SpaceX releases a Payload User's Guide for its Starship rocket:
SpaceX has released the first edition of a Payload User's Guide for its Starship launch system, which consists of a Super Heavy first stage and the Starship upper stage. The six-page guide provides some basic information for potential customers to judge whether a launch vehicle meets their needs for getting payloads into space.
The new guide is notable because it details the lift capabilities of Starship in reusable mode, during which both the first and second stages reserve enough fuel to return to Earth. In this configuration, the rocket can deliver more than 100 metric tons to low-Earth orbit and 21 tons to geostationary transfer orbit.
The killer application, however, is the potential to refuel Starship in low-Earth orbit with other Starships, enabling transportation deeper into the Solar System for 100 tons or more. "The maximum mass-to-orbit assumes parking orbit propellant transfer, allowing for a substantial increase in payload mass," the document states. SpaceX has yet to demonstrate this technology—which has never been done on a large scale in orbit—but the company's engineers have been working on it for several years and partnered with NASA last summer.
The user's guide also provides information about the size of the payload fairing in the cargo configuration of the vehicle, with a width of 8 meters and an extended volume capable of encompassing payloads as long as 22 meters. This would be, by far, the largest usable payload volume for any rocket that exists today or is in development. For human flights of up to 100 people, according to the document, "The crew configuration of Starship includes private cabins, large common areas, centralized storage, solar storm shelters, and a viewing gallery."
(Score: 2) by EETech1 on Thursday April 02 2020, @11:37AM (4 children)
What happens when one of them blows up in space during refueling?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Thursday April 02 2020, @12:09PM
The same thing that happens to anything else in low Earth orbit.
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(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday April 02 2020, @03:46PM (1 child)
Doesn't fuel require oxidizer? What if the twain shall never meet, except in the combustion chamber of an engine? Or could an explosion happen due to pressure vessel flailing?
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 02 2020, @05:15PM
The propellant storage designs I've seen, have both at the same location. Or they use a monopropellant that could energetically decompose.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @09:05AM
I'd expect fuel transfers would be safer in space than on terra firma: near 0 kelvin ambient temperature meaning PV = nRT is much less oppressive. And then there's 0 gravity also alleviating a number of issues.