this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2024
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[–] [email protected] 69 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (24 children)

Starship's upper stage will make a partial orbit of Earth, re-enter the atmosphere and splash down in the Indian Ocean...

Also known as not an orbit, or a suborbital flight / trajectory.

Saying a suborbital flight is a partial orbit is like saying a cessna can partially achieve hypersonic velocities.

NASA is also counting on a specialized version of Starship to ferry astronauts to the lunar surface later this decade under its Artemis program.

There is no public information indicating design on this variant has even begun.

... And Starship+Heavy Booster was supposed to have completed a succesful orbital flight in Q2 2022, per NASA's contract with SpaceX.

Which it still has not done, in Q4 2024.

If SpaceX somehow completes an orbital flight of this thing in say Q2 2025, and keeps to the originally agreed contract timeline, well thats only 3 years behind schedule.

But this is Musk. Not the best track record on delivering on promises, more of a 'pray i do not alter the deal further' kinda vibe, but spoken with all the menacing intimidation of Darth Helmet.

So far he's gotten a banana to suborbit in this thing.

...

I'll eat a sock if a SpaceX launcher and lander gets human beings to the moon and back safely by the end of 2030.

Did I forget to mention Musk's plan for a moon mission requires the Starship Lunar Lander variant to remain in Earth orbit, rendevouz and dock with and refuel from something like 12 or 16 other Starships?

... And there is also no publicly available information indicating actual design of this refuelling system either, just vague cgi concept arts of a plan?

I'll eat two fucking socks.

[–] rImITywR 31 points 1 day ago (7 children)

Saying a suborbital flight is a partial orbit is like saying a cessna can partially achieve hypersonic velocities

Starship reached over 26000km/h, it had enough energy to be in orbit if it was in a circular orbit. The orbit was intentionally left eccentric enough that the perigee was within the atmosphere, so that a deorbit burn was not required.

This is a cessna going mach 4.99 and you're being pedantic enough to say it was not hypersonic.

I agree with the rest of what you say though. As fun as it is to watch, Starship is over budget and behind schedule. Elon has over promised (pronounced "lied to get government subsidies") on timelines and capabilities so much that it may jeopardize the Artemis program. Which makes me mad.

[–] raspberriesareyummy -2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The hardest part of a real orbit is not burning up on re-entry. They skipped that part so far, for their most fragile rocket.

[–] rImITywR 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Are we talking about the same flight I watched today? It made it through re-entry and made a controlled, powered, soft splash down exactly where it was supposed to.

[–] raspberriesareyummy -2 points 1 day ago

It was a suborbital flight. They never accelerated to the orbital speed, hence the apogee was ballistic and upon "reentry", the vehicle only experienced negligible heatup. A real atmospheric reentry from orbit is the biggest technological challenge in return vehicles, and they still have to do that with Starship

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