SpaceX--Spacecraft, rockets, and Mars

[SpaceChampion]

So, the big news is that the BFR (the ITS moniker seems to be discarded, BFR is a code name for now until they find a name they like) is that as expected will be a 9m diameter rocket, but with 31 Raptor engines instead of the 42 engines on last year's design.  This make it possible to build using SpaceX's existing facilities, and they've already ordered the tooling to begin manufacturing the first prototype in 6 months from now.

See images here: https://imgur.com/a/T0M0k

Musk expects the full reusability of the entire rocket system will make each flight cost cheaper than SpaceX's first $7 million expendable Falcon 1 rocket that first successfully flew into orbit 9 years ago yesterday; this is because the additional cost of each flight will be only about $2 million in propellants, allowing to amortize the R&D and manufacturing costs fairly quickly.  But each flight will be able to take more payload mass and volume than the Saturn 5 rocket that was the core of the Apollo program (which was 140 tonnes to LEO, 48t to trans-lunar injection).

The BFR can take 150 tonnes of payload into LEO, or after refuelling from 5 tanker ships in orbit, take 150 tonnes to the surface of Mars.  [Compare with last year's design of ITS taking 300 tonnes to LEO, and with refueling 450t to surface of Mars.]

It's also designed to be able to carry passengers on point-to-point suborbital travel here on Earth.  New York to Shanghai in 39 minutes, launched from a platform off shore of each.  Hong Kong to Singapore in 22 minutes.  Los Angeles to Toronto in 24.  London to Dubai in 29.

He later clarified in an Instagram post that he forgot to mention the price of that would be they same an a standard economy class airline flight.  This plus Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and the internet satellite network would bring in revenue to pay for his Mars ambitions.

Which still includes up to 100 passengers or more on each flight, assuming 40 cabins in which people double up or triple up occupancy, probably catering to families wanting to make the trip.  I've done Mars mission simulations for a month packed in like that -- no problem, as long as you like the people you're with.

So the timeline, which is aspirational but not unreasonable (Falcon one was just 7 years ago, landing the first stage of Falcon 9 was first accomplished 2 years ago, so SpaceX can do a lot in 5 years) is to fly two cargo flights in 2022, followed by two more cargo flights and 2 passenger flights in 2024 for the first human landing and establishment of the basic infrastructure for the first city on Mars.  With two ships, he's probably going for massive redundancy, with a smaller number in each ship than the ship can actually hold.  I'd bet 40 passengers in each, for a total of 80 people to set up the base.

Also, he referred to a Moon Base Alpha, which I think is probably in reference to a NASA proposal mentioned here that is looking for a low-cost way to make it happen.  Contrary to what you might see in news articles, I don't think SpaceX wants to build a moon base itself, just transport the supplies to allow any paying customer to do so.  So this could happen with or without NASA initially, depends on who want to go.

 

[Which Tyler]

Moon Base Alpha has got to be a reference to "Space 1999" Classic British Sci-Fi from the 70s

[SpaceChampion]

Another successful launch of Falcon 9 this morning from Vandenburg AFB on Pad SLC 4E.  L.A. residents got to see a launch and boost-back for the first time and on the webcast the landing of the booster stage on the Just Read The Instructions autonomous drone ship.

The 3rd Iridium launch by SpaceX released another batch of 10 Iridium satellites, collectively weighing in at almost 10 metric tonnes.

 

On Wednesday back in Florida SpaceX is scheduled for a launch of a satellite for two companies, therefore two names -- SES-11 / Echostar-105.

[SpaceChampion]

Webcast for today's launch at 6:53 p.m. EDT, or 22:53 UTC of SES-11 / Echostar-105 here:

 

[SpaceChampion]

Webcast for today's launch of Koreasat-5A:

 

[drawkcabi]

So this is pretty cool. 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/first-interstellar-object-beyond-solar-system-university-of-hawaii-institute-for-astronomy-nasa-jet-a8022531.html

Quote

 

First interstellar object from beyond our solar system spotted by astronomers

For the first time ever a comet or asteroid that likely originated from outside our solar system has passed close enough to Earth to be visible by astronomers. 

