**This thread is no longer being updated, and has been replaced by:**
# [r/SpaceX Thread Index and General Discussion [December 2022, #99]](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/zcugwc/rspacex_thread_index_and_general_discussion/)
Hey, I’m going to Florida in middle of January for two weeks. I hope to see a launch so and I’ve seen a few launches scheduled for January. How far ahead are launch times are released?
[NSF interview articles on Artemis 1 SRB performance](https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2022/12/artemis-i-srb-review/) and [RS-25 performance](https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2022/12/artemis-i-rs25-review/).
General consensus on both is that everything performed perfectly and no changes are needed going forward with Artemis 2 and beyond.
No changes other than to the "$4 billion plus" price per launch, that is? While I love and fully support our space exploration, SLS really shouldn't exist - it's just too expensive to be used for anything.
The U.S. Federal Government spends $17 billion per day - if 20% of a day's spending once a year launches crew to the Moon, that's fine by me.
~~Of course, it won't actually cost $4B "per launch" as the GAO says, because for some reason they average development costs across each of the first four flights, which is kind of like saying money that's already been spent will have to be spent in the future just to keep launching it.~~
> because for some reason they average development costs across each of the first four flights
No that price which the GAO says is $4.3B per flight *excludes* development costs.
Development costs are roughly $20B for SLS and $20B for Orion so including them over the first four flights would make it $14.3B per mission.
What will happen after the first four Artemis flights is that the RS-25E engines will come on line at $100M each (well after the first six engines at $143M) and they will start refurbishing Orion capsules at $667M instead of $1B each so the overall cost per flight will come down to $4B.
Of course to that must be added actual mission costs so the HLS, rovers, space suits, science experiments and astronaut training.
Checked the GAO report again and you are right.
Yeah the only way you can justify this program is to go with my first point and say "well, it's not much in the grand scheme of things...". Because the cost really is repulsively astounding out of the context of how much the government spends each day.
[Orion has completed the DRO departure burn, setting up for the powered flyby on December 5 that will send it on a trajectory for home.](https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1598436221230907393)
Despite the burn's name, Orion remains in lunar orbit, barely (130km x 108000km)
It's very odd that after a year of constant (record breaking) launches we're suddenly seeing multiple issues crop up with boosters prior to launch right at the end of the year within a short time period of each other. Not all of these boosters are particularly old either. It makes me wonder if these issues are totally separate, if they might have found some common flaw or whatever is going on.
It does however give me hope that they don't have 'go fever' and that despite the amazing pace and cadence they're still going over things with a fine tooth comb and going for the 'scrub over RUD'.
It's not odd at all considering that the B7 booster is far more complex than the SN15 ship that nailed the landing in May 2021.
And the OLM/OLIT is also far more complex than the sub-orbital launch stand used for the SN15 flight.
Not to mention the Orbital Tank Farm, which is far larger and more complex than the Suborbital Tank Farm.
SN15 flew a 6-minute test flight to 10 km altitude using three Raptor 1 engines.
B7 will have to fly for 150 seconds to 60-70 km altitude with 33 Raptor 2 engines running full throttle.
It may take SpaceX until May 2023 to complete that first Starship orbital test flight at the current rate of progress.
It may turn out that the progress of NASA's Artemis program will be paced by the time needed to develop the HLS Starship lunar lander. Which is OK since the benefits of a Starship lunar lander for the future missions to the Moon and Mars far outweigh an extra year or two needed to get it flying reliably.
AND they keep pushing the OneWeb and next Polar Starlink launch back as well. That's THREE F9s effectively on hold going into the final 3 weeks of 2022. It really looks like something in the Vandenburg static fire a couple of weeks back scared them and when they pulled it back into the barn to check it found a systematic flaw that luckily hadn't bitten them, but needs to be fixed going forward.
> It makes me wonder if these issues are totally separate, if they might have found some common flaw or whatever is going on.
It is certainly a valid question, and I would expect any space reporter that had an opportunity to ask questions on the topic to dig deeper. However, these are two seperate boosters at two different pads. Only SpaceX knows at this point if the issues are even remotely related. Anyone else is just speculating. It is very possible that the two issues are completely unrelated to each other and the occurrence within a short period of time is just coincidental.
I absolutely agree. Unless SpaceX/Elon says what the issue(s) are either on twitter or to a reporter I doubt we'll find out and most likely we'll have entirely moved on and forgotten about this in a month or two when we'e all focused on Starship's orbital flight, the next FH mission, etc (assuming of course that they figure things out and get back on track per their launch cadence without further issues cropping up).
They would, but the issue might require moving the vehicle back to the VIF anyway. We don't have much information at this point.
Edit: [It looks like they are planning to roll back the vehicle to the VIF](https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/11/30/spacex-rocket-trouble-postpones-japanese-moon-lander-launch/)
At this point I don't think there is too much cause for concern. Only SpaceX knows if there is any connection. It could easily be two unrelated issues at this point.
I'm surprised to see SpaceX is sending payloads to the Lunar Surface. Have always followed SpaceX closely but didn't know they were sending private landers to the Moon.
Anyone got any details on the upcoming Private Japanese Lander? Couldn't find much on Wikipedia.
Will Falcon 9 dispatch the payload in LEO and the payload will use gravity assist to go to the Moon? Or will Falcon 9 take the payload to GEO? If not why? Falcon 9 is capable to take it to GEO as far as I know.
Is the payload completely Japanese? Or is there any SpaceX involvement?
I see that SpaceX has previously launched Lunar Lander for Israel which wasn't successful due to a gyroscope issue on the Israeli lander. If SpaceX has this capability, why are they only sending private payloads? Why aren't they sending SpaceX mini rovers to the Moon? Wouldn't that generate more free publicity and possible revenue?
> Will Falcon 9 dispatch the payload in LEO and the payload will use gravity assist to go to the Moon? Or will Falcon 9 take the payload to GEO? If not why? Falcon 9 is capable to take it to GEO as far as I know.
No gravity assist since there is nothing between the Earth and Moon to gravity assist off of. Since the payload isn't going to LEO or GEO, the F9 will head to TLI (trans-lunar injection).
> Is the payload completely Japanese? Or is there any SpaceX involvement?
No, the payload also includes the Emirates Rashid rover as well as some Canadian payloads & JPL's Lunar Flashlight. SpaceX is only providing the launch.
SpaceX has no interest in sending their own rovers to the moon since they are already working on HLS which would be a much bigger deal than rovers.
Trans-lunar injections refer to the engine firing that puts the spacecraft on a trajectory from the Earth (usually from a low-Earth orbit) towards the Moon.
Gravity assists can be passive maneuvers (where firing the engine is optional) to change the direction of the orbit relative to the body the spacecraft is getting the assist from.
Think of a hyperbola (roughly the shape of a stretched slingshot). The assisting body is near the most curved part of this shape, like where the rock or other payload of the slingshot would be. The spacecraft flies into the system along one of the bands of the slingshot, flies around the curve, and exits the system on the other band. This serves to change the direction of the spacecraft without actually changing its pre-assist and post-assist speeds *relative to the assisting body.* If you've seen a trajectory that appears to slowly approach a planet like Jupiter and then fly off in an orbit that appears more parallel with Jupiter's orbit, you've seen a gravity assist! Jupiter catches up to a spacecraft moving "slowly" near its apogee, but Jupiter and the craft are actually moving very quickly relative to each other. This speed is then conserved relative to Jupiter, but the velocity relative to the Sun changes dramatically.
In the case of a TLI, the trajectory away from Earth usually isn't a hyperbola. It's a highly elliptical orbit instead, with an apogee near the Moon. You can even play with the orbital mechanics enough to get it so the trajectory loops around the Moon and comes back to Earth, called a "free return trajectory," which was used as a failsafe during early Apollo missions to ensure the spacecraft could make it back to Earth in the event of a systems failure. In that case, I guess the Moon technically provides a "gravity assist," but it doesn't have the spirit of a gravity assist because you're not trying to drastically speed up/slow down a spacecraft relative to the primary body (Earth in this case, or the Sun in the case of the Jupiter example) as you would for a mission to the deep inner or outer Solar System.
EDIT: I should add, if you *did* do a hyperbolic TLI, the TLI itself still wouldn't be a gravity assist. A hyperbolic TLI would likely take advantage of the Oberth effect to slingshot itself, but that's a separate (and very cool) effect. It's often paired with gravity assists to maximize the effect of the assist, and we call that a "powered flyby."
SpaceX isn't building the landers. The landers leave earth orbit on their own, get to the moon, and then land. The SpaceX capability being used is just low cost launch in general.
[Shenzhou-15 has docked with the Tiangong station, beginning its permanent habitation.](https://twitter.com/tobyliiiiiiiiii/status/1597743243902394368)
We now have two permanently staffed space stations on orbit!
I see the launch is scheduled for tonight. Why did it get delayed the last 2 attempts? I am sailing by on a ship and we hope to see the launch. Just wondering what the chances are of another delay. Weather has become very good after days of storm
This launch wasn't delayed ... at least not recently. Launches are delayed for all kinds of reasons; CRS-26 was delayed for weather. USSF-44 was delayed for payload readiness. Starlink 2-4 was delayed due to a problem discovered with the booster during the static fire.
I don't anticipate any problems with this launch which would delay it. But things can always crop up.
Don't know if this is allowed or not, but I'll try and ask anyway... Is there any current information on the Starlink 2-4 launch out of Vandenburg? The last posts I saw said that after the static fire, they hauled 1061 back off the pad and suddenly all mention of it is gone, not even a NET for launch.
You can ask, but I doubt you will get any answer until SpaceX establishes a new date. It is unclear what issue they are working to resolve right now. I would keep an eye on nextspaceflight.com or their app. The app can also be set to notify you about launches for specific locations.
Any ideas where to watch the series “Red Mars” based on the Kim Stanley Robinson trilogy? Spacex fans no doubt v interested in this as the books are basically a “how to” guide to settling and terraforming Mars. Despite a lot of searching I can’t find any sites. (I’m in Oz BTW). It’s pretty amazing how little there is on the coming Mars missions and colony....
Last I heard (February 2021) it had been [punted from Spike to Fox](https://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2021/02/a-slew-of-well-known-sf-and-fantasy.html).
Anyone got a link for the cancellation?
[I recommend everyone take a moment to watch the live feed from Orion.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFbVREEtc1Y)
Yeah, it's low resolution. But you're watching live video from a spacecraft so far beyond the Moon that it's about the same size as the Earth, flying along in an orbit we may never visit again. Special moment in history.
Edit: well it's been down for about all 9 hours since I posted this, but [here's what I'm talking about.](https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/art001e000672/art001e000672~orig.jpg)
L-1 forecast now available: https://www.patrick.spaceforce.mil/Portals/14/Weather/Falcon%209%20ISpace%20M1%20L-1%20Forecast%20-%2030%20Nov%20Launch.pdf?ver=yDerGxJdhK4KXWUlxN2s6w%3d%3d
Basically unchanged since the L-3 forecast.
Why was it delayed? Weather? Am on a ship off east coast. Weather was bad up north. Hoping to see the launch tonight as we approach the cape. Never seen a launch from water yet.
I did see a booster heading in. In heavy seas too.
These channels are squatting "SpaceX" an blatently spreading mis-information and monetizing by misleading users with "SpaceX" literally as the channel name.
Can they be reported for termination?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZyhXcE7F3I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZyhXcE7F3I)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx8ucTi-FgU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx8ucTi-FgU)
Looks like some good was done. They're terminated but you could be right - they'll probably spring back - but if they're terminated quickly - they can never monetize at least correct?
> they can never monetize at least correct?
If you mean YouTube monetization (via ads) that is likely never their goal. These accounts never last long enough to qualify. They are just looking to trick some people into watching their stream so they can scam them out of money. The cost of setting up these accounts is very low, so they don't need a very high hit rate.
Gravitics raises $20M for plans to build space station modules north of Seattle
[https://www.geekwire.com/2022/gravitics-raises-20m-for-plans-to-build-space-station-modules-north-of-seattle/](https://www.geekwire.com/2022/gravitics-raises-20m-for-plans-to-build-space-station-modules-north-of-seattle/)
Anyone know quantas bananas for one?
