One helpful thing about Starship prototypes is that they can be repurposed as anything in the testing campaign below their own complexity grade. If a full-up ship becomes obsolete, they can take off the flaps and tiles and use it for tanker or depot testing. If a tanker or depot article becomes obsolete, they can use it for subsystem or component development. Meanwhile HLS and LEO crew work feeds into each other, and tons of that would be applicable to the others too. They've got a bunch of threads going that support each other without interfering with each other.
The world is catching on to what Musk is doing, and his capabilities. Mars is his target for now, and he has the industry to match the challenge. Boring machines, battery and el3ctric vehicles, robots and smart AI. Perfect for hard dangerous repetitive industrial tasks in Mars atmosphere. P,us the spaceships to get it all there…and beyond. This guy is a winner, a genius with vision.
He also got other companies to fork out millions developing a hyperloop, which failed. But he has some solid numbers now for its use on Mars as the atmosphere there is exactly what musk said it would be in the hyperloop here on earth. It was a testbed for Mars use all the time. These companies might hate him now, but that was some genius level incentivation.
Orbital depot will get a sunshade like the James Webb telescope. It could deploy out the back, but SpaceX is efficient. If the depot is oriented so it is pointing directly away from the sun, you only need to shade the base. And if no part is the best part, we use engine bells and engine covers for shade. Everything forward of that would be extremely cold.
A purpose-built tanker Starship variant might use a sheathing of the same insulation they're using on the ground tanks. Combined with a modest sunshade, I'm curious