SpaceX targets 2021 commercial Starship launch
The first commercial mission for SpaceX's Starship and Super Heavy launch system will likely take place in 2021, a company executive said June 26.
Jonathan Hofeller, SpaceX's vice president of commercial sales, said the company is in talks with prospective customers for the first commercial launch of that system roughly two years from now. "We are in discussions with three different customers as we speak right now to be that first mission," Hofeller said at the APSAT conference here. "Those are all telecom companies."
[...] Hofeller said the discounted pricing SpaceX gave to early customers of Falcon 9 missions with pre-flown first-stage boosters is now the company's normal pricing. SpaceX Founder Elon Musk said last year that previously flown booster missions were priced "around $50 million," down from $62 million. Musk said SpaceX's prices would continue to decline, too. Hofeller reiterated that prices would keep dropping through the introduction of Super Heavy and Starship. The fully reusable nature of the launch system enables those lower prices, he said.
Being fully reusable also opens up new mission possibilities, he said. "You could potentially recapture a satellite and bring it down if you wanted to," Hofeller said. "It's very similar to the [space] shuttle bay in that regard. So we have this tool, and we are challenging the industry: what would you do with it?"
Related Stories
SpaceX Falcon 9 booster nails landing in lead-up to next NASA-sponsored reuse milestone
SpaceX has nailed its 24th Falcon booster reuse and 44th Falcon booster landing with Falcon 9 B1056's flawless Landing Zone-1 recovery, setting the booster up to become the first SpaceX rocket NASA has flown on three times.
According to NASASpaceflight.com, NASA had already moved from a conservative "maybe" to a much firmer "yes, but..." on the second-reuse question, pending – of course – the successful completion of B1056's second launch and landing. As of now, the Block 5 booster has indeed successfully completed its second orbital-class mission, setting itself up for a milestone NASA reuse that could happen as early as December 2019 on CRS-19, Dragon 1's second-to-last planned International Space Station (ISS) resupply mission.
SpaceX's Starhopper nails first untethered flight as CEO Elon Musk teases next test
Starhopper has completed its first untethered flight ever, simultaneously a small step for the awkward prototype and a giant leap for SpaceX's Starship/Super Heavy program as the next-gen launch vehicle is carried into a new phase: flight testing.
Despite the spectacular and reportedly successful hover and divert test, Starhopper's powerful Raptor engine appears to have started a significant fire, placing SpaceX's Starhopper pad in a precarious position per the fire's apparent adjacency to full liquid oxygen tanks. Ironically, despite Starhopper's seeming predilection as of late towards catching itself on fire, the large rocket testbed appears to be entirely unscorched as a brush fire burns around a few hundred feet distant.
[...] According to Elon Musk, the SpaceX CEO will present an update on the company's progress designing, building, and testing Starship and Super Heavy soon after Starhopper's first successful flight, meaning it could potentially happen within the next week or two. Additionally, Musk deemed Starhopper's July 25th flight a success and indicated that SpaceX would attempt to put Starhopper through a more ambitious 200m (650 ft) hop in a week or two, continuing what is expected to be an increasingly arduous serious of tests for the prototype.
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Saturday June 29 2019, @12:43AM
Seems obvious. [youtube.com]
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 29 2019, @01:07AM
Capture a plutonium-powered rotocopter shortly after launch, then crash it into Mecca.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 29 2019, @07:10AM (3 children)
There just wasn't that much stuff that needed to be brought down from orbit. Launch costs were so high, and after Challenger the shuttle didn't really carry commercial satellites anyway, that bringing satellites back to Earth for service never really made sense.
But if it starts to be a capability that can be depended on, satellite operators will start to use it. Bringing satellites down will probably be almost free at first, so repairing satellites will be a great choice compared to just launching new ones.
Starship is designed to go to Mars, so hopefully the cargo version can at least reach geostationary orbit. It could bring back decommissioned satellites for disposal, even if no repair is intended, just to clear space in, well, space. Who will pay? No idea, but the cost should be minimal, assuming that the launch is taking a new satellite there anyway.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Saturday June 29 2019, @07:51AM
The aim is supposedly for Starship launch to cost less than Falcon 9 (especially if no in-orbit refuel needed). With F9 now at around $50 million, many payloads could be more expensive. They may even be able to scale up in size to match the mass/volume capabilities of Starship.
Starship will lift 100+ tons to LEO (probably more than 100) which is a lot of capability. So if it only carries one small satellite, it's possible that it may be able to lift a satellite, deploy it, change orbit, and take one back down in the same launch.
Yes, it can reach geostationary orbit, and should be able to put more there than Falcon Heavy.
Two obvious things for it to gently deorbit are the Hubble and U.S.-owned ISS modules. These could go into the Smithsonian. Or the Hubble could be studied (to learn about damage caused to it in space, its mirror aberration, etc.) and upgraded on the ground and relaunched.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 29 2019, @01:53PM (1 child)
Only if the satellite to be fetched is in the same orbit as the one to be installed, else it's going to be quite expensive.
And there's still the cost of relaunching the repaired satellite, which is no cheaper than launching a new one. It will have limited applications at best.
GEO is about the only place it makes sense, and even there it will probably used more useful to dispose of trash satellites than to retrieve, repair, and relaunch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 29 2019, @05:13PM
The cost of launching would be the same, but you don't have to build a new satellite. Those can cost $500 million. There's a lot of savings to be had that way.