SpaceX (general discussion)

And now i'm completely puzzled. :confused: Taking into account a single-stage solution SpaceX offered to this competition, what is Orion's role and fate now?
 
Scar said:
And now i'm completely puzzled. :confused: Taking into account a single-stage solution SpaceX offered to this competition, what is Orion's role and fate now?
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Role is the same as it always was, pork.

The justification for the architecture is currently that Starship lacks a launch escape system, which is a no-go for NASA.
 
https://twitter.com/x/status/1383160125683331076
View: https://twitter.com/lori_garver/status/1383160125683331076


Minds being blown across the aerospace industry! NASA team is doing a good job threading the needle about the transition from SLS/Orion to a more sustainable system, without being so blunt. Nevertheless, it is now up to @SpaceX to deliver. If they do, the writing is on the wall.
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1383162573600743429
View: https://twitter.com/lori_garver/status/1383162573600743429


Congrats to the whole team - you continue to crush the competition - good on ya!
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This part of the selection document tells you why the price Space X could quote to NASA was so much lower. My bolding.

SpaceX’s plans to self-fund and assume financial risk for over half of the development and test activities as an investment in its architecture, which it plans to utilize for numerous commercial applications, presents outstanding benefits to NASA. This contribution not only significantly reduces the cost to the Government (which is reflected in SpaceX’s lower price), but it also demonstrates a substantial commitment to the success of HLS public-private partnership commercial model and SpaceX’s commitment to commercializing technologies and abilities developed under the Option A contract.
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There is also this part as well.


Finally, within Technical Area of Focus 7, Approach to Early Systems Demonstrations, I agree with the SEP’s assignment of a significant strength for SpaceX’s robust early system demonstration ground and flight system campaign, which focuses on the highest risk aspects of its proposed architecture. This will allow SpaceX to isolate and address performance and operational issues early in its development cycle, which will
11 meaningfully inform the maturation of its capability and increase overall confidence in its performance abilities.
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I'm very surprised that SpaceX won the Lunar lander design, (my guess was Dynetics ALPACA)
biggest issue to SpX lander is the hight they crew get down and up

but is there more behind this choice by NASA ?
SpX lunar lander is reusable by refuelling in orbit,
not like contraption of Integrated Lander Vehicle that need parts launches and reassembly at Gateway station

Remember that Gateway station is not a "priority" according NASA
SpX Lunar lander could serve as Gateway it self once stored on that Orbit
waiting for refuelling and resupply and a crew brought by a Orion capsule

or will they ?
I would not be surprised to see SpX Lunar lander design changes again
and has suddenly wings and heat shield and does return to Low earth orbit for refuelling and resupply and a crew brought by a Dragon capsule or Starship
Because NASA kills the SLS/Orion and move it's corpses into a Museum
While Capitol Hill screams murder and mayhem...
 
Flyaway said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1383160125683331076
View: https://twitter.com/lori_garver/status/1383160125683331076


Minds being blown across the aerospace industry! NASA team is doing a good job threading the needle about the transition from SLS/Orion to a more sustainable system, without being so blunt. Nevertheless, it is now up to @SpaceX to deliver. If they do, the writing is on the wall.
Click to expand...


https://twitter.com/x/status/1383162573600743429
View: https://twitter.com/lori_garver/status/1383162573600743429


Congrats to the whole team - you continue to crush the competition - good on ya!
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Ah, Lori Garver and a certain recent book she wrote... you can feel she is still pissed-off and incensed of a) having SLS rammed to her (and Bolden, and NASA) throats back in 2010 and b) commercial space (COTS, CCDEV) being starved of funding to such an extent, it was delayed from "potentially 2017" to "May 2020".

What does Lori says here ? (softly and politely)
1- That SLS-Orion are unefficient, pork-driven, and insanely expensive relics of the Apollo / shuttle era, its jobs-and-infrastructure lobby in Congress, and the 2004 and 2010 decisions - the second one she was forced to tolerate.

2- That NASA had finally "saw the light" and threw a giant middle finger at all the above, tacitally embracing SpaceX revolutionary TSTO-to-Mars approach for the Moon and for Artemis.

What is really delightful in all this is that fucking Bill Nelson, one of the 2004 and 2010 Ares V / SLS huggers, will have to endure Starship - just like Garver endured the SLS siliness when she was Deputy Administrator.

"La vengeance est un plat qui se mange froid"... (can't see any way of translating that proverb...)
 
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Michel Van said:
I'm very surprised that SpaceX won the Lunar lander design, (my guess was Dynetics ALPACA)
biggest issue to SpX lander is the hight they crew get down and up
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One item that jumped out of the selection doc is that the Dynetics design had "negative mass allocation," meaning they were overweight and planned to reduce weight during development. Which is not a thing that happens in the real world, generally.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1383245184478027791
View: https://twitter.com/DJSnM/status/1383245184478027791?s=19
 
TomS said:
Which is not a thing that happens in the real world, generally.
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Well, yes and no. It used to be a fairly regular avenue of development in aerospace and other defence related engineering, deliberately or otherwise, once upon a time. And despite CAD/CAM and the like (or sometimes even because of it!) it still occasionally shows up.
 
Grey Havoc said:
Flyaway said:
It looks like Space X cut their cloth to meet NASA’s budget so to speak to win the award.
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That approach could end up backfiring badly though.
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Yes. And it's also a way of politically de-risking any future failure if we come to that.
(but that's the role of a contractor when the architecture of a mission was designed prior to selection).
 
Ex Senator Shelby reaction on SpX won the contract and Starship/Superheavy become threat number one for SLS...