 

 

Is it more than pretty cool though or is the article normal journalistic hyperbole?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

When will the Falcon Heavy launch?  I thought they were planning a launch in November?  I just checked the SpaceX site and it only says it plans to launch in 2017.  Is the first Falcon Heavy launch still on for this year?

[SpaceChampion]

14 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

When will the Falcon Heavy launch?  I thought they were planning a launch in November?  I just checked the SpaceX site and it only says it plans to launch in 2017.  Is the first Falcon Heavy launch still on for this year?

No solid info there.  "People" have been saying they think it'll be early 2018 -- I don't know who these people are, so I don't know how to judge it.  But SpaceX is still saying No Earlier Than (NET) December; as broad a range as that is, it does mean pushing it to next year is likely, so that's what I'm expecting.  It's not as bad as trying to predict when The Winds of Winter will be published.  But I wouldn't be surprised at a launch late December.  Hoping for early January.

The original main issue was repairing Pad 40 at Cape Canaveral, so they can move F9 launches to there while launching Falcon Heavy from Pad 39A.  Also, the latter pad would require downtime to upgrade it for Falcon Heavy.  Every month thereafter looks like 2 or 3 or 4 launches scheduled, so they don't have a lot of room for downtime.  Fortunately they've managed to squeeze in upgrades to Pad 39A between the launches that have been going on there, so it sounds like they reduced the downtime required from 60 days to whatever amount of time it is now.  Last figure I heard was 45 days, but they've certainly whittled that down a lot since then.  When they get down to 15 days it'll be something easily accomplished to finish up between launches.  [Edit: Apparently it's currently down to less than 21 days.]

There are still 4 other launches scheduled for this year, bringing the total to a record-breaking 20 for SpaceX. 

• One is a top secret mysterious launch assumed to be for the military, known by the alias of "Zuma". 
• Another is the CRS-13 resupply flight to ISS, using a previously flown Dragon for the first time.
• The other two are commercial launches, one with 10 sats for Iridium's constellation, another called Hispasat, for Spain.

This past weekend launch of Koreasat matches ULA's best year of 16 launches of Atlas and Delta rockets from years ago.  With two months to go in the year, plenty of time to reach the 20 some here and elsewhere predicted a year ago.  Now that the Block 5 F9 is soon going to be launching, SpaceX will have finalized it's F9 design for the foreseeable future, and can start ramping up to a higher launch rate to 50+ if they have the customers to do so.  Those like SES are already altering their business to adjust to a higher launch rate, and having be loudly telling other satellite builders they should adjust to the new reality too.

Around March or so SpaceX should be diverting resources towards BFR design and manufacture.

[SpaceChampion]

10 hours ago, drawkcabi said:

So this is pretty cool. 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/first-interstellar-object-beyond-solar-system-university-of-hawaii-institute-for-astronomy-nasa-jet-a8022531.html

 

Is it more than pretty cool though or is the article normal journalistic hyperbole?

"First time ever" that we humans have noticed.  It's pretty cool.  Would be neat to sample it, but probably too late for a mission since it's on its way out.  Some people want to name it Rama.  Since it comes from the direction of the constellation Lyra, why not name it after Lyra Belacqua, from the Golden Compass?  It is after all, made from interstellar dust.

[Quoth]

On 9/29/2017 at 11:09 AM, SpaceChampion said:

It's also designed to be able to carry passengers on point-to-point suborbital travel here on Earth.  New York to Shanghai in 39 minutes, launched from a platform off shore of each.  Hong Kong to Singapore in 22 minutes.  Los Angeles to Toronto in 24.  London to Dubai in 29.

I'm not well versed in this. And I guess there' still a mountain of work to be done concerning such an endeavor. But, excusing my ignorance, wouldn't it be tricky to differentiate between such a commercial flight and an incoming ICBM (assuming there is/will be a reliable program to shoot down ICBMs)?

[SpaceChampion]

1 hour ago, Quoth said:

I'm not well versed in this. And I guess there' still a mountain of work to be done concerning such an endeavor. But, excusing my ignorance, wouldn't it be tricky to differentiate between such a commercial flight and an incoming ICBM (assuming there is/will be a reliable program to shoot down ICBMs)?