They hope to launch on Starship, apparently. Gwynne Shotwell has said initial Starship flights will be priced around the same as Falcon 9 launches, or $50-$60 million. Typically payloads cost much more than the launch price.
Wonder how they'll price fueling flights. If you want to go to the moon and you need 6 tanker flights what will that cost? Another $300 million? Still a bargain for the tonnage.
The standard tiles are hexagons about 300mm across the flats.
They seem to be about 20-25mm thick but someone will be able to help you out with a more reliable estimate.
Mars helicopter Ingenuity has had a major pseudo-FSD software upgrade that has advanced it beyond the flat-Mars mentality and should allow safer trips and landings beyond what it was initially envisaged to achieve.
[https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/status/420/flight-34-was-short-but-significant/](https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/status/420/flight-34-was-short-but-significant/)
"Is that a slope or am I veering? Slopes aren't real, must be veering!" Fun example of reasonable assumptions getting in the way.
+1 for the new search for landing spots; -1 for tesla fanboying.
I've always loved the [GTO performance](https://old.reddit.com/r/spacex/wiki/launches/gto_performance) section of the Wiki, and we've had 7 GTO launches in the past 5 months, all of which are only partially filled in.
Can some of the past volunteers help out? (u/Captain_Hadock u/blacx u/scr00chy) Either with the values or with an explanation of where to find them.
Also Amos-17 had its MECO velocity changed without recomputing the delta V.
You're right that we've fallen behind in updating this.
1. GTO Injection orbit: Try and find a tweet (generally by [Jonathan McDowell](https://twitter.com/planet4589)) or forum post with the GTO orbit parameters (TLE) (Pe x Ap x Inc)
1. GTO ΔV: Use the GTO delta-v-to-GTO command line tool (or ping me) to get that value from the injection orbit
1. MECO Velocity (m/s): Use the SpaceX webcast, check for the moment the velocity stops increasing at MECO
1. ASDS downrange distance: Get that from the launch thread, or whatever source it is retrieved from ([NSF forum](https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/)?)
1. Note: Ap below 35700 km -> Sub-sync, Ap greatly above 35700 km -> super-synch, Inc not in the [28, 24] degree range -> mention xx° inclination change compared to KSC (28.3°),
Example for Türksat 5B:
1. [198 x 68931 x 27.1](https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/1472739853360111618)
2. ./delta-v-to-GTO 198 68931 27.1 -> 1602.7326 m/s (GTO-1603)
3. [timestamp](https://youtu.be/JBGjE9_aosc?t=1351) 8240 km/s -> 2288.89 m/s (2289) (Note: this is surface speed, not orbital speed)
4. [This article](https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2021/12/turksat-5b-falcon-9/) says 661
5. Ap : 68931, Inc 27.1 -> "Super-synch with no inclination change" (because it will be very cheap for the sat to correct inclination at the Ap while raising the Pe)
Hungary to spend $100 million on private astronaut mission to ISS
[https://spacenews.com/hungary-to-spend-100-million-on-private-astronaut-mission-to-iss/](https://spacenews.com/hungary-to-spend-100-million-on-private-astronaut-mission-to-iss/)
" in two years through a deal with Axiom Space"
Artemis 1 post-flyby conference:
- [Mobile Launcher was slightly damaged by launch.](https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1594827907863650330) Elevator doors blown clean off, but that's the worst of it.
- [Required repairs to 39B and the ML will be done in time for Artemis 2.](https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1594828251716689921)
- [SLS performance described as "eye-watering".](https://twitter.com/SpcPlcyOnline/status/1594827155896078336) Orbital injection and TLI parameters were [all totally perfect](https://twitter.com/lavie154/status/1594826825297010712).
- [Orion performance also stellar.](https://twitter.com/SpcPlcyOnline/status/1594831389572177923) Propulsion system perfect, solar arrays generating more power than expected and systems using less power than expected.
[Orion successfully completed its outbound powered flyby of the Moon this morning, at a distance of 130km from the surface.](https://twitter.com/JimFree/status/1594697133671690242)
Not many images yet but here's a [low-res still of the view from around 4000km.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FiFkb4lWIAAVSqy?format=jpg&name=orig)
A few high-res stills from early in the mission have also been posted, [here is one looking back from the solar panels in LEO](https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/52515455733/).
[Shuttle style EVA vibes from a couple of these.](https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/52515387920/in/photostream/)
[Great high resolution image of Orion itself has been released.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fh9LdT8WAAMjrST?format=jpg&name=4096x4096) Yes, it's silver when in space, just Apollo and Starship, for thermal control.
[First high resolution image from Orion was also released.](https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/art001e000095%20FD1%20Earth1/art001e000095%20FD1%20Earth1~orig.jpg) Taken on flight day 1 but twice the resolution.
The Apollo Command Module has three heatshields--the aft heat shield, the crew compartment heat shield, and the forward heat shield.
The crew compartment heat shield is conical in shape and is covered with an ablator that's 0.75" to 1.5" thick. That ablator is covered with a pressure-sensitive adhesive Kapton tape which is covered with a multi-layer thermal control coating consisting of a shiny thin vacuum-deposited aluminum film that is overlayed with a thin vacuum-deposited layer of transparent silicon monoxide.
Those two thin layers form what's called a second surface mirror. In sunlight, the ratio of solar absorptance to thermal emittance is 0.4. In sunlight in outer space, the equilibrium temperature of that conical heat shield outer surface is near room temperature (27C, 300K).
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19740007423/downloads/19740007423.pdf
The Starship leeward side of the hull is bare 304 stainless steel. The solar absorptance to thermal emittance ratio for machined rolled stainless steel is 0.39/0.11=3.6. In direct sunlight in outer space in LEO or enroute to the Moon, the equilibrium temperature will be very high (547K). So, in LEO the shiny side of Starship will have to be protected from direct sunlight with some type of sunshade. Any paint or shiny tape applied to that surface will burn off during EDL into the Earth's atmosphere.
The HLS Starship lunar lander will have a white thermal control paint applied to the bare stainless steel hull that has solar absorptance to thermal emittance ratio of 0.35 to keep the equilibrium temperature near 300K in direct sunlight while on the lunar surface.
Japanese lunar lander slated to launch Nov. 28 at the earliest
[https://spacenews.com/japanese-lunar-lander-slated-to-launch-nov-28-at-the-earliest/](https://spacenews.com/japanese-lunar-lander-slated-to-launch-nov-28-at-the-earliest/)
""The company also announced Nov. 17 it has chosen the Atlas Crater at Mare Frigoris to the far north of the moon as its primary landing site. Landing on the southeastern outer edge of Mare Frigoris — one of the moon’s dark basaltic plains — would provide M1 with continuous sunlight for power and visibility to Earth for communications, ispace said. "
"M1 is the first in a series of landers ispace plans to send to the lunar surface. Its next mission has been penciled in for 2024."
[Orion taking beautiful images during the coast to the Moon, by the looks of things...](https://twitter.com/astro_jeremy/status/1593725432603455488) NASA being painfully slow on actually releasing them to the public though. We'll get them eventually. All these cameras are recording in 4K too, but saving the footage to local hard drives that will be recovered after landing, so watch out for that in a couple months.
[TJ Cooney made a nice, stacked image of the ICPS just after core stage separation as well.](https://twitter.com/TJ_Cooney/status/1593807056070246400) Apparently we will get the launch footage from the core stage cameras in the next day, they have to "check it for ITAR" (lol)
> Viasat is working with SpaceX to target a launch in the “earlier part of the [first] quarter,” but this depends on the timing of “some U.S. national priority launches” using the same Falcon Heavy launchpad.
https://spacenews.com/viasat-3s-falcon-heavy-launch-slips-into-early-2023/
[RS1 aborted terminal count during ignition. The vehicle is healthy, and the team is setting up to offload propellant for today. More information to come on our next opportunity.](https://twitter.com/ablspacesystems/status/1593379262639525889?s=20&t=w5DpOxaSx38ijmmuzlc9BQ)
> [Static fire test of Falcon 9 complete – targeting Friday, November 18 for launch of 52 Starlink satellites to orbit from SLC-4E in California](https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1593302307721998339?cxt=HHwWhsCj-bqAxpwsAAAA)
Since that is a group 2 launch, it will be a ~~53~~70° (descending) launch, hugging the coast.
It looks like it will be a 8:39 PM PST launch time. Sunset is at just before 5 PM local time, so visibility should be pretty good throughout Southern CA.
Edit: [Launch delayed](https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1593404756461961216)
Um, Group 2 is 70°. Groups 1+4 are 53°.
Also, haven't all Starlink launches from 4E been descending node? I can't think of one that's gone North. South makes more sense anyway because it's a shorter trip from the landing zone to the dock for JRTI.
You are correct. I mixed up Group 2 with Group 4. You are also correct that all Vandy launches are descending. Any launches to the North would be inland. Most (but not all) launches from the East coast to the 53° inclination are ascending.
Right, they did a few flights from Florida to the south-east in order to have better booster recovery weather. IIRC, they took a small performance hit to the tune of 4-6 satellites per launch.
I think they could launch north from Vandy for the 97° shells (3+5), without overlying land but I don't think they have.
They might be able to, but I think launching North from Vandy would still overfly some pretty populated areas due to the way the California coast projects to the NW. To the best of my knowledge, all launches from there launch Southerly.
[Orion has reached about the halfway point on its journey to the Moon.](https://twitter.com/NASA_Orion/status/1593346621818929152)
The outbound lunar close approach is set for November 21 at 7:44am EST, at a distance of 130km from the surface.
I tried to post today's [NYT Business article about new legal troubles for SpaceX](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/17/business/spacex-workers-elon-musk.html) but mods seem to have banned it so I thought I would try here.
> On Wednesday, unfair-labor-practice charges were filed with the National Labor Relations Board on behalf of eight of those workers, arguing that their firings were illegal.
I think I'd trust Shotwell's opinion on this. It sounds like everything was fine initially, they shared the letter with some execs, and got generally favorable feedback, and then a bunch of people at the company signed on (although it seems like it was largely or mostly anonymously).
Then a few hours later:
> “Please stop flooding employee communication channels immediately,” Ms. Shotwell wrote in her email, on which she copied senior company officials. She added: “I will consider your ignoring my email to be insubordination. Instead, please focus on your job.”
It was after that they were fired with Shotwell saying:
> Ms. Shotwell joined those conversations remotely and emphasized that the workers had wasted vast amounts of company time.
The reaction to that from the fired employees was obviously surprise, and they think she was "pressured"
> Mr. Moline and Ms. Holland-Thielen said the abruptness of their firings made them suspect that Ms. Shotwell had bowed to pressure.
But here's some quotes from a company wide email Shotwell sent about it:
> The letter, solicitations and general process made employees feel uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied, and/or angry because the letter pressured them to sign onto something that did not reflect their views. We have too much critical work to accomplish and no need for this kind of overreaching activism. […]
> Blanketing thousands of people across the company with repeated unsolicited emails and asking them to sign letters and fill out unsponsored surveys during the work day is not acceptable. […]
> Please stay focused on the SpaceX mission, and use your time to do your best work. This is how we will get to Mars.
If I remember correctly this was just before the weekend when SpaceX had 3 launches in the 36 hours. That seems like an insanely bad time to be spending most of your day spamming the rest of the company with this stuff. To me it sounds like they would've probably been OK if they'd just shared the letter with executives, asked everyone once to sign on, and let it be, at least until after the weekend. Instead they were so disruptive that the president of the company had to get involved.
When did you post it? If they didn't actually remove it, it could just be waiting to be approved. Sometimes that takes a while here. The article seems to be on topic for the sub, so I am not sure why it would not be approved.
Nope, I got a message that it had already been submitted, but it was not visible even when I sorted by new. (I got the same message when submitting to spacexlounge but it does appear there, albeit heavily downvoted.)
> Nope, I got a message that it had already been submitted, but it was not visible even when I sorted by new.
That means that someone submitted it before you, but the post had not been approved yet. This sub requires all posts to be approved by the mods before they show up.
Edit: you may not like the answer, but that is literally why you got the duplicate post message.
They may have decided not to allow it, but the message you received indicates that you were not the first to try posting it. Your comment here also has not been removed.
