubesat.

Pretty sure if you divide launch cost by volume Starship would be wayyyyyyy cheaper than Rocket Lab. By an order of magnitude or more. (Just guesstimating, haven’t done the math. Anyone have volume figures on Starship’s cargo space?)

Edited August 6, 2019 by Guest

[tater]

This rideshare to SSO is pretty smart. It undercuts small launchers without leaving too much money on the table. With fairing recovery, it costs SpaceX whatever stage 2 costs, plus operational costs.

[CatastrophicFailure]

17 minutes ago, tater said:

This rideshare to SSO is pretty smart. It undercuts small launchers without leaving too much money on the table. With fairing recovery, it costs SpaceX whatever stage 2 costs, plus operational costs.

So, Bezos has been lapped and is just behind the game, now Peter Beck is the arch-nemesis? 

[mikegarrison]

2 hours ago, Dale Christopher said:

Pretty sure if you divide launch cost by volume Starship would be wayyyyyyy cheaper than Rocket Lab. By an order of magnitude or more. (Just guesstimating, haven’t done the math. Anyone have volume figures on Starship’s cargo space?)

That's a big deal if you are trying to launch styrofoam. Pointless if you are trying to launch gold.

Anyway, if you have a 10 kg sat and you need it to go up in a specific place at a specific time, so it can't ride along with anything else, then Starship is not your best option.

[Guest]

37 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

That's a big deal if you are trying to launch styrofoam. Pointless if you are trying to launch gold.

Anyway, if you have a 10 kg sat and you need it to go up in a specific place at a specific time, so it can't ride along with anything else, then Starship is not your best option.

You could probably work out cost by volume or cost by mass with Starship and get a similarly large gap between it and other launch vehicles, besides maybe New Glen.

Starship can work for most orbits just use a tug stage something like Rocket Lab has. The lower overall cost would still make it a competitive option. Even if a sat needed twice the mass for DV to make its way to a different orbit, if launch is 10x cheaper you are still undercutting the competition.

(I cant think of the name of that little tug thing atm)

Edited August 6, 2019 by Guest

[Guest]

Something like this:

[mikegarrison]

Maybe it's just that I've been around airplanes too long, but I'm pretty highly alerted to the idea that it's extremely hard to use efficiency to overcome having the wrong size of equipment for the payload. A 787 is a super-efficient airplane, but it's sized for taking 300 people thousands of miles. If you have a route that only needs to take 50 people 800 miles, then an RJ is going to be cheaper even if it's not as efficient.

[CatastrophicFailure]

1 hour ago, Dale Christopher said:

Starship can work for most orbits just use a tug stage something like Rocket Lab has. The lower overall cost would still make it a competitive option. Even if a sat needed twice the mass for DV to make its way to a different orbit, if launch is 10x cheaper you are still undercutting the competition.

 

29 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Maybe it's just that I've been around airplanes too long, but I'm pretty highly alerted to the idea that it's extremely hard to use efficiency to overcome having the wrong size of equipment for the payload. A 787 is a super-efficient airplane, but it's sized for taking 300 people thousands of miles. If you have a route that only needs to take 50 people 800 miles, then an RJ is going to be cheaper even if it's not as efficient.

Perhaps a better analogue, here is that if Starship is fully and rapidly reusable, and flying regularly enough to bring down the overall cost per kg to something crazy low, it’s far easier to cram that cubesat in, with or without its own propulsion stage (cubesat propulsion is being worked on), on a launch that just happens to be going the right way. 

Y’know, like sticking one more little box on a loaded 787. 

 

But speaking of things not like airplanes...

They’re gonna need a VAB...

[mikegarrison]

19 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Perhaps a better analogue, here is that if Starship is fully and rapidly reusable, and flying regularly enough to bring down the overall cost per kg to something crazy low, it’s far easier to cram that cubesat in, with or without its own propulsion stage (cubesat propulsion is being worked on), on a launch that just happens to be going the right way.

Rocket Lab is specifically marketing their rocket for small sats in sun-synchronous orbits. Launching a small sat with a booster to put it into a sun-synchronous orbit from a Starship that was launched into a near-equatorial orbit would be like flying from NY to Rio via London, because you were able to get such a great price on the A380 to London.

[CatastrophicFailure]

27 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Rocket Lab is specifically marketing their rocket for small sats in sun-synchronous orbits. Launching a small sat with a booster to put it into a sun-synchronous orbit from a Starship that was launched into a near-equatorial orbit would be like flying from NY to Rio via London, because you were able to get such a great price on the A380 to London.

If going via A380 to London really is cheaper overall, the satellite doesn't really care if it takes a little longer. @Dale Christopher never actually specified where his hypothetical cubesat was going, after all, and Rocketlab is currently building a facility for lower-inclination orbits.

Or maybe his cubesat just wants to fly on an A380, cuz they're not going to be around forever. 

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

If going via A380 to London really is cheaper overall, the satellite doesn't really care if it takes a little longer. @Dale Christopher never actually specified where his hypothetical cubesat was going, after all, and Rocketlab is currently building a facility for lower-inclination orbits.

Or maybe his cubesat just wants to fly on an A380, cuz they're not going to be around forever. 

Mine would be going interplanetary XD 

1kg sat 999kg Xenon >;3

or maybe interstellar! 1kg sat 99,999kg Xenon @_@!

Edited August 6, 2019 by Guest

[tater]

 

Regarding cheaper for sats of a given size, all that matters is marginal launch costs. The test Starships are meant to SSTO, albeit without a meaningful payload---where meaningful is defined as many 10s of metric tons. Starship SSTO might well be dirt cheap for smallsats that only mass a few hundred kg. Attach them to a Starlink (as a tug).

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, tater said:

 

Regarding cheaper for sats of a given size, all that matters is marginal launch costs. The test Starships are meant to SSTO, albeit without a meaningful payload---where meaningful is defined as many 10s of metric tons. Starship SSTO might well be dirt cheap for smallsats that only mass a few hundred kg. Attach them to a Starlink (as a tug).

Test is not an ssto, only 3 surface engines for one. first tests will be small jumps with starship, probably followed by longer jumps who would look more like falcon 9 first stage trajectories. 
Then they do orbital testing with superheavy, this require an launch pad while you can launch starship without. 

[Wjolcz]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

Test is not an ssto, only 3 surface engines for one. first tests will be small jumps with starship, probably followed by longer jumps who would look more like falcon 9 first stage trajectories. 
Then they do orbital testing with superheavy, this require an launch pad while you can launch starship without. 

I was surprised to read it's going to be SSTO. What even is the TWR and ∆V with three SL Raptors (assuming full fuel and no cargo).

Edit: now that I posted this I remembered it's meant for intercontinental hops, so the TWR is obviously more than 1.

Edited August 6, 2019 by Wjolcz