I'd think the solution in using some sort of traffic control system that warns every nation on the Earth capable of detecting each launch.  Presumably if this becomes a thing there would be a launch from multiple cities a day to each other, so traffic control is essential, and would be integrated with national military programs that watch for ICBMs.

[Erik of Hazelfield]

On 2017-09-29 at 5:09 PM, SpaceChampion said:

 (...) additional cost of each flight will be only about $2 million in propellants (...)

It's also designed to be able to carry passengers on point-to-point suborbital travel here on Earth.  New York to Shanghai in 39 minutes, launched from a platform off shore of each.  Hong Kong to Singapore in 22 minutes.  Los Angeles to Toronto in 24.  London to Dubai in 29.

He later clarified in an Instagram post that he forgot to mention the price of that would be they same an a standard economy class airline flight.  

(...)

Hmm... how are these two statements mutually compatible? Will the terrestrial launches require significantly less propellant? 

[SpaceChampion]

4 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

When will the Falcon Heavy launch?  I thought they were planning a launch in November?  I just checked the SpaceX site and it only says it plans to launch in 2017.  Is the first Falcon Heavy launch still on for this year?

I spoke too soon!  Static fire on December 15th, launch on December 29th!  Those are No-Earlier-Than dates.

[SpaceChampion]

58 minutes ago, Erik of Hazelfield said:

Hmm... how are these two statements mutually compatible? Will the terrestrial launches require significantly less propellant? 

I don't know that'll be significantly less fuel, but it'll have more margin for error.  This is a suborbital hop, just a bigger parabola than outfits like Virgin Galactic are planning, who are going to go straight up and down.  Virgin would be going something like Mach 2.  Orbiting requires around Mach 25.  Going half way around the world requires much more that Mach 2, but not quite as much as Mach 25.  I don't know the exact number.

The upper stage (BFS) on its own could carry people to orbit, as a single stage, without the booster (BFR).  Single Stage to Orbit (STTO) has been a dream of rocket fans for generations.  Total capacity would be about 15 tonnes.  I don't know if they'll do that, but it's possible, just probably not profitable because they'd have to reduce the number of passengers to about 150, assuming 100kg per person.  Probably more like 100 people to be safe.  But use the booster stage and carry 800 passengers, then the price would be similar to round-the-world trips via jumbo jet.   I calculate $2500 a ticket, but Musk seemed to be saying less than that.  With only 100 people using only BFS, assuming the upper stage is 25% of the total fuel ($500k) then each ticket would be $5000.  So maybe using BFS would be profitable after all.  We'll have to see.

[SpaceChampion]

BFR Mars landing simulation

 

[SpaceChampion]

Today's launch at 20:00 EST of the secret "Zuma" payload for the U.S. government:

No public information on what Zuma is.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

12 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

Today's launch at 20:00 EST of the secret "Zuma" payload for the U.S. government:

No public information on what Zuma is.

Is it a first stage landing flight?

[SpaceChampion]

53 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Is it a first stage landing flight?

Yes, flying from LC39A and landing nearby at LZ-1 (return-to-launch-site as opposed to a drone ship out at sea).

[SpaceChampion]

Launch postponed until tomorrow, Nov. 17 at 20:00 EST.

Indefinitely delayed.

 

 

[SpaceChampion]

In other news the demonstration satellites for SpaceX's internet constellation Starlink has been approved by the FCC.  This will probably be launching out of Vandenburg on the NET January 30th, 2018 mission for Hisdesat, a Spanish company, paying for the ride.

An explanation posted on the spacex subreddit:

Quote

They are only launching 2 satellites for the test, IIRC. The test will be to send data up to one satellite, and to send it by laser to the other, and then back to Earth, ~2000-3000 km away from the uplink site.

From analogy to the Iridium system, it is likely that satellites in the same plane will have lasers and telescopes trained on the next and the previous satellite in the plane at all times. This requires almost no tracking by the mirrors and those lasers, so sending data from Hawthorne to San Francisco or Seattle would be just one or 2 hops in the sky, and data rates should be 10 gigabits/sec or more, with latency in the milliseconds.

The other 3 mirrors would be for communications with satellites in other orbital planes. These would have to track rapidly, and frequently.

That launch will include the first booster landing at Vandenburg too -- on dry ground -- whereas previously only landed on the drone ship on the west coast.