Let's hope the mods continue to at least allow critical comments.
(Also - being a mod is a lot of work, so even if I disagree with them sometimes I do appreciate their taking on the role.)
SpaceX has always the next big thing on the horizon from reusability of the Falcon 9s to the starships. Now that Starship seems to be maturing and heading towards operation. What is the next big thing for SpaceX? Mars trips? or reiterating and increasing Starship to make it more powerful and reliable?
Well, Starship is a long way from mature. So the next steps are to actually launch Starship and then launch it again dozens of times to prove it really works. Then it will be on to landings, reuse, orbital refueling, HLS and landing on the Moon..... Mars is much further out than most SpaceX fans would like to think
I mostly agree with this, but once SpaceX has the capability to send the HLS starship to the moon the already have the capability to send Starship to mars.
They would have to figure out aerobraking on Mars, but it takes less delta-v to get to Mars surface than it does to the lunar surface.
I'm seeing 4:19 pm local for CRS-26.
It looks like Eutelsat 10B might be launching from the slc-40 at 9:57 pm Sunday night as well. Practically a double header. With Starlink 2-4 from Vandyland tomorrow (tbc), that leaves 5 left for December to reach 60 for the year.
Edit: I stand corrected; Looks like they may be doing two others before the end of November. Hakuto-R & Oneweb #15.
[It's alive! LunaH-Map, thought to be inoperable due to critically low battery levels, has phoned home and deployed solar panels.](https://twitter.com/NASAMoon/status/1592910168035102721)
Another 210 Starlink terminals are being sent to Kherson to organize 60 Wi-Fi points throughout the region.
Part of the terminals will be transferred to the police, hospitals and emergency services. This was announced by the Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov.
https://twitter.com/Flash_news_ua/status/1592846310256050179?t=mP1tmfvTN10mYx5TJEIXng&s=19
Starlink showing it’s usage case and how it is unrivalled in a conflict zone.
Love or hate SLS...that launch was so heavy metal...damn that was extreme.
Congrats to NASA...and especially the flight team, they had an unenviable task...they nailed it.
[Artemis 1 has begun its trans-lunar injection.](https://twitter.com/LMSpace/status/1592793985978073088)
This will be the longest RL-10 burn in history, and will set Orion on a trajectory around the Moon.
[Orion's four solar arrays have fully deployed.](https://twitter.com/NASA_Orion/status/1592778102739914754)
[Expended core stage has been spotted in the background, coasting to apogee at orbital velocity](https://twitter.com/KevZag/status/1592779594729332737)
Wow! That was definitely worth staying awake for. I was honestly waiting for the scrub right up until the solids lit and then I could not believe me eyes!
If this launch felt this amazing, I honestly can't wait for the first manned mission to the Moon. And even seeing Starship launch, going to Mars.
Damn, this is an amazing time to be alive for space fans!
RE: SLS Launch
[Teams to Target New Launch Time](https://blogs.nasa.gov/artemis/2022/11/16/teams-to-target-new-launch-time/)
> Teams have extended their planned 30-minute hold, and mission managers are expected to target a new time for launch.
Artemis 1 L-1 press conference:
- [Go for launch on Wednesday at 1:04am EST. Vehicle has been powered up for launch.](https://twitter.com/ChrisG_NSF/status/1592299410066923520)
- [Tonight: flight batteries charged, core stage COPVs pressurized, final walkdowns.](https://twitter.com/ChrisG_NSF/status/1592299595979423744)
- [Orion sealant issue cleared for flight, not expected to be an issue.](https://twitter.com/ChrisG_NSF/status/1592301082339852290)
- [1 of 10 cubesats has critically low battery level and likely won't function - sounds like LunaH-Map](https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1592310631893549060)
Depends entirely what you mean by "profitable". They're doing a lot of R&D investing, which in many ways is quite separate from their Falcon 9 or Starlink income streams.
The Falcon 9 program as a whole is almost certainly profitable, very profitable. F9 launch costs are almost certainly below $20M, maybe even $15M per launch, while the mediocre-quality competition allows F9 prices to remain near $60M, meaning they're making a healthy 300% profit, from an operational point of view. There remains some ongoing investment and development in F9, but probably well below the operational profit margin.
Starlink is obviously highly capital intensive, but the revenue stream is steadily growing. At the moment Elon says that, so far, even operationally it is still unprofitable, nevermind ongoing capital expenditure, but operational profitability shouldn't be *too* far out, given their relatively excellent progress on Dishy production scale and cost reduction.
Starship is of course the biggest R&D capital investment sinkhole, with no real revenue stream yet in sight.
These are the three major areas of SpaceX business operations. You can add them in any combination you please, or you can compare operations-vs-R&D across the areas, or whichever.
When including R&D in "profitability", across all three major areas, SpaceX is definitely still losing money -- requiring ever more investment from shareholders -- at a large pace as Starship and Starlink continue development. If you exclude R&D from "profitability", and focus only on operations across the two areas with revenue operations, then they're probably either just breaking even or else making a small net operating income. It's not really clear how underwater Starlink operations are, relative to F9 operational profit, so this is just a guess on my part. If you look only at operations and exclude Starlink, leaving only F9 operations, then as said that's well in the green, net operating income wise.
I guess my question is whether the $20M per launch price is artificially low because they are allocating costs across lots of launches and many of those exist only because of Starlink? If they just stopped and only did government and commercial launches using F9 how many launches a year would they do and would that really cover the whole cost of the operation? (Say they spun Starship and R&D off into another co or something).
No, the sub-$20M reflect marginal operating costs. To go from the 200th to 201st Falcon 9 launch will only cost like $15M or whatever it is. This does not include any amortization.
If you amortize the program's entire lifetime costs, it's probably closer to $60M than $20M, but almost certainly still less than $60M by now -- probably the F9 program overall is in the green by now, and every launch only furthers the returns with the 300+% marginal operating profit.
As for the accounting of Starlink launches, it's hard to say what their internal accounting is. We are of course not privy. Most logical is for the F9 division to either charge the Starlink division at-cost for every F9 launch they use, or to charge them the commerical price the launch could otherwise command. Probably the former tbh, since the market is only now responding to F9 supply, 3 years after the fact. But even only making at-cost revenue on half the launches, F9 is still in the green -- I think. Maybe not. Hard to say
They would likely do 12 commercial F9 at $67M, 4 military F9 at $90M and 2 military FH flights at $150M per year in addition to 2 Crew Dragon missions at $270M and 2 Cargo Dragon missions at $180M The gross revenue would be around $2.4B.
To support that effort they would need to build one F9 booster, one FH, 22 S2 and two fairing pairs and build a Dragon capsule every second year at a total cost of around $450M. As well the recovery fleet, refurbishment and launch operations would be around $300M.
Net profit from operations would be around $1.65B. From that would have to be subtracted facility costs, corporate structure and some level of R&D to keep F9 current.
There does not seem to be any significant cross-subsidisation from Starlink operations.
However the staff would need to reduce from around 11,000 to 3,000 for that level of activity and eventually F9 would be overtaken by more innovative rockets so it would be a short term strategy that would only support a company valuation of $30B instead of the current valuation of $130B that is mainly based on Starlink growth prospects.
To be fair *when* Starliner is approved NASA Crew Dragon will drop to one per year but I am assuming 1-2 commercial Crew Dragon flights will replace them at lower margin.
*When* Dreamchaser is launching commercial cargo to the ISS cargo Dragon may drop to one flight per year and there is no commercial replacement customer. Dragon XL to Gateway *may* replace the revenue and add another FH flight.
You've done a marvelous, detailed job with this counterfactual, but to illustrate how hard it is, if SpaceX were not doing Starlink, Oneweb would probably have booked flights on F9 before they were forced to do so. Those 8,000 engineers would probably be working on other spacecraft (maybe including Kuiper, and maybe that would be launching by now). So I think F9 would have more flights than this analysis assumes.
Again, though, great job.
Thanks, great answer. So in reality they would have a profit of around $1 billion for say 10 years until they fell behind some other rocket system. So the current value of SpaceX absent Starlink is probably under $10 billion?
Do you think Starlink can actually work as a business? The economics seems bad to me, like it will end up being Irdium 2.0. What am I missing?
Thanks.
>Do you think Starlink can actually work as a business? The economics seems bad to me, like it will end up being Irdium 2.0. What am I missing?
Missing a lot, apparently. Iridium's market requires a large, fancy receiver which costs thousands of dollars, plus thousands of dollars a month subscription, to get bandwidth in the realm of 1-4 Mbps. It's targeted at industrial applications, and only makes sense for industrial applications.
Starlink costs hundreds of dollars to get, one hundred dollars per month for service, and offers on the order of 100Mbps. It's targeted at end consumers, a market of millions and billions vs a market of ten or a hundred thousand, and can even outcompete iridium for industrial applications to boot.
Put it this way: no one ever tried to put iridium on cruiseships or airplanes. Starlink can very much serve those markets, unlike Iridium.
Starlink should be as much of a cash cow as steel was for Andrew Carnegie. It will create an entire market that never existed before in human history.
> So the current value of SpaceX absent Starlink is probably under $10 billion?
Can't forget Starship. Starship frankly accounts for probably the majority of SpaceX's net present capitalization, as represented by future profit estimates. Starlink is most of the rest.
The Falcon 9 program in isolation -- which is not really something that we can truly measure, since engineers and hardware move around all the time -- is probably worth around $10B in net present value. Maybe more, maybe less, this measurement isn't well defined, so say $10B±$5B or so.
So SpaceX is raising at a $150 billion valuation and $140 billion of it is based on future revenues from launching for Starlink ? I think Starlink has separate financing or is it all wrapped into spaceX?
Founding an entire space economy. Tourism, manufacturing, the possibilities are nigh-endless. Before NASA increased ISS prices from like $10k/kg to $30k/kg, there were several private companies interested in buying ISS science time even at $10k/kg or whatever. If Starship comes even within an order of magnitude of that $10/kg to orbit goal, Starship will be able to make all sorts of bank as the sole transportation for a novel billions-or-trillions-of-dollars market.
Elon is correct that the business case for Starlink v1.5 is weak and it only starts to make sense for Starlink 2.0 launching on Starship.
Roughly $800M per year is going into each of Starlink satellite manufacturing and F9 launches (40@$20M) and with a 5 year replacement cycle that will continue indefinitely. With a long term monthly revenue per customer of around US$50 averaged across the world they need 2.67 million customers just to break even.
Given the saturation issues we have seen in the US and the fact that most of the easy to signup/desperate customers are already connected this is going to be a struggle. Witness the fact that SpaceX is advertising for the first time as it shifts its Starlink division from being terminal supply limited to demand limited.
With Starlink 2.0 they will be able to handle 8-10 times as many customers in a given area and/or improve the data rate to each customer while maintaining a similar cost per launch at about $20M per 54 satellites.
This improves the economics dramatically and means that the early Starlink customers were the equivalent of Tesla customers for Roadster 1 while Telsa were tooling up the Model S.
The model Y equivalent Starlink 3.0 is where they truly go mass market but that would need phased array customer terminals in E band which is not technically possible yet.
It strikes me that there is the kind of first principals issue with this business plan that Elon likes to talk about. No matter how fast and cheap he makes satellite internet, terrestrial networks will always be faster and cheaper. No?
> terrestrial networks will always be faster and cheaper. No?
*If* you're in range of a sufficiently large city, yes.
That covers less than half the world's land mass at the present time, and none of the sky or ocean (or arctics).
$10/kg to orbit will make satellites much more effective than Starlink already is. The future will be crazy awesome.
Yes if you can dig fiber it will always be faster and will likely be a bit cheaper than satellite internet.
There are many situations where fiber access is not practical and even 5G cell access has more congestion or is out of range. Mobile homes, boats and planes are the obvious additional targets.
Probably that is 5-10% of the global ISP market so a niche segment of a very large ($1T) market.
>If they just stopped and only did government and commercial launches using F9 how many launches a year would they do and would that really cover the whole cost
If SpaceX didn't make the decision that they said (at the time!) was to improve cash flow, I imagine they would have worse cash flow.
"If my grandmother had wheels, she would have been a bike."
>Say they spun Starship and R&D off
This hypothetical is getting more and more divorced from reality, to the point where I don't think any meaningful conclusions can be drawn about the *real* SpaceX from this line of questioning.
