SpaceX Releases Some Flight Data

The post to their Launches web site is date-tagged Thursday, so probably well after the test flight, and while not complete, it does cover some things we've been talking about.  Just a couple of points out of the eight they covered. 

• Super Heavy successfully lit several engines for its first ever landing burn before the vehicle experienced a RUD (that’s SpaceX-speak for “rapid unscheduled disassembly”). The booster’s flight concluded at approximately 462 meters in altitude and just under seven minutes into the mission. 
• While coasting, Starship accomplished several of the flight test’s additional objectives, including the opening and closing of its payload door (aka the pez dispenser,) and initiating a propellant transfer demonstration. Starship did not attempt its planned on-orbit relight of a single Raptor engine due to vehicle roll rates during coast. Results from these demonstrations will come after postflight data review is complete.
• The flight test’s conclusion came during entry, with the last telemetry signals received via Starlink from Starship at approximately 49 minutes into the mission. 

These confirm that both the booster and Starship itself were victims of a RUD, and the middle one confirms Starship had improper roll rates, which could have led to the heat shield tiles not facing in the right direction.  That said, they achieved more and got farther than the first two test flights. A rumor I heard was that the booster didn't have enough fuel left to land. That would probably be a simple error that should be easy to find and fix.

Eric Berger at Ars Technica does a "big picture" summary of the test, saying, “After Thursday’s flight, Starship is already the most revolutionary rocket ever built.”  It's full of good stuff and worth your time to read. In approach, it reminds me of the things that first got me to link to Casey Handmer's blog.  Those were his October '19 post that the SpaceX Starship is a Very Big Deal and his October '21 piece called Starship is Still Not Understood.

Berger talks about watching the mission Thursday and rhetorically asks, "was that sci-fi?" 

The moment of true amazement came about 45 minutes into the flight, as Starship descended an altitude of 100 km and began entering a thicker atmosphere. For a couple of minutes, we were treated to unprecedented views of atmospheric heating acting on a spacecraft. It's one thing to know about the perils of plasma and compression as a spacecraft falls back to Earth at 27,000 km/hour into thickening air. It's another thing to see it. 

He then goes on to talk about just what was involved in getting those incredible images to us.  

To accomplish this, SpaceX had to build a reusable rocket, the Falcon 9, which is capable of reflying many times. This enabled the company to launch more than 5,500 Starlink satellites and create a global network. (SpaceX operates, by a factor of 10, more satellites than any other company or country in the world). Because of this, it was able to produce unprecedented data and video of Starship's turbulent reentry. 

The journey to reach this capability has produced many of those dazzling moments. There was that first land-based landing of the Falcon 9 rocket days before Christmas in 2015. It was followed a few months later by the first landing of a booster on a drone ship. (For me, this CRS-8 booster landing on a boat felt like the first actual sci-fi thing I'd ever seen in my life). There was Starman in orbit and the dual booster landing with the first Falcon Heavy launch. And so on.

Eric spends the last handful of paragraphs presenting some truly mind-blowing details about the base-level economics of Starship. To butcher them a little too much:

Because of a relentless focus on costs and cheap building materials, such as stainless steel, SpaceX can likely build and launch a fully expendable version of Starship for about $100 million. Most of that money is in the booster, with its 33 engines. So you can probably cut manufacturing costs down to about $30 million per launch – for a mere 3 launches.  

This means that, within a year or so, SpaceX will have a rocket that costs about $30 million and lifts 100 to 150 metric tons to low-Earth orbit.

Last night we watched another Falcon 9 do its 19th flight. Divide that $100 million by 19 instead of three.

Bluntly, this is absurd.

Then he goes on to compare costs of Starship vs. other systems avialable now.

NASA's Space Launch System, for example, can lift up to 95 tons to low-Earth orbit, nearly as much cargo. But it costs $2.2 billion per launch, plus additional ground systems fees. So it's almost a factor of 100 times more expensive for less throw weight. And it can fly once per year at most.

The European Space Agency's Vega costs about the same as Starship, but carries 1.5 metric tons to low-Earth orbit. About 1/100 the payload of Starship for the same cost. 

The goal for Starship is to be rapidly reusable, and there has been the talk about flying air travelers between continents - meaning it will be reusable a few times per day.  Right now there's very likely a Starship and booster that are in line to fly next.  Probably three or four. 

Screen capture from the SpaceX coverage. Image credit: SpaceX 

Final thoughts to Eric Berger. 

We have already seen SpaceX's proficiency with the Falcon 9 rocket. Does anyone doubt we'll see double-digit Starship launches in 2025 and many dozens per year during the second half of this decade? Access to space used to be a rare commodity. What happens to our species and its commerce in space when access is not rare or expensive?

This is the future into which we got a glimpse this week.