ThatGuyWithALongUsername Posted November 15, 2019 Share Posted November 15, 2019 2 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said: December is the last thing I saw, nothing specific beyond that. Oof. "December" with no specific date is basically rocket-speak for "early next year." Especially in November. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted November 15, 2019 Share Posted November 15, 2019 18 minutes ago, ThatGuyWithALongUsername said: Oof. "December" with no specific date is basically rocket-speak for "early next year." Especially in November. This isn't necessarily true in this particular case. It's just a subrbital test after all. They also have 2 customer launches in December (a CRS for NASA, and a sat launch). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wjolcz Posted November 15, 2019 Share Posted November 15, 2019 I wouldn't expect Starship's static fire to happen THIS early. Are the real deal engines even on the ship yet? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted November 15, 2019 Share Posted November 15, 2019 3 minutes ago, Wjolcz said: I wouldn't expect Starship's static fire to happen THIS early. Are the real deal engines even on the ship yet? The closures were probably just for tank pressure tests. given the move to 10 days from now... maybe they can get the engines installed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted November 15, 2019 Share Posted November 15, 2019 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatastrophicFailure Posted November 15, 2019 Share Posted November 15, 2019 1 hour ago, ThatGuyWithALongUsername said: Oof. "December" with no specific date is basically rocket-speak for "early next year." Especially in November. Imademyselfsad.gif 49 minutes ago, tater said: The closures were probably just for tank pressure tests. given the move to 10 days from now... maybe they can get the engines installed. That first flight before the end of the year is looking less and less likely tho. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted November 16, 2019 Share Posted November 16, 2019 Nice sunset: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xd the great Posted November 16, 2019 Share Posted November 16, 2019 Is he talking about the price tag or the profit? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerbiloid Posted November 16, 2019 Share Posted November 16, 2019 Spoiler 5 hours ago, Xd the great said: Is he talking about the price tag or the profit? He has occasionally attached something left at the wrong side. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted November 16, 2019 Share Posted November 16, 2019 7 hours ago, Xd the great said: Is he talking about the price tag or the profit? Probably that the seat prices for the operational missions are so different. The 2 companies made different bids for the development, but you'd expect the operational prices after that to be pretty much the same (and certainly less than Soyuz or why bother?). Also, Boeing bid 2X what SpaceX bid for dev, and as I recall a bunch of people then wondered why Sierra Nevada didn't get tapped, they almost certainly underbid Boeing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerbiloid Posted November 16, 2019 Share Posted November 16, 2019 Spoiler Fairness gets born in the competition of Avarice and Greed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Racescort666 Posted November 16, 2019 Share Posted November 16, 2019 2 hours ago, tater said: Also, Boeing bid 2X what SpaceX bid for dev, and as I recall a bunch of people then wondered why Sierra Nevada didn't get tapped, they almost certainly underbid Boeing. Our typical knowledge says that the launch vehicle is the majority of the cost (although with the transparency we’ve seen lately that really isn’t the case) but seeing as how starliner and SN both launch on an Atlas V you would think that their costs would be less. Especially Sierra Nevada being a non-traditional and Boeing being traditional. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted November 16, 2019 Share Posted November 16, 2019 2 minutes ago, Racescort666 said: Our typical knowledge says that the launch vehicle is the majority of the cost (although with the transparency we’ve seen lately that really isn’t the case) but seeing as how starliner and SN both launch on an Atlas V you would think that their costs would be less. Especially Sierra Nevada being a non-traditional and Boeing being traditional. From 2015: https://spacenews.com/gao-denies-sierra-nevada-protest-of-commercial-crew-contract/ Quote Sierra Nevada filed its protest Sept. 26, asserting that its proposal had technical merits similar to the winning companies but at a lower cost than at least one of them. In a statement issued the same day as the protest, the company claimed there were “serious questions and inconsistencies in the source selection process.” Quote The GAO statement did, though, contain new information about the CCtCap bids. It said that Sierra Nevada offered a price of $2.55 billion to develop its Dream Chaser vehicle. That made the company more expensive than SpaceX, which bid $1.75 billion, but less expensive than Boeing’s bid of $3.01 billion. SpaceX ended up being a little over 2B, and Boeing ended up over 4B. So SN was 2.something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted November 17, 2019 Share Posted November 17, 2019 Road closures back on for Monday... tank testing, presumably: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted November 17, 2019 Share Posted November 17, 2019 (edited) Can't remember if I posted this video already, but it's pretty interesting. The use case proposed here for this space-based solar power is limited to very remote areas where $2/kWhr makes sense as it's like 25-30X too expensive, but it is very interesting. (military bases, etc) The most interesting thing is that they get that ~$2/kWhr (high end for them) having launched this thing with Atlas, and it really is driven by deployed cost. Atlas 551 is $17,191/kg to GTO. This concept is MEO or GEO, so we'll use GEO (it's fewer launches in GEO). else we just guess the MEO payloads and cost to orbit. A Falcon 9 gets ~5,800kg to GTO (reusable), which is $10,690/kg. That's 62% of the cost of Atlas 551. That's $1.24/kWhr (I'm gonna just call the launch cost the delivered power cost here using Atlas 551 as the benchmark---which I know is wrong, but once we're not talking about tiny differences (62% vs 100%), it doesn't matter.). What about Starship? SS with 2 retanks could get 150t to GEO (not to GTO, deliver them to GEO, GTO with 1 retank). That's 6M$ cost, so $40/kg, or 0.2% of his assumed launch costs. That drops his delivered power costs to under a cent per kWhr. SS costs could be 15X higher and the end electric price (delivered) would be ~$0.07/kWhr (around what we pay at my house). 15X higher would be 30 million a launch. Given the 900k$ in propellants per launch, that leaves amortization/etc, but it seems to me that at 200k/engine, 30M is more like the expendable cost of the stack. Even as a big dumb booster, this architecture is competitive. Retanking is a long pole, though... guess what, SS can get 20t to GTO from the launch pad. Loads of wasted volume, sadly, but at 2M$, it is still $100/kg to GTO. That would map in this sloppy math to closer to $0.01/kWhr. 7 times cheaper than what people pay at their homes. So SS changes the solar power math if these guys are right (again, it can scale really differently than my crappy math here and still be worth considering). I think SS as an expendable vehicle even enables this is a way Atlas/Vulcan/Omega/any_other_rocket can't. Edited November 17, 2019 by tater Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerbiloid Posted November 17, 2019 Share Posted November 17, 2019 Spoiler When SpaceX orbital lenses are burning the SpaceX underflying Starlink sats with solar rays like moths. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zolotiyeruki Posted November 18, 2019 Share Posted November 18, 2019 You know, I heard yesterday about the Iranian government shutting down basically all internet communications in the wake of recent demonstrations, and I couldn't help but think "gee, Starlink might be a big help in such a situation" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted November 18, 2019 Share Posted November 18, 2019 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted November 18, 2019 Share Posted November 18, 2019 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted November 18, 2019 Share Posted November 18, 2019 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatastrophicFailure Posted November 18, 2019 Share Posted November 18, 2019 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultimate Steve Posted November 18, 2019 Share Posted November 18, 2019 (edited) In the press release there is a render of Starship! Unless someone messed up, I'd imagine that's what they bid, and to have this level of NASA recognition is a big step! Edited November 19, 2019 by Val Removed quote for you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted November 18, 2019 Share Posted November 18, 2019 Epic: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted November 18, 2019 Share Posted November 18, 2019 https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1196548410733666308 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted November 18, 2019 Share Posted November 18, 2019 It's funny that they are suggesting more cargo to the lunar surface than SLS can put into orbit. I so want this to work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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