this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2024
26 points (93.3% liked)
SpaceX
1944 readers
47 users here now
A community for discussing SpaceX.
Related space communities:
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
Memes:
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Wow that is insanely optimistic. I guess they are expecting IFT3 to go without any issues.
Even if they don’t achieve all five successful launches this year, it is wise for them to start this waiver process now, so it will be on the books for 2025.
Given that the turnaround time for NTSB investigations plus engineering improvements has been about three months for each launch, they would only be able to achieve four flights per year if each was a failure. But if they succeed, it is unlikely to need the same three months to obtain another launch license… hopefully just a matter of weeks.
With true rapid reuse, they’re most likely going to be seeking permanent flight certifications for reuse, presuming no flight hardware will need to be replaced between flights. With this type of cadence, the only limit on launching will be how quickly they can refill the tank farms (and, of course, sufficient consideration for environmental impacts and beach closures).
Yeah, they don't necessarily need to expect it to work, but they should prepare for it.
I hope so. I wonder how long the investigation will be if the ship makes it to orbital velocity but is destroyed during reentry. Closer to three months or three weeks?
IFT-2 came very close to orbital velocity, so I think they've got a good chance of making it with IFT-3.