![]() even SpaceX might get surprised at the backlash if an SH blows up one or two km into the air. Of course, that would take several months and endanger his build/launch/test site unnecessarily, and it seems Musk is in enough of a hurry that he doesn't want to go through that whole process. If for no other reason than to iron out all of the poorest assumptions before risking the loss of the R-Vacs that will likely be installed on any SS that gets put on top of an SH. ![]() Personally, I'd rather see SH stages sit on that orbital test mount and fire up their clusters for full-duration tests before bothering to mount a Starship on top. ![]() So, the performance assumptions for the current version of the Raptor may be even more poorly defined than you might think. But the simulations are never any better than one's assumptions, and it was the sets of assumptions, and not failure of simulations, that caused the N-1 problems, and required a kludged-on layer of protection to be added onto the F-1s.īesides, with the rather extreme replacement rate these Raptors seem to undergo during checkout and after static fires, once attached to the prototype Starships, it seems that the Raptors are also still in fairly early prototype stages themselves. Again, yes, there has been more than 50 years of advancement in computer simulations. Heck, the F-1 engines on the Saturn V were designed to handle the radiant heat and vibration from their neighboring engines, but you'll notice that a kludge - thick thermal batting - was plastered onto the outside of those engine bells after initial clustered test firings indicated that the extra protection and thermal coating was required to bring the engines within desired safety parameters. I guess I'd be more likely to believe that the first SH stages will fly just fine had there been any 28-engine cluster test firings on the ground. And chaos theory is not a friendly taskmaster. Certainly, computer simulation has made great strides in predicting these interactions, but I will point out that the interaction of 28 such powerful engines, their exhaust impingements, etc., gets closer and closer to chaotic. Starship is slated to deliver NASA astronauts to the lunar surface as soon as 2025, if current schedules hold (though there's certainly a chance they will not).The N-1's biggest issues were effects of vibration and heating on the closely clustered engines. NASA is a believer in the new space transportation system the agency selected Starship as the first crewed lander for its Artemis moon program. Both of these elements are designed to be fully and rapidly reusable, the key breakthrough that Musk thinks will revolutionize spaceflight. The 394-foot-tall (120 meters) Starship consists of a first-stage booster called Super Heavy and a 165-foot-tall (50 meters) upper-stage spacecraft called Starship. He laid out a similar timeline for the next test flight during an April 29 discussion of the debut launch on Twitter Spaces (though in that case he was referring to the projected readiness of Starbase and Starship, not predicting when the flight would occur). ![]() It's also worth noting that "six to eight weeks" is not a new Starship prediction for Musk. Every SpaceX Starship explosion and what Elon Musk and his team learned from them (video) Elon Musk says SpaceX could launch a Starship to the moon 'probably sooner' than 2024: report Starship and Super Heavy: SpaceX's Mars-colonizing transportation system ![]()
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