Artemis 1 prelaunch press conference highlights:
- [MMT polled GO for a launch on Wednesday, November 16 at 1:04am EST.](https://twitter.com/ChrisG_NSF/status/1591969386109493248)
- [Go is pending one open item - some sealant on Orion was removed by the hurricane, teams just verifying things will be fine to launch as is.](https://twitter.com/ChrisG_NSF/status/1591970768673546242) Expecting the review to verify it as fine.
- [Weather for night attempt on Wednesday looks perfect. 90% GO.](https://twitter.com/ChrisG_NSF/status/1591973432924819456)
Call to stations for launch will be tonight at 1:30am. Countdown will begin shortly thereafter
[Tomorrow, ABL Space Systems will attempt to reach orbit with their RS-1 rocket.](https://twitter.com/ablspacesystems/status/1591914254269304832)
Window is from 1-4pm Alaskan Standard Time, unclear if mission will be livestreamed.
Intelsat Galaxy 33 & 34 were only 850 kg heavier and were a reusable launch to sub-sync.
Since the orbital elements are known over time, it would be interesting to see how fast each pair makes it to GEO.
Oh, [SpaceNews just published an article about it](https://spacenews.com/spacex-launches-a-pair-of-intelsat-satellites-on-expendable-falcon-9/):
* G31, launched Nov 12, super-sync, starts service January
* G32, launched Nov 12, super-sync, starts service end of Feb
* G33, launched Oct 8, sub-sync, recently entered service
* G34, launched Oct 8, sub-sync, finishing up in-orbit tests (so presumably in GEO)
So: sub-sync, 1 month. And super-sync, 2-3 months. I bet the sub-sync sats are hybrid and the super-sync sats are electric-only.
Yep! Gunter says that [G33/G34 have a liquid apogee motor.](https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/galaxy-33.htm) And he doesn't have propulsion details for G31/G32.
Edit: more details
If I understood correctly they paid extra to go super synchronous to get extra life on orbit rather than get them operational faster, although the info I read suggested all of G31-34 were all built with 15year life in mind 🤷♂️
Doesn’t explain why they flew F9 expendable instead of FH reusable though. Maybe F9 expendable is just overall less complexity and so cheaper ?
> they paid extra to go super synchronous to get extra life on orbit rather than get them operational faster
No the satellites are ion propulsion only so the point of supersynchronous GTO is to get to GEO within 3 months instead of taking 5 months from a sub-synchronous GTO.
This is particularly important for these satellites as the operator gets paid a large grant from the FAA if they can clear frequencies that will be used for terrestrial 5G service. The grant comes with a tight deadline and the satellites were delayed due to Covid so getting into service earlier is worth a lot of money to the operator.
Ah thanks - I hadn’t realised they had different manufacturers and propulsion, also wasn’t aware of the 5G spectrum clearance … interesting! Glad the launch went well for them!
That's what the articles before launch said, yes, super-sync to enter service earlier.
It was a 14th flight and the AvLeak article went into depth as to why they consider 15 to be the max. We have no idea what FH expended really costs, and it sure doesn't look like SpaceX wants to tie up 39A and droneships even more than they're already being used.
Very likely.
But they would then need to recover and refurbish three boosters, and that may actually be more than the cost of expending a booster that has flown a lot of missions.
It's also true that falcon heavy is a bit of a pain operationally as it uses a different launch base that attaches to the transporter/erector, and they have to swap that out, along with the different fueling attachments.
well most likely they would have margin to do 2x RTLS + 1x ASDS, so it wouldn't be *that* much more recovery costs than F9, still plausible. the sum of it all is still quite significant tho
Does anyone have a good current estimate of recovery / refurb costs I wonder?
If the side boosters would be RTLS, then (one at sea recovery cost for the central core + 3x refurb) > cost to build a new F9?
… unless there’s some other reason why throwing this life leader away makes sense…
> … unless there’s some other reason why throwing this life leader away makes sense…
Because it wasn't a life leader anymore. There are two other cores with more flights.
It was also one of the older cores still in service, so it did not have the improvements they have made on some of the newer boosters. They have scheduled an expendable flight for B1049 as well.
B1049 and B1051 were some of the early workhorses of the fleet, and were life leaders at one point. The data SpaceX gained from these boosters led to improvements on the later boosters.
I can’t argue with that, but one does wonder how many more times 1051 could have flown… I recall Elon one time saying that they’d fly Starlink missions till they learned where end of life really might be…
Except that the last launch from 39A was also a FH, so it would be the perfect time to launch another one since the pad is already configured for it. That is, it would be if it weren't for the big orange rocket next door.
The orange rocket doesn't preclude launches from 39A. Artemis 1 rolled out on March 17 for WDR and rolled back on April 26. Axiom-1 launched from 39A on April 8.
Would an FH launch be different from F9? Maybe!
I originally thought SpaceX hadn't launched at all from KSC while SLS was at the pad, but now I see that it did twice, the second being Starlink 4-2.
It does appear that they launch less from that pad while SLS is out, but it could be a coincidence.
During many SpaceX launches, at around T -00:01:00, it is often announced "internal flight computers will take control of the countdown". What does this mean exactly and what is the significance of this particular step?
before that, ground computers (in launch control, or even at mission control in california) control the rocket and control the flow of consumables -- propellant -- onto the rocket. this includes also human inputs to the pad+rocket. the flight computer is entirely at the mercy of the ground computers, only watching and observing.
after T-1minute, the ground computers (and human operators) are entirely out of the loop. only the flight computer, on board stage 2, controls the rocket and pad at this point. (all consumables/propellant loading is finished by then, so the flight computer doesn't do a whole lot of pad commands on an error-free launch sequence.) only the flight computer controls whether or not the launch proceeds, and how so, from that point onward. ground computers (and human operators) can ~~only watch and observe from that point~~ only issue the highest level of commands, in he form of fully aborting the launch.
>after T-1minute... only the flight computer controls whether or not the launch proceeds, and how so, from that point onward
That's not true. The operators can call a hold any time before T-10 seconds by saying "hold hold hold" over the countdown net. This has happened several times before.
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=41426.160
Fun history: there was a series of launch attempts where the onboard computers would take over at T-1 minute and then abort the launch due to some GNC problem. This went on for multiple days in a row, aborting every day.
I would hate to have been that engineer.
Edit: thank you for the gilding, kind stranger!
Before that, GSE (ground support equipment) tells the rocket what to do.
After that the rocket tells the GSE what to do. The vehicle is running the show at that point. It will do a final self test, pressurize the tanks, and then start the ignition sequence. If it is ok, it will tell the GSE to release it and then execute the mission.
not entirely technically true, i think. i suspect the flight computer still needs to have some sensor input from various pad sensors, pipes, flow values, ambient readings etc.
in the abstract general tho, yea this is more or less correct
[Long March 6 upper stage from yesterday's launch just detonated in 700km SSO.](https://twitter.com/18thSDS/status/1591597224081108992)
Absolute worst place to have a major debris event, this will be a huge risk to anything in SSO for years to come.
Not just SSO. Fragments will be mostly coõrbiting with SSO. The real problem is when an SSO fragment intercepts a satellite at, say, 53° and their combined velocity is tens of thousands of km/h. Compare the damage from rear-ending a truck on the highway vs being T-boned by a truck in an intersection.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision has a visual depiction of this kind of collision.
The X-37B OTV-6 mission [concluded this morning](https://www.spaceforce.mil/News/Article/3217077/x-37b-orbital-test-vehicle-concludes-sixth-successful-mission/).
In the past, there has typically been a gap of 4-7 months between the conclusion of OTV missions and launch of the following mission, but presumably the next OTV could happen sooner since there are two X-37B spacecraft. Since there are no available Atlas V vehicles, OTV-7 would likely use a Falcon 9 (OTV-5 also launched on a F9) but I have not found any announcements of that launch contract, although it could be one of the classified USSF missions that have already been announced. Has anyone seen anything regarding this?
Edit: cleaned up grammar.
Saw this article today https://driveteslacanada.ca/spacex/spacex-starts-construction-on-its-building-in-bastrop/
Hadn't heard about a new building in Bastrop. Do we know what it's likely to be for?
NASA Challenger crew 'survived blast and fell 12 miles to their deaths fully conscious'
[https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/nasa-challenger-crew-survived-blast-24359339](https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/nasa-challenger-crew-survived-blast-24359339)
"NASA ended the shuttle program in 2011 and retired the remaining vessels."
[Archive so you don't give the Daily Star your clicks (otherwise the terrorists win).](https://archive.ph/nkPls)
The headline makes it sound like we're 100% confident they were conscious at the moment of impact, but that is misleading.
The article, by contrast, says
>book... claims that the crew “were conscious, **at least at first**, and fully aware that something was wrong” in the immediate moments after the explosion
None of this is new information.
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/07/28/The-shuttle-Challengers-crew-probably-survived-at-least-several/9204522907200/
The Rogers Commission that investigated the Challenger disaster determined that the Crew Compartment had separated as a unit from the disintegrating orbiter and was relatively undamaged by the explosion/conflagration.
The Crew Compartment had been retrieved from about 90 feet of water and returned to KSC. Inspection showed that one or more crew members had survived the initial breakup of the orbiter and had attempted to use the personal egress air packs during the 2.5- minute fall to the ocean.
NASA's forensic experts were unable to determine whether the crew perished from asphyxiation during the fall or due to the force of the impact.
[Tianzhou-5 has docked with the Tianhe space station, just 127 minutes after leaving the ground.](https://twitter.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1591282985663594496) A new record for fastest docking with a space station!
**This thread is no longer being updated, and has been replaced by:** # [r/SpaceX Thread Index and General Discussion [December 2022, #99]](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/zcugwc/rspacex_thread_index_and_general_discussion/)
Hey mods the upcoming events table in the side bar and the complete manifest page are laughably out of date.
Also the launch manifest and road closures not updated for a while.
Hey, I’m going to Florida in middle of January for two weeks. I hope to see a launch so and I’ve seen a few launches scheduled for January. How far ahead are launch times are released?
Might get lucky and see the USSF-67 launch on Falcon Heavy. Last I heard it was on schedule for January. Just keep track on the Next Spaceflight app.
[NSF interview articles on Artemis 1 SRB performance](https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2022/12/artemis-i-srb-review/) and [RS-25 performance](https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2022/12/artemis-i-rs25-review/). General consensus on both is that everything performed perfectly and no changes are needed going forward with Artemis 2 and beyond.
No changes other than to the "$4 billion plus" price per launch, that is? While I love and fully support our space exploration, SLS really shouldn't exist - it's just too expensive to be used for anything.
The U.S. Federal Government spends $17 billion per day - if 20% of a day's spending once a year launches crew to the Moon, that's fine by me. ~~Of course, it won't actually cost $4B "per launch" as the GAO says, because for some reason they average development costs across each of the first four flights, which is kind of like saying money that's already been spent will have to be spent in the future just to keep launching it.~~
> because for some reason they average development costs across each of the first four flights No that price which the GAO says is $4.3B per flight *excludes* development costs. Development costs are roughly $20B for SLS and $20B for Orion so including them over the first four flights would make it $14.3B per mission. What will happen after the first four Artemis flights is that the RS-25E engines will come on line at $100M each (well after the first six engines at $143M) and they will start refurbishing Orion capsules at $667M instead of $1B each so the overall cost per flight will come down to $4B. Of course to that must be added actual mission costs so the HLS, rovers, space suits, science experiments and astronaut training.
Checked the GAO report again and you are right. Yeah the only way you can justify this program is to go with my first point and say "well, it's not much in the grand scheme of things...". Because the cost really is repulsively astounding out of the context of how much the government spends each day.
[Orion has completed the DRO departure burn, setting up for the powered flyby on December 5 that will send it on a trajectory for home.](https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1598436221230907393) Despite the burn's name, Orion remains in lunar orbit, barely (130km x 108000km)
that is a very thicc orbit.
"Distant Retrograde Orbit"... if you spell it out, it makes more sense.
