SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Elon Musk tells SpaceX employees that its Starship rocket is the top priority now
SpaceX launched astronauts for the first time barely a week ago but CEO Elon Musk does not want the company resting on its laurels.
Instead, Musk urged SpaceX employees to accelerate progress on its next-generation Starship rocket "dramatically and immediately," writing Saturday in a company-wide email seen by CNBC.
"Please consider the top SpaceX priority (apart from anything that could reduce Dragon return risk) to be Starship," Musk wrote in the email.
[...] So far, the company's Starship development program in Boca Chica, Texas has suffered four dramatic setbacks. While SpaceX has made progress on each iteration, the most recent prototype exploded shortly after an engine test on May 29.
Also at Teslarati.
SpaceX's Starship Super Heavy booster needs a custom assembly tower
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that Starship's Super Heavy rocket booster will get its own tower-like vehicle assembly building (VAB) – and work on the structure may have already begun.
While the only visible work SpaceX has thus far completed on its next-generation Starship launch vehicle is related to the more complex and unproven upper stage of the rocket, its Super Heavy first stage (booster) is just as critical. For SpaceX, Starship was the perfect starting point, itself following on the footsteps of a largely successful multi-year Raptor engine development program. Substantially smaller than Super Heavy and requiring 5-10 times fewer engines, Starship serves as a testbed for an almost entirely new suite of technologies and strategies SpaceX is employing to build massive rockets out of commodity steel.
[...] While Starship itself is not exactly small at ~50m (165 ft) tall and 9m (30ft) wide, the Super Heavy booster tasked with launching the ship on its way to orbit will easily be the largest individual rocket stage ever built. Currently expected to measure 70m (230 ft) tall, Super Heavy – just the first stage of the Starship launch vehicle – will already be as tall as an entire Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy and weigh roughly three times more than the latter triple-booster rocket when fully fueled. At liftoff, Super Heavy will produce more than triple the thrust of Falcon Heavy and double the thrust of Saturn V, the most powerful liquid-fueled rocket to reach orbit.
Thanks to the sheer size of the booster, SpaceX's existing Starship-sized vehicle/vertical assembly building (VAB) is far too small for Super Heavy and is even too short to fully stack a ~50m Starship. SpaceX's contractor of choice started assembling that VAB around January 15th and the facility was able to begin supporting its first Starship stacking and welding operations on March 2nd, just a month and a half later, with the structure fully completed by March 18th. As such, assuming the in-work foundation is as close to completion as it seems and SpaceX uses the same contractor for the next building, Super Heavy's VAB could be ready to build the first massive booster prototype as early as July or August. Things could take a bit longer given that Musk says the booster VAB will be 81m (265 ft) tall, nearly twice the height of Starship's VAB, but likely by no more than a few weeks.
Previously: Today WAS the Day -- Crew Demo 2 Launch Successful -- Heading to ISS [Updated]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Immerman on Tuesday June 09 2020, @05:18PM (3 children)
I think one of the things that really liberates SpaceX to innovate is that they don't have to care at all what "the public" thinks - unlike NASA which is firmly under the thumb of politicians whose entire career is based on manipulating public perceptions. The public is not their customers, and their customers are unlikely to care how the public might misinterpret their statements (Besides which, how much of "the public" pays any attention to SpaceX announcements? Besides their fan/troll club.). Their flight record speaks for itself, and they're dramatically cheaper than any of the alternatives. I think I heard they're currently responsible for something like 80% of global launches? It's pretty much only nations bolstering their own space programs that are using anyone else. In that environment you barely even have to care what your customers think - they can fly with you, or they can pay far more for no better reliability.
Falcon 9 and Dragon are as mature as they're likely to get, barring the discovery of easily fixed problems. There may not even be many more of them ever built. Seems to me that publicly stating that your priority is your next-gen product is a pretty clear way of broadcasting to your existing and potential future customers that they should start planning around that product rather than the existing one - and is a pretty common kind of statement from just about any company. And considering that Starship is going to open the door for a vast range of new customers that don't currently have any suitable launch options (i.e. they need a much larger payload or cheaper launch to be viable), telling them "this is coming soon" is going to be a much more valuable statement than lying to your existing customers about how important the existing rocket is in their plans.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday June 09 2020, @05:33PM (2 children)
NASA money is useful to SpaceX. So SpaceX should give some consideration to "the politics" of what they say, and what kind of message it sends. I'm not trying to be too critical. Just that maybe they could have said it a bit better.
What I hope ultimately: that SpaceX eventually no longer needs NASA and can do whatever they think is best both commercially and for the good of humanity.
At some point the economics of SpaceX will make it harder and hopefully impossible to fund many, or hopefully even a single launch of SLS. Four engines at $140+ Million each, with SLS launch cost estimated to be $2+ Billion. Think of what SpaceX could do with that much money.
I agree that Falcon 9 and Dragon 2 are likely mature and need little to no new development. But many in the public don't get that. The "top priority" message gives some SpaceX critics, or NASA commercial space critics ammunition.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Tuesday June 09 2020, @06:05PM (1 child)
I'm not seeing how you could really improve on "Starship is our highest priority, other than Crew Dragon safety".
And it's not like NASA has a lot of options - they can go back to paying a lot more for passage on Russian rockets, or continue waiting to pay ridiculously more for the badly over budget and behind schedule SLS, hoping that Boeing, etc. don't continue to screw up and need years more development and testing before they're ready. Not to mention, Starliner is *also* part of the commercial crew program- there are zero NASA-based crew launch options in the pipeline.
At this point I think it's probably pretty obvious to everyone involved that the "commercial space critics" are far less interested in space than in pork. And that the political tide is turning against that outrageously overpriced pork. I seriously doubt that the arguably indelicate wording of a "public" announcement that will only be read by space enthusiasts is going to give anyone any ammunition worth caring about.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday June 09 2020, @06:43PM
I hope that is the case.
But political opponents can be nasty. Very nasty. Petty. Vindictive. And can try to marshal public resources against their perceived enemies.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.