BlaringKindheartedHornshark-size_restricted.gif
 
Dilandu said:
Michel Van said:
and has suddenly wings and heat shield
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This isn't practical. It is much more efficient to use dedicated Lunar Starship (without all ths additional atmospheric mass), which would made LEO-Luna-LEO flights, and would be refueled on LEO by winged Tanker Starship.
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No. A split architecture is best, but the correct split isn't "wingless ship refueled at leo", it's "wingless lunar ship refueled at llo".

The key point is that returning from llo to leo is *expensive*, and the ∆v is specifically in circularizing. (That is, starting from llo the burn to get your perigee low is cheap, while once you get to the perigee the burn to lower your apogee is crazy expensive.)

The wings and heatshield are much lighter than the fuel you'd need to carry back home to do that circularization burn. Therefore, flying them to lunar orbit saves fuel.

The part of the mission where you genuinely don't gain from the wings and heatshield is the landing burn and takeoff from the moon. Therefore, full starship tanker flies to lunar orbit to refuel the ship there, then does direct return from llo to earth surface.
 
Tuna said:
The part of the mission where you genuinely don't gain from the wings and heatshield is the landing burn and takeoff from the moon. Therefore, full starship tanker flies to lunar orbit to refuel the ship there, then does direct return from llo to earth surface.
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Hm, you seems to be right (but I need to make calculations to be sure)
 
The key point is that returning from llo to leo is *expensive*, and the ∆v is specifically in circularizing. (That is, starting from llo the burn to get your perigee low is cheap, while once you get to the perigee the burn to lower your apogee is crazy expensive.)
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How about aerobraking ?
 
i just realised that this NASA contract will have huge impact on Space industry
because SpaceX has secure funding for Starship/Superheavy and Moonlander
THIS GIVE NASA OPTION OF MARS FLIGHTS WITH STARSHIP

Reaction on SpaceX victory at
Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Northrop-Grumman, ULA, Blue Origin, Arianespace and Russian Rocket builder ...
fry_screaming_in_horror.gif

i guess that India and China goes to "copy" of Starship/Superheavy...
 
That would be a danger of such an option, yes. But, would they have a choice but to risk it?
 
Michel Van said:
he has one point right ULA must react and has to build larger post Vulcan rocket
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I'm not sure ULA could. They are conglomerate of old, inflexible aerospace companies, with zero vision besides "squeeze more money" and ruled by boards of directors, with confusing and conflicting interests, who mostly interested only in profits for their share. They could not possibly compete with centrally-controlled SpaceX and Blue Origin in originality or flexibility, they stayed on market mostly by political influence. Most likely ULA would settle for downslope ride, just trying to make sure that major shareholders would not lose money.
 
sferrin said:
Michel Van said:
The Angry Astronaut reaction on SpaceX lunar lander
he has one point right ULA must react and has to build larger post Vulcan rocket

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEoa7XDo1rM
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That would just make them more of a competitor to Blue Origin and then their engine supply gets cut.
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or ULA take over the Remains of Blue Origin

See ULA has 60% military launch contracts and if BO start cutting off the Engine supply
The DoD and Capitol Hill react fast to ensure the supply of engines are running
either by forcing or taking the Toy way from Benoz and hand over engine production to ULA...

But Benoz is not stupid, in current state of Blue Origin, he need ULA as customer !
BO lost a $2.9 billion contract with NASA, New Glenn is years behind schedule and New Shepard still in "test phase"

in harsh contrast SpaceX
Good buddy with NASA, launching space probes and Cargo and Astronaut to ISS and build there next Moonlander
Dominate the Satellite launch market with Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy
build up world wide internet service - Starlink
and build biggest rocket since Saturn V and N1: Starship/Superheavy

ULA is here in danger to become a niche product for Military
And there biggest problem is will SpaceX adapt and modify there Falcons for DoD mission ?
DoD want backup option in case a Vulcan failed during launch and here comes SpaceX in play
If Musk follow demands of NRO and install longer Payload faring on Falcon Heavy for DoD mission
SpaceX has then option to launch TWO satellite with Falcon Heavy pushing launch cost further down

the ultimate nightmare scenario for Arianespace who start to reuse there rocket in 2030...
photofunky.gif
 
sferrin said:
Flyaway said:
Now there is to be a formal contract between NASA & Space X it will involve formal oversight of Starship development by NASA & involvement by them.
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Well it was fun while it lasted.
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Your comment is frankly disingenuous being as Space X wouldn’t be where they are now without past NASA contracts.
 
Flyaway said:
sferrin said:
Flyaway said:
Now there is to be a formal contract between NASA & Space X it will involve formal oversight of Starship development by NASA & involvement by them.
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Well it was fun while it lasted.
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Your comment is frankly disingenuous being as Space X wouldn’t be where they are now without past NASA contracts.
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That's your conscience talking to you for deliberately mischaracterizing my post.
 
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From the Slashdot thread:
"As it turns out, OneWeb's "near-miss" appears to have been a farce and the company scrambled to promise to retract those statements in an April 20th meeting with the FCC and SpaceX."
This comes from a filing by, well, SpaceX. Other, less Musk-boot-licky sources, checked on OneWeb's response - and in their own filing they say they made no such promise or offer to retract anything, and stand by the story. Also, complaints about SpaceX's behavior in this particular venture are not exactly peculiar to OneWeb. This may or may not be a publicity game, but the posted article is essentially an unquestioning parroting of the SpaceX official line.

https://arstechnica.com/inform... [arstechnica.com]
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/te... [telegraph.co.uk]
https://www.pcmag.com/news/spa... [pcmag.com]
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