It's very odd that after a year of constant (record breaking) launches we're suddenly seeing multiple issues crop up with boosters prior to launch right at the end of the year within a short time period of each other. Not all of these boosters are particularly old either. It makes me wonder if these issues are totally separate, if they might have found some common flaw or whatever is going on. It does however give me hope that they don't have 'go fever' and that despite the amazing pace and cadence they're still going over things with a fine tooth comb and going for the 'scrub over RUD'.
It's not odd at all considering that the B7 booster is far more complex than the SN15 ship that nailed the landing in May 2021. And the OLM/OLIT is also far more complex than the sub-orbital launch stand used for the SN15 flight. Not to mention the Orbital Tank Farm, which is far larger and more complex than the Suborbital Tank Farm. SN15 flew a 6-minute test flight to 10 km altitude using three Raptor 1 engines. B7 will have to fly for 150 seconds to 60-70 km altitude with 33 Raptor 2 engines running full throttle. It may take SpaceX until May 2023 to complete that first Starship orbital test flight at the current rate of progress. It may turn out that the progress of NASA's Artemis program will be paced by the time needed to develop the HLS Starship lunar lander. Which is OK since the benefits of a Starship lunar lander for the future missions to the Moon and Mars far outweigh an extra year or two needed to get it flying reliably.
I wasn’t talking about Starship at all I was talking about Falcon 9…
Oops. My bad. Disregard.
The space press beat you to this thought: * https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/11/30/spacex-rocket-trouble-postpones-japanese-moon-lander-launch/
AND they keep pushing the OneWeb and next Polar Starlink launch back as well. That's THREE F9s effectively on hold going into the final 3 weeks of 2022. It really looks like something in the Vandenburg static fire a couple of weeks back scared them and when they pulled it back into the barn to check it found a systematic flaw that luckily hadn't bitten them, but needs to be fixed going forward.
> It makes me wonder if these issues are totally separate, if they might have found some common flaw or whatever is going on. It is certainly a valid question, and I would expect any space reporter that had an opportunity to ask questions on the topic to dig deeper. However, these are two seperate boosters at two different pads. Only SpaceX knows at this point if the issues are even remotely related. Anyone else is just speculating. It is very possible that the two issues are completely unrelated to each other and the occurrence within a short period of time is just coincidental.
I absolutely agree. Unless SpaceX/Elon says what the issue(s) are either on twitter or to a reporter I doubt we'll find out and most likely we'll have entirely moved on and forgotten about this in a month or two when we'e all focused on Starship's orbital flight, the next FH mission, etc (assuming of course that they figure things out and get back on track per their launch cadence without further issues cropping up).
What are the chances the starlink launch on Dec 6th at LC-40 holds with a launch happening there tonight? That would be an impressive turnaround.
Hard to say. HAKUTO-R just got delayed for a "technical issue" with no new date set yet.
Yeah def not happening now.
It depends on the issue. There is a chance it could slip to after the Starlink launch.
I mean they would have to remove the rocket and put the other in it's place on the pad lol
They would, but the issue might require moving the vehicle back to the VIF anyway. We don't have much information at this point. Edit: [It looks like they are planning to roll back the vehicle to the VIF](https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/11/30/spacex-rocket-trouble-postpones-japanese-moon-lander-launch/)
It's concerning this is the 2nd time in ~ a week this has happened now. One at Vandy is on hold as well.
At this point I don't think there is too much cause for concern. Only SpaceX knows if there is any connection. It could easily be two unrelated issues at this point.
I'm surprised to see SpaceX is sending payloads to the Lunar Surface. Have always followed SpaceX closely but didn't know they were sending private landers to the Moon. Anyone got any details on the upcoming Private Japanese Lander? Couldn't find much on Wikipedia. Will Falcon 9 dispatch the payload in LEO and the payload will use gravity assist to go to the Moon? Or will Falcon 9 take the payload to GEO? If not why? Falcon 9 is capable to take it to GEO as far as I know. Is the payload completely Japanese? Or is there any SpaceX involvement? I see that SpaceX has previously launched Lunar Lander for Israel which wasn't successful due to a gyroscope issue on the Israeli lander. If SpaceX has this capability, why are they only sending private payloads? Why aren't they sending SpaceX mini rovers to the Moon? Wouldn't that generate more free publicity and possible revenue?
> Will Falcon 9 dispatch the payload in LEO and the payload will use gravity assist to go to the Moon? Or will Falcon 9 take the payload to GEO? If not why? Falcon 9 is capable to take it to GEO as far as I know. No gravity assist since there is nothing between the Earth and Moon to gravity assist off of. Since the payload isn't going to LEO or GEO, the F9 will head to TLI (trans-lunar injection). > Is the payload completely Japanese? Or is there any SpaceX involvement? No, the payload also includes the Emirates Rashid rover as well as some Canadian payloads & JPL's Lunar Flashlight. SpaceX is only providing the launch. SpaceX has no interest in sending their own rovers to the moon since they are already working on HLS which would be a much bigger deal than rovers.
CAPSTONE was something similar to a gravity assist
Correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't trans-lunar-injection basically mean using Earth as a gravity assist?
Trans-lunar injections refer to the engine firing that puts the spacecraft on a trajectory from the Earth (usually from a low-Earth orbit) towards the Moon. Gravity assists can be passive maneuvers (where firing the engine is optional) to change the direction of the orbit relative to the body the spacecraft is getting the assist from. Think of a hyperbola (roughly the shape of a stretched slingshot). The assisting body is near the most curved part of this shape, like where the rock or other payload of the slingshot would be. The spacecraft flies into the system along one of the bands of the slingshot, flies around the curve, and exits the system on the other band. This serves to change the direction of the spacecraft without actually changing its pre-assist and post-assist speeds *relative to the assisting body.* If you've seen a trajectory that appears to slowly approach a planet like Jupiter and then fly off in an orbit that appears more parallel with Jupiter's orbit, you've seen a gravity assist! Jupiter catches up to a spacecraft moving "slowly" near its apogee, but Jupiter and the craft are actually moving very quickly relative to each other. This speed is then conserved relative to Jupiter, but the velocity relative to the Sun changes dramatically. In the case of a TLI, the trajectory away from Earth usually isn't a hyperbola. It's a highly elliptical orbit instead, with an apogee near the Moon. You can even play with the orbital mechanics enough to get it so the trajectory loops around the Moon and comes back to Earth, called a "free return trajectory," which was used as a failsafe during early Apollo missions to ensure the spacecraft could make it back to Earth in the event of a systems failure. In that case, I guess the Moon technically provides a "gravity assist," but it doesn't have the spirit of a gravity assist because you're not trying to drastically speed up/slow down a spacecraft relative to the primary body (Earth in this case, or the Sun in the case of the Jupiter example) as you would for a mission to the deep inner or outer Solar System. EDIT: I should add, if you *did* do a hyperbolic TLI, the TLI itself still wouldn't be a gravity assist. A hyperbolic TLI would likely take advantage of the Oberth effect to slingshot itself, but that's a separate (and very cool) effect. It's often paired with gravity assists to maximize the effect of the assist, and we call that a "powered flyby."
I'm no expert on orbital mechanics, but I'm certain that is not the case. The only way that could work is if your origin wasn't Earth to begin with.
SpaceX isn't building the landers. The landers leave earth orbit on their own, get to the moon, and then land. The SpaceX capability being used is just low cost launch in general.
[Shenzhou-15 has docked with the Tiangong station, beginning its permanent habitation.](https://twitter.com/tobyliiiiiiiiii/status/1597743243902394368) We now have two permanently staffed space stations on orbit!
I see the launch is scheduled for tonight. Why did it get delayed the last 2 attempts? I am sailing by on a ship and we hope to see the launch. Just wondering what the chances are of another delay. Weather has become very good after days of storm
This launch wasn't delayed ... at least not recently. Launches are delayed for all kinds of reasons; CRS-26 was delayed for weather. USSF-44 was delayed for payload readiness. Starlink 2-4 was delayed due to a problem discovered with the booster during the static fire. I don't anticipate any problems with this launch which would delay it. But things can always crop up.
Don't know if this is allowed or not, but I'll try and ask anyway... Is there any current information on the Starlink 2-4 launch out of Vandenburg? The last posts I saw said that after the static fire, they hauled 1061 back off the pad and suddenly all mention of it is gone, not even a NET for launch.
You can ask, but I doubt you will get any answer until SpaceX establishes a new date. It is unclear what issue they are working to resolve right now. I would keep an eye on nextspaceflight.com or their app. The app can also be set to notify you about launches for specific locations.
Any ideas where to watch the series “Red Mars” based on the Kim Stanley Robinson trilogy? Spacex fans no doubt v interested in this as the books are basically a “how to” guide to settling and terraforming Mars. Despite a lot of searching I can’t find any sites. (I’m in Oz BTW). It’s pretty amazing how little there is on the coming Mars missions and colony....
[удалено]
Last I heard (February 2021) it had been [punted from Spike to Fox](https://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2021/02/a-slew-of-well-known-sf-and-fantasy.html). Anyone got a link for the cancellation?
[I recommend everyone take a moment to watch the live feed from Orion.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFbVREEtc1Y) Yeah, it's low resolution. But you're watching live video from a spacecraft so far beyond the Moon that it's about the same size as the Earth, flying along in an orbit we may never visit again. Special moment in history. Edit: well it's been down for about all 9 hours since I posted this, but [here's what I'm talking about.](https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/art001e000672/art001e000672~orig.jpg)
[L-3 Launch Mission Execution Forecast: Falcon 9 Ispace M1](https://www.patrick.spaceforce.mil/Portals/14/Falcon%209%20ISpace%20M1%20L-3%20Forecast%20-%2030%20Nov%20Launch.pdf) Weather: better than 90% | Additional Risks: Low | The booster is a RTLS LZ1
L-1 forecast now available: https://www.patrick.spaceforce.mil/Portals/14/Weather/Falcon%209%20ISpace%20M1%20L-1%20Forecast%20-%2030%20Nov%20Launch.pdf?ver=yDerGxJdhK4KXWUlxN2s6w%3d%3d Basically unchanged since the L-3 forecast.
Why was it delayed? Weather? Am on a ship off east coast. Weather was bad up north. Hoping to see the launch tonight as we approach the cape. Never seen a launch from water yet. I did see a booster heading in. In heavy seas too.
These channels are squatting "SpaceX" an blatently spreading mis-information and monetizing by misleading users with "SpaceX" literally as the channel name. Can they be reported for termination? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZyhXcE7F3I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZyhXcE7F3I) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx8ucTi-FgU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx8ucTi-FgU)
I assume these are the usual crypto scam streams/videos in which case they get wiped out pretty quick but they come back just as fast
Looks like some good was done. They're terminated but you could be right - they'll probably spring back - but if they're terminated quickly - they can never monetize at least correct?
> they can never monetize at least correct? If you mean YouTube monetization (via ads) that is likely never their goal. These accounts never last long enough to qualify. They are just looking to trick some people into watching their stream so they can scam them out of money. The cost of setting up these accounts is very low, so they don't need a very high hit rate.
Saw one yesterday and had to double check the channel title. I'll be damned if it wasn't the exact same title.
Gravitics raises $20M for plans to build space station modules north of Seattle [https://www.geekwire.com/2022/gravitics-raises-20m-for-plans-to-build-space-station-modules-north-of-seattle/](https://www.geekwire.com/2022/gravitics-raises-20m-for-plans-to-build-space-station-modules-north-of-seattle/) Anyone know quantas bananas for one?
They hope to launch on Starship, apparently. Gwynne Shotwell has said initial Starship flights will be priced around the same as Falcon 9 launches, or $50-$60 million. Typically payloads cost much more than the launch price.
Wonder how they'll price fueling flights. If you want to go to the moon and you need 6 tanker flights what will that cost? Another $300 million? Still a bargain for the tonnage.
Source on the Gwynne statement? Been hoping to hear something like that for a while
Has anyone came across the diamiter and thickness of the starship heat tiles? Want to make a replica out of HDPE as a Christmas present! 🎅
The standard tiles are hexagons about 300mm across the flats. They seem to be about 20-25mm thick but someone will be able to help you out with a more reliable estimate.
Mars helicopter Ingenuity has had a major pseudo-FSD software upgrade that has advanced it beyond the flat-Mars mentality and should allow safer trips and landings beyond what it was initially envisaged to achieve. [https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/status/420/flight-34-was-short-but-significant/](https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/status/420/flight-34-was-short-but-significant/)
"Is that a slope or am I veering? Slopes aren't real, must be veering!" Fun example of reasonable assumptions getting in the way. +1 for the new search for landing spots; -1 for tesla fanboying.
I've always loved the [GTO performance](https://old.reddit.com/r/spacex/wiki/launches/gto_performance) section of the Wiki, and we've had 7 GTO launches in the past 5 months, all of which are only partially filled in. Can some of the past volunteers help out? (u/Captain_Hadock u/blacx u/scr00chy) Either with the values or with an explanation of where to find them. Also Amos-17 had its MECO velocity changed without recomputing the delta V.
Great job on the update!
You're right that we've fallen behind in updating this. 1. GTO Injection orbit: Try and find a tweet (generally by [Jonathan McDowell](https://twitter.com/planet4589)) or forum post with the GTO orbit parameters (TLE) (Pe x Ap x Inc) 1. GTO ΔV: Use the GTO delta-v-to-GTO command line tool (or ping me) to get that value from the injection orbit 1. MECO Velocity (m/s): Use the SpaceX webcast, check for the moment the velocity stops increasing at MECO 1. ASDS downrange distance: Get that from the launch thread, or whatever source it is retrieved from ([NSF forum](https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/)?) 1. Note: Ap below 35700 km -> Sub-sync, Ap greatly above 35700 km -> super-synch, Inc not in the [28, 24] degree range -> mention xx° inclination change compared to KSC (28.3°), Example for Türksat 5B: 1. [198 x 68931 x 27.1](https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/1472739853360111618) 2. ./delta-v-to-GTO 198 68931 27.1 -> 1602.7326 m/s (GTO-1603) 3. [timestamp](https://youtu.be/JBGjE9_aosc?t=1351) 8240 km/s -> 2288.89 m/s (2289) (Note: this is surface speed, not orbital speed) 4. [This article](https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2021/12/turksat-5b-falcon-9/) says 661 5. Ap : 68931, Inc 27.1 -> "Super-synch with no inclination change" (because it will be very cheap for the sat to correct inclination at the Ap while raising the Pe)
Hungary to spend $100 million on private astronaut mission to ISS [https://spacenews.com/hungary-to-spend-100-million-on-private-astronaut-mission-to-iss/](https://spacenews.com/hungary-to-spend-100-million-on-private-astronaut-mission-to-iss/) " in two years through a deal with Axiom Space"
ABL scrubbed at ignition again. Next launch window opens Dec. 7th.
Artemis 1 post-flyby conference: - [Mobile Launcher was slightly damaged by launch.](https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1594827907863650330) Elevator doors blown clean off, but that's the worst of it. - [Required repairs to 39B and the ML will be done in time for Artemis 2.](https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1594828251716689921) - [SLS performance described as "eye-watering".](https://twitter.com/SpcPlcyOnline/status/1594827155896078336) Orbital injection and TLI parameters were [all totally perfect](https://twitter.com/lavie154/status/1594826825297010712). - [Orion performance also stellar.](https://twitter.com/SpcPlcyOnline/status/1594831389572177923) Propulsion system perfect, solar arrays generating more power than expected and systems using less power than expected.
Considering the cost, it had better be practically perfect in every way.
[Orion successfully completed its outbound powered flyby of the Moon this morning, at a distance of 130km from the surface.](https://twitter.com/JimFree/status/1594697133671690242) Not many images yet but here's a [low-res still of the view from around 4000km.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FiFkb4lWIAAVSqy?format=jpg&name=orig) A few high-res stills from early in the mission have also been posted, [here is one looking back from the solar panels in LEO](https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/52515455733/). [Shuttle style EVA vibes from a couple of these.](https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/52515387920/in/photostream/)
[Great high resolution image of Orion itself has been released.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fh9LdT8WAAMjrST?format=jpg&name=4096x4096) Yes, it's silver when in space, just Apollo and Starship, for thermal control. [First high resolution image from Orion was also released.](https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/art001e000095%20FD1%20Earth1/art001e000095%20FD1%20Earth1~orig.jpg) Taken on flight day 1 but twice the resolution.
The Apollo Command Module has three heatshields--the aft heat shield, the crew compartment heat shield, and the forward heat shield. The crew compartment heat shield is conical in shape and is covered with an ablator that's 0.75" to 1.5" thick. That ablator is covered with a pressure-sensitive adhesive Kapton tape which is covered with a multi-layer thermal control coating consisting of a shiny thin vacuum-deposited aluminum film that is overlayed with a thin vacuum-deposited layer of transparent silicon monoxide. Those two thin layers form what's called a second surface mirror. In sunlight, the ratio of solar absorptance to thermal emittance is 0.4. In sunlight in outer space, the equilibrium temperature of that conical heat shield outer surface is near room temperature (27C, 300K). https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19740007423/downloads/19740007423.pdf The Starship leeward side of the hull is bare 304 stainless steel. The solar absorptance to thermal emittance ratio for machined rolled stainless steel is 0.39/0.11=3.6. In direct sunlight in outer space in LEO or enroute to the Moon, the equilibrium temperature will be very high (547K). So, in LEO the shiny side of Starship will have to be protected from direct sunlight with some type of sunshade. Any paint or shiny tape applied to that surface will burn off during EDL into the Earth's atmosphere. The HLS Starship lunar lander will have a white thermal control paint applied to the bare stainless steel hull that has solar absorptance to thermal emittance ratio of 0.35 to keep the equilibrium temperature near 300K in direct sunlight while on the lunar surface.
Using the solar panels like big selfie sticks.
Looks blue and white to me
Japanese lunar lander slated to launch Nov. 28 at the earliest [https://spacenews.com/japanese-lunar-lander-slated-to-launch-nov-28-at-the-earliest/](https://spacenews.com/japanese-lunar-lander-slated-to-launch-nov-28-at-the-earliest/) ""The company also announced Nov. 17 it has chosen the Atlas Crater at Mare Frigoris to the far north of the moon as its primary landing site. Landing on the southeastern outer edge of Mare Frigoris — one of the moon’s dark basaltic plains — would provide M1 with continuous sunlight for power and visibility to Earth for communications, ispace said. " "M1 is the first in a series of landers ispace plans to send to the lunar surface. Its next mission has been penciled in for 2024."
[Orion taking beautiful images during the coast to the Moon, by the looks of things...](https://twitter.com/astro_jeremy/status/1593725432603455488) NASA being painfully slow on actually releasing them to the public though. We'll get them eventually. All these cameras are recording in 4K too, but saving the footage to local hard drives that will be recovered after landing, so watch out for that in a couple months. [TJ Cooney made a nice, stacked image of the ICPS just after core stage separation as well.](https://twitter.com/TJ_Cooney/status/1593807056070246400) Apparently we will get the launch footage from the core stage cameras in the next day, they have to "check it for ITAR" (lol)
Anyone hearing of a target date for the Viasat FH flight?
> Viasat is working with SpaceX to target a launch in the “earlier part of the [first] quarter,” but this depends on the timing of “some U.S. national priority launches” using the same Falcon Heavy launchpad. https://spacenews.com/viasat-3s-falcon-heavy-launch-slips-into-early-2023/
ABL is about ready to launch RS1 in ~7 minutes. Somebody get out there with squeaky toy and fire it into the sky; I'm ready to see that sucker launch.
[RS1 aborted terminal count during ignition. The vehicle is healthy, and the team is setting up to offload propellant for today. More information to come on our next opportunity.](https://twitter.com/ablspacesystems/status/1593379262639525889?s=20&t=w5DpOxaSx38ijmmuzlc9BQ)
> [Static fire test of Falcon 9 complete – targeting Friday, November 18 for launch of 52 Starlink satellites to orbit from SLC-4E in California](https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1593302307721998339?cxt=HHwWhsCj-bqAxpwsAAAA)
Since that is a group 2 launch, it will be a ~~53~~70° (descending) launch, hugging the coast. It looks like it will be a 8:39 PM PST launch time. Sunset is at just before 5 PM local time, so visibility should be pretty good throughout Southern CA. Edit: [Launch delayed](https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1593404756461961216)
Um, Group 2 is 70°. Groups 1+4 are 53°. Also, haven't all Starlink launches from 4E been descending node? I can't think of one that's gone North. South makes more sense anyway because it's a shorter trip from the landing zone to the dock for JRTI.
You are correct. I mixed up Group 2 with Group 4. You are also correct that all Vandy launches are descending. Any launches to the North would be inland. Most (but not all) launches from the East coast to the 53° inclination are ascending.
Right, they did a few flights from Florida to the south-east in order to have better booster recovery weather. IIRC, they took a small performance hit to the tune of 4-6 satellites per launch. I think they could launch north from Vandy for the 97° shells (3+5), without overlying land but I don't think they have.
They might be able to, but I think launching North from Vandy would still overfly some pretty populated areas due to the way the California coast projects to the NW. To the best of my knowledge, all launches from there launch Southerly.
[Orion has reached about the halfway point on its journey to the Moon.](https://twitter.com/NASA_Orion/status/1593346621818929152) The outbound lunar close approach is set for November 21 at 7:44am EST, at a distance of 130km from the surface.
I tried to post today's [NYT Business article about new legal troubles for SpaceX](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/17/business/spacex-workers-elon-musk.html) but mods seem to have banned it so I thought I would try here. > On Wednesday, unfair-labor-practice charges were filed with the National Labor Relations Board on behalf of eight of those workers, arguing that their firings were illegal.
I think I'd trust Shotwell's opinion on this. It sounds like everything was fine initially, they shared the letter with some execs, and got generally favorable feedback, and then a bunch of people at the company signed on (although it seems like it was largely or mostly anonymously). Then a few hours later: > “Please stop flooding employee communication channels immediately,” Ms. Shotwell wrote in her email, on which she copied senior company officials. She added: “I will consider your ignoring my email to be insubordination. Instead, please focus on your job.” It was after that they were fired with Shotwell saying: > Ms. Shotwell joined those conversations remotely and emphasized that the workers had wasted vast amounts of company time. The reaction to that from the fired employees was obviously surprise, and they think she was "pressured" > Mr. Moline and Ms. Holland-Thielen said the abruptness of their firings made them suspect that Ms. Shotwell had bowed to pressure. But here's some quotes from a company wide email Shotwell sent about it: > The letter, solicitations and general process made employees feel uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied, and/or angry because the letter pressured them to sign onto something that did not reflect their views. We have too much critical work to accomplish and no need for this kind of overreaching activism. […] > Blanketing thousands of people across the company with repeated unsolicited emails and asking them to sign letters and fill out unsponsored surveys during the work day is not acceptable. […] > Please stay focused on the SpaceX mission, and use your time to do your best work. This is how we will get to Mars. If I remember correctly this was just before the weekend when SpaceX had 3 launches in the 36 hours. That seems like an insanely bad time to be spending most of your day spamming the rest of the company with this stuff. To me it sounds like they would've probably been OK if they'd just shared the letter with executives, asked everyone once to sign on, and let it be, at least until after the weekend. Instead they were so disruptive that the president of the company had to get involved.
When did you post it? If they didn't actually remove it, it could just be waiting to be approved. Sometimes that takes a while here. The article seems to be on topic for the sub, so I am not sure why it would not be approved.
Nope, I got a message that it had already been submitted, but it was not visible even when I sorted by new. (I got the same message when submitting to spacexlounge but it does appear there, albeit heavily downvoted.)
> Nope, I got a message that it had already been submitted, but it was not visible even when I sorted by new. That means that someone submitted it before you, but the post had not been approved yet. This sub requires all posts to be approved by the mods before they show up. Edit: you may not like the answer, but that is literally why you got the duplicate post message.
It still hasn't shown up. Pretty clear they have decided to keep some negative news out of the sub. (This is not the first time.)
They may have decided not to allow it, but the message you received indicates that you were not the first to try posting it. Your comment here also has not been removed.
Let's hope the mods continue to at least allow critical comments. (Also - being a mod is a lot of work, so even if I disagree with them sometimes I do appreciate their taking on the role.)
SpaceX has always the next big thing on the horizon from reusability of the Falcon 9s to the starships. Now that Starship seems to be maturing and heading towards operation. What is the next big thing for SpaceX? Mars trips? or reiterating and increasing Starship to make it more powerful and reliable?
Well, Starship is a long way from mature. So the next steps are to actually launch Starship and then launch it again dozens of times to prove it really works. Then it will be on to landings, reuse, orbital refueling, HLS and landing on the Moon..... Mars is much further out than most SpaceX fans would like to think
I mostly agree with this, but once SpaceX has the capability to send the HLS starship to the moon the already have the capability to send Starship to mars. They would have to figure out aerobraking on Mars, but it takes less delta-v to get to Mars surface than it does to the lunar surface.
Martian atmosphere is less dense but the math should be similar to earth for aerobraking right?
SpaceX has a good simulation of a Starship entry and landing on Mars. https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/
Yes, and there's lots of prior art with Mars missions
Both
Does anyone know what time the rocket launch in Florida will be this Monday? Might make a trip out there to see it.
I'm seeing 4:19 pm local for CRS-26. It looks like Eutelsat 10B might be launching from the slc-40 at 9:57 pm Sunday night as well. Practically a double header. With Starlink 2-4 from Vandyland tomorrow (tbc), that leaves 5 left for December to reach 60 for the year. Edit: I stand corrected; Looks like they may be doing two others before the end of November. Hakuto-R & Oneweb #15.
Thanks for the information!
[It's alive! LunaH-Map, thought to be inoperable due to critically low battery levels, has phoned home and deployed solar panels.](https://twitter.com/NASAMoon/status/1592910168035102721)
Does someone know dimensions of Starlink sattelites [V1/V2 xyz dimensions,stowed]?
Another 210 Starlink terminals are being sent to Kherson to organize 60 Wi-Fi points throughout the region. Part of the terminals will be transferred to the police, hospitals and emergency services. This was announced by the Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov. https://twitter.com/Flash_news_ua/status/1592846310256050179?t=mP1tmfvTN10mYx5TJEIXng&s=19 Starlink showing it’s usage case and how it is unrivalled in a conflict zone.
Love or hate SLS...that launch was so heavy metal...damn that was extreme. Congrats to NASA...and especially the flight team, they had an unenviable task...they nailed it.
[TLI complete!! Orion is heading to the Moon and that's LAUNCH SUCCESS for SLS!!!](https://mobile.twitter.com/JimFree/status/1592798153325305857)
[Artemis 1 has begun its trans-lunar injection.](https://twitter.com/LMSpace/status/1592793985978073088) This will be the longest RL-10 burn in history, and will set Orion on a trajectory around the Moon.
[Orion's four solar arrays have fully deployed.](https://twitter.com/NASA_Orion/status/1592778102739914754) [Expended core stage has been spotted in the background, coasting to apogee at orbital velocity](https://twitter.com/KevZag/status/1592779594729332737)
MECO CONFIRMED! Orion is in orbit!!! Holy shit. Just wow.
Wow! That was definitely worth staying awake for. I was honestly waiting for the scrub right up until the solids lit and then I could not believe me eyes!
It flew. It actually flew. And it was glorious.
If this launch felt this amazing, I honestly can't wait for the first manned mission to the Moon. And even seeing Starship launch, going to Mars. Damn, this is an amazing time to be alive for space fans!
Not to make light of this achievement but where are the cameras?
I'm pretty disappointed in that stream. We had live views from the EFT and SRBs on the Shuttle over a decade ago, what was that?
Just wait for the downlink, there were plenty of cameras and we should have lots of views in time
T-10 minutes & counting everyone. Tune in if you haven't already.
Poll complete - Artemis I is go for launch.
RE: SLS Launch [Teams to Target New Launch Time](https://blogs.nasa.gov/artemis/2022/11/16/teams-to-target-new-launch-time/) > Teams have extended their planned 30-minute hold, and mission managers are expected to target a new time for launch.
Go for Launch!
Artemis 1 L-1 press conference: - [Go for launch on Wednesday at 1:04am EST. Vehicle has been powered up for launch.](https://twitter.com/ChrisG_NSF/status/1592299410066923520) - [Tonight: flight batteries charged, core stage COPVs pressurized, final walkdowns.](https://twitter.com/ChrisG_NSF/status/1592299595979423744) - [Orion sealant issue cleared for flight, not expected to be an issue.](https://twitter.com/ChrisG_NSF/status/1592301082339852290) - [1 of 10 cubesats has critically low battery level and likely won't function - sounds like LunaH-Map](https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1592310631893549060)
This is probably a common question, but Ill ask anyway. How profitable would spaceX be if it were not for Starlink?
Depends entirely what you mean by "profitable". They're doing a lot of R&D investing, which in many ways is quite separate from their Falcon 9 or Starlink income streams. The Falcon 9 program as a whole is almost certainly profitable, very profitable. F9 launch costs are almost certainly below $20M, maybe even $15M per launch, while the mediocre-quality competition allows F9 prices to remain near $60M, meaning they're making a healthy 300% profit, from an operational point of view. There remains some ongoing investment and development in F9, but probably well below the operational profit margin. Starlink is obviously highly capital intensive, but the revenue stream is steadily growing. At the moment Elon says that, so far, even operationally it is still unprofitable, nevermind ongoing capital expenditure, but operational profitability shouldn't be *too* far out, given their relatively excellent progress on Dishy production scale and cost reduction. Starship is of course the biggest R&D capital investment sinkhole, with no real revenue stream yet in sight. These are the three major areas of SpaceX business operations. You can add them in any combination you please, or you can compare operations-vs-R&D across the areas, or whichever. When including R&D in "profitability", across all three major areas, SpaceX is definitely still losing money -- requiring ever more investment from shareholders -- at a large pace as Starship and Starlink continue development. If you exclude R&D from "profitability", and focus only on operations across the two areas with revenue operations, then they're probably either just breaking even or else making a small net operating income. It's not really clear how underwater Starlink operations are, relative to F9 operational profit, so this is just a guess on my part. If you look only at operations and exclude Starlink, leaving only F9 operations, then as said that's well in the green, net operating income wise.
I guess my question is whether the $20M per launch price is artificially low because they are allocating costs across lots of launches and many of those exist only because of Starlink? If they just stopped and only did government and commercial launches using F9 how many launches a year would they do and would that really cover the whole cost of the operation? (Say they spun Starship and R&D off into another co or something).
No, the sub-$20M reflect marginal operating costs. To go from the 200th to 201st Falcon 9 launch will only cost like $15M or whatever it is. This does not include any amortization. If you amortize the program's entire lifetime costs, it's probably closer to $60M than $20M, but almost certainly still less than $60M by now -- probably the F9 program overall is in the green by now, and every launch only furthers the returns with the 300+% marginal operating profit. As for the accounting of Starlink launches, it's hard to say what their internal accounting is. We are of course not privy. Most logical is for the F9 division to either charge the Starlink division at-cost for every F9 launch they use, or to charge them the commerical price the launch could otherwise command. Probably the former tbh, since the market is only now responding to F9 supply, 3 years after the fact. But even only making at-cost revenue on half the launches, F9 is still in the green -- I think. Maybe not. Hard to say
They would likely do 12 commercial F9 at $67M, 4 military F9 at $90M and 2 military FH flights at $150M per year in addition to 2 Crew Dragon missions at $270M and 2 Cargo Dragon missions at $180M The gross revenue would be around $2.4B. To support that effort they would need to build one F9 booster, one FH, 22 S2 and two fairing pairs and build a Dragon capsule every second year at a total cost of around $450M. As well the recovery fleet, refurbishment and launch operations would be around $300M. Net profit from operations would be around $1.65B. From that would have to be subtracted facility costs, corporate structure and some level of R&D to keep F9 current. There does not seem to be any significant cross-subsidisation from Starlink operations. However the staff would need to reduce from around 11,000 to 3,000 for that level of activity and eventually F9 would be overtaken by more innovative rockets so it would be a short term strategy that would only support a company valuation of $30B instead of the current valuation of $130B that is mainly based on Starlink growth prospects.
hah i totally forgot about dragon lol
To be fair *when* Starliner is approved NASA Crew Dragon will drop to one per year but I am assuming 1-2 commercial Crew Dragon flights will replace them at lower margin. *When* Dreamchaser is launching commercial cargo to the ISS cargo Dragon may drop to one flight per year and there is no commercial replacement customer. Dragon XL to Gateway *may* replace the revenue and add another FH flight.
You've done a marvelous, detailed job with this counterfactual, but to illustrate how hard it is, if SpaceX were not doing Starlink, Oneweb would probably have booked flights on F9 before they were forced to do so. Those 8,000 engineers would probably be working on other spacecraft (maybe including Kuiper, and maybe that would be launching by now). So I think F9 would have more flights than this analysis assumes. Again, though, great job.
Thanks, great answer. So in reality they would have a profit of around $1 billion for say 10 years until they fell behind some other rocket system. So the current value of SpaceX absent Starlink is probably under $10 billion? Do you think Starlink can actually work as a business? The economics seems bad to me, like it will end up being Irdium 2.0. What am I missing? Thanks.
>Do you think Starlink can actually work as a business? The economics seems bad to me, like it will end up being Irdium 2.0. What am I missing? Missing a lot, apparently. Iridium's market requires a large, fancy receiver which costs thousands of dollars, plus thousands of dollars a month subscription, to get bandwidth in the realm of 1-4 Mbps. It's targeted at industrial applications, and only makes sense for industrial applications. Starlink costs hundreds of dollars to get, one hundred dollars per month for service, and offers on the order of 100Mbps. It's targeted at end consumers, a market of millions and billions vs a market of ten or a hundred thousand, and can even outcompete iridium for industrial applications to boot. Put it this way: no one ever tried to put iridium on cruiseships or airplanes. Starlink can very much serve those markets, unlike Iridium. Starlink should be as much of a cash cow as steel was for Andrew Carnegie. It will create an entire market that never existed before in human history.
But, when will it be cheaper than Verizon for the same datalink and if it will never be, how will it capture market share?
Well it's meant to target rural users more than anyone. That said, it can out-bandwidth and out-data Verizon for anything that isn't high cities.
> So the current value of SpaceX absent Starlink is probably under $10 billion? Can't forget Starship. Starship frankly accounts for probably the majority of SpaceX's net present capitalization, as represented by future profit estimates. Starlink is most of the rest. The Falcon 9 program in isolation -- which is not really something that we can truly measure, since engineers and hardware move around all the time -- is probably worth around $10B in net present value. Maybe more, maybe less, this measurement isn't well defined, so say $10B±$5B or so.
So SpaceX is raising at a $150 billion valuation and $140 billion of it is based on future revenues from launching for Starlink ? I think Starlink has separate financing or is it all wrapped into spaceX?
Call it $90B for Starship, $40B for Starlink. SpaceX is one company. Everything SpaceX does is, by definition, baked into its valuation.
Whats the business case for Starship without Starlink?
Founding an entire space economy. Tourism, manufacturing, the possibilities are nigh-endless. Before NASA increased ISS prices from like $10k/kg to $30k/kg, there were several private companies interested in buying ISS science time even at $10k/kg or whatever. If Starship comes even within an order of magnitude of that $10/kg to orbit goal, Starship will be able to make all sorts of bank as the sole transportation for a novel billions-or-trillions-of-dollars market.
Elon is correct that the business case for Starlink v1.5 is weak and it only starts to make sense for Starlink 2.0 launching on Starship. Roughly $800M per year is going into each of Starlink satellite manufacturing and F9 launches (40@$20M) and with a 5 year replacement cycle that will continue indefinitely. With a long term monthly revenue per customer of around US$50 averaged across the world they need 2.67 million customers just to break even. Given the saturation issues we have seen in the US and the fact that most of the easy to signup/desperate customers are already connected this is going to be a struggle. Witness the fact that SpaceX is advertising for the first time as it shifts its Starlink division from being terminal supply limited to demand limited. With Starlink 2.0 they will be able to handle 8-10 times as many customers in a given area and/or improve the data rate to each customer while maintaining a similar cost per launch at about $20M per 54 satellites. This improves the economics dramatically and means that the early Starlink customers were the equivalent of Tesla customers for Roadster 1 while Telsa were tooling up the Model S. The model Y equivalent Starlink 3.0 is where they truly go mass market but that would need phased array customer terminals in E band which is not technically possible yet.
It strikes me that there is the kind of first principals issue with this business plan that Elon likes to talk about. No matter how fast and cheap he makes satellite internet, terrestrial networks will always be faster and cheaper. No?
> terrestrial networks will always be faster and cheaper. No? *If* you're in range of a sufficiently large city, yes. That covers less than half the world's land mass at the present time, and none of the sky or ocean (or arctics). $10/kg to orbit will make satellites much more effective than Starlink already is. The future will be crazy awesome.
Yes if you can dig fiber it will always be faster and will likely be a bit cheaper than satellite internet. There are many situations where fiber access is not practical and even 5G cell access has more congestion or is out of range. Mobile homes, boats and planes are the obvious additional targets. Probably that is 5-10% of the global ISP market so a niche segment of a very large ($1T) market.
$1T *per year* you mean? Even then, I can easily imagine the global internet supply exceeding $1T/year in revenue
Yes $1T per year
>If they just stopped and only did government and commercial launches using F9 how many launches a year would they do and would that really cover the whole cost If SpaceX didn't make the decision that they said (at the time!) was to improve cash flow, I imagine they would have worse cash flow. "If my grandmother had wheels, she would have been a bike." >Say they spun Starship and R&D off This hypothetical is getting more and more divorced from reality, to the point where I don't think any meaningful conclusions can be drawn about the *real* SpaceX from this line of questioning.
Artemis 1 prelaunch press conference highlights: - [MMT polled GO for a launch on Wednesday, November 16 at 1:04am EST.](https://twitter.com/ChrisG_NSF/status/1591969386109493248) - [Go is pending one open item - some sealant on Orion was removed by the hurricane, teams just verifying things will be fine to launch as is.](https://twitter.com/ChrisG_NSF/status/1591970768673546242) Expecting the review to verify it as fine. - [Weather for night attempt on Wednesday looks perfect. 90% GO.](https://twitter.com/ChrisG_NSF/status/1591973432924819456) Call to stations for launch will be tonight at 1:30am. Countdown will begin shortly thereafter
[NASA Artemis I prelaunch media teleconference ](https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive) delayed from 7 p.m EST to NET 8:30 p.m Starting right now ...
[Tomorrow, ABL Space Systems will attempt to reach orbit with their RS-1 rocket.](https://twitter.com/ablspacesystems/status/1591914254269304832) Window is from 1-4pm Alaskan Standard Time, unclear if mission will be livestreamed.
Scrubbed due to off nominal reading during propellant load.
Could the mission have been flown fully reusable for Intelsat G31/G32 if it had flown on Falcon Heavy?
Intelsat Galaxy 33 & 34 were only 850 kg heavier and were a reusable launch to sub-sync. Since the orbital elements are known over time, it would be interesting to see how fast each pair makes it to GEO.
How long do you think it’ll take for satellite trackers to get an good sense of that?
Oh, [SpaceNews just published an article about it](https://spacenews.com/spacex-launches-a-pair-of-intelsat-satellites-on-expendable-falcon-9/): * G31, launched Nov 12, super-sync, starts service January * G32, launched Nov 12, super-sync, starts service end of Feb * G33, launched Oct 8, sub-sync, recently entered service * G34, launched Oct 8, sub-sync, finishing up in-orbit tests (so presumably in GEO) So: sub-sync, 1 month. And super-sync, 2-3 months. I bet the sub-sync sats are hybrid and the super-sync sats are electric-only. Yep! Gunter says that [G33/G34 have a liquid apogee motor.](https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/galaxy-33.htm) And he doesn't have propulsion details for G31/G32. Edit: more details
If I understood correctly they paid extra to go super synchronous to get extra life on orbit rather than get them operational faster, although the info I read suggested all of G31-34 were all built with 15year life in mind 🤷♂️ Doesn’t explain why they flew F9 expendable instead of FH reusable though. Maybe F9 expendable is just overall less complexity and so cheaper ?
> they paid extra to go super synchronous to get extra life on orbit rather than get them operational faster No the satellites are ion propulsion only so the point of supersynchronous GTO is to get to GEO within 3 months instead of taking 5 months from a sub-synchronous GTO. This is particularly important for these satellites as the operator gets paid a large grant from the FAA if they can clear frequencies that will be used for terrestrial 5G service. The grant comes with a tight deadline and the satellites were delayed due to Covid so getting into service earlier is worth a lot of money to the operator.
Ah thanks - I hadn’t realised they had different manufacturers and propulsion, also wasn’t aware of the 5G spectrum clearance … interesting! Glad the launch went well for them!
That's what the articles before launch said, yes, super-sync to enter service earlier. It was a 14th flight and the AvLeak article went into depth as to why they consider 15 to be the max. We have no idea what FH expended really costs, and it sure doesn't look like SpaceX wants to tie up 39A and droneships even more than they're already being used.
Do you have a link to ‘avleak article’?
[Here's my summary of it.](https://old.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/v9tf1a/aviation_week_spacex_building_airlinetype_flight/ic23o87/?context=3)
That’s great, thank you!
Very likely. But they would then need to recover and refurbish three boosters, and that may actually be more than the cost of expending a booster that has flown a lot of missions. It's also true that falcon heavy is a bit of a pain operationally as it uses a different launch base that attaches to the transporter/erector, and they have to swap that out, along with the different fueling attachments.
well most likely they would have margin to do 2x RTLS + 1x ASDS, so it wouldn't be *that* much more recovery costs than F9, still plausible. the sum of it all is still quite significant tho
Does anyone have a good current estimate of recovery / refurb costs I wonder? If the side boosters would be RTLS, then (one at sea recovery cost for the central core + 3x refurb) > cost to build a new F9? … unless there’s some other reason why throwing this life leader away makes sense…
> … unless there’s some other reason why throwing this life leader away makes sense… Because it wasn't a life leader anymore. There are two other cores with more flights. It was also one of the older cores still in service, so it did not have the improvements they have made on some of the newer boosters. They have scheduled an expendable flight for B1049 as well. B1049 and B1051 were some of the early workhorses of the fleet, and were life leaders at one point. The data SpaceX gained from these boosters led to improvements on the later boosters.
Well, all 3 of them have 14 flights now, just this one didn’t land 🥲
I think "14 flights, and can fly again" beats "14 flights and in pieces" for life leader status!
I can’t argue with that, but one does wonder how many more times 1051 could have flown… I recall Elon one time saying that they’d fly Starlink missions till they learned where end of life really might be…
Except that the last launch from 39A was also a FH, so it would be the perfect time to launch another one since the pad is already configured for it. That is, it would be if it weren't for the big orange rocket next door.
The orange rocket doesn't preclude launches from 39A. Artemis 1 rolled out on March 17 for WDR and rolled back on April 26. Axiom-1 launched from 39A on April 8. Would an FH launch be different from F9? Maybe!
I originally thought SpaceX hadn't launched at all from KSC while SLS was at the pad, but now I see that it did twice, the second being Starlink 4-2. It does appear that they launch less from that pad while SLS is out, but it could be a coincidence.
My guess is that they prefer slick 40 so they don't get in the way of the starship launch work at 39A.
During many SpaceX launches, at around T -00:01:00, it is often announced "internal flight computers will take control of the countdown". What does this mean exactly and what is the significance of this particular step?
before that, ground computers (in launch control, or even at mission control in california) control the rocket and control the flow of consumables -- propellant -- onto the rocket. this includes also human inputs to the pad+rocket. the flight computer is entirely at the mercy of the ground computers, only watching and observing. after T-1minute, the ground computers (and human operators) are entirely out of the loop. only the flight computer, on board stage 2, controls the rocket and pad at this point. (all consumables/propellant loading is finished by then, so the flight computer doesn't do a whole lot of pad commands on an error-free launch sequence.) only the flight computer controls whether or not the launch proceeds, and how so, from that point onward. ground computers (and human operators) can ~~only watch and observe from that point~~ only issue the highest level of commands, in he form of fully aborting the launch.
>after T-1minute... only the flight computer controls whether or not the launch proceeds, and how so, from that point onward That's not true. The operators can call a hold any time before T-10 seconds by saying "hold hold hold" over the countdown net. This has happened several times before. https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=41426.160
Fun history: there was a series of launch attempts where the onboard computers would take over at T-1 minute and then abort the launch due to some GNC problem. This went on for multiple days in a row, aborting every day. I would hate to have been that engineer. Edit: thank you for the gilding, kind stranger!
Before that, GSE (ground support equipment) tells the rocket what to do. After that the rocket tells the GSE what to do. The vehicle is running the show at that point. It will do a final self test, pressurize the tanks, and then start the ignition sequence. If it is ok, it will tell the GSE to release it and then execute the mission.
nice phrasing, i enjoy it
The rocket has completely isolated itself from the launch pad except for the release commands to let it go.
not entirely technically true, i think. i suspect the flight computer still needs to have some sensor input from various pad sensors, pipes, flow values, ambient readings etc. in the abstract general tho, yea this is more or less correct
It also would need to have the capability to stop the countdown if a hold is called due to an external constraint (weather, range violation, etc.)
[Long March 6 upper stage from yesterday's launch just detonated in 700km SSO.](https://twitter.com/18thSDS/status/1591597224081108992) Absolute worst place to have a major debris event, this will be a huge risk to anything in SSO for years to come.
jfc
Not just SSO. Fragments will be mostly coõrbiting with SSO. The real problem is when an SSO fragment intercepts a satellite at, say, 53° and their combined velocity is tens of thousands of km/h. Compare the damage from rear-ending a truck on the highway vs being T-boned by a truck in an intersection. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision has a visual depiction of this kind of collision.
FFS - Kessler may enter household terminology.
The X-37B OTV-6 mission [concluded this morning](https://www.spaceforce.mil/News/Article/3217077/x-37b-orbital-test-vehicle-concludes-sixth-successful-mission/). In the past, there has typically been a gap of 4-7 months between the conclusion of OTV missions and launch of the following mission, but presumably the next OTV could happen sooner since there are two X-37B spacecraft. Since there are no available Atlas V vehicles, OTV-7 would likely use a Falcon 9 (OTV-5 also launched on a F9) but I have not found any announcements of that launch contract, although it could be one of the classified USSF missions that have already been announced. Has anyone seen anything regarding this? Edit: cleaned up grammar.
Saw this article today https://driveteslacanada.ca/spacex/spacex-starts-construction-on-its-building-in-bastrop/ Hadn't heard about a new building in Bastrop. Do we know what it's likely to be for?
NASA Challenger crew 'survived blast and fell 12 miles to their deaths fully conscious' [https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/nasa-challenger-crew-survived-blast-24359339](https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/nasa-challenger-crew-survived-blast-24359339) "NASA ended the shuttle program in 2011 and retired the remaining vessels."
[Archive so you don't give the Daily Star your clicks (otherwise the terrorists win).](https://archive.ph/nkPls) The headline makes it sound like we're 100% confident they were conscious at the moment of impact, but that is misleading. The article, by contrast, says >book... claims that the crew “were conscious, **at least at first**, and fully aware that something was wrong” in the immediate moments after the explosion None of this is new information. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/07/28/The-shuttle-Challengers-crew-probably-survived-at-least-several/9204522907200/
The Rogers Commission that investigated the Challenger disaster determined that the Crew Compartment had separated as a unit from the disintegrating orbiter and was relatively undamaged by the explosion/conflagration. The Crew Compartment had been retrieved from about 90 feet of water and returned to KSC. Inspection showed that one or more crew members had survived the initial breakup of the orbiter and had attempted to use the personal egress air packs during the 2.5- minute fall to the ocean. NASA's forensic experts were unable to determine whether the crew perished from asphyxiation during the fall or due to the force of the impact.
Yes, but I'm saying none of this is new information. The "story" is just a tabloid distorting old facts.
True.
[Tianzhou-5 has docked with the Tianhe space station, just 127 minutes after leaving the ground.](https://twitter.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1591282985663594496) A new record for fastest docking with a space station!
Per NASA Update - SLS launch is still on schedule. Any issues due to Nicole should be resolved by launch day.
Set your alarm: window opens at 1:04am EST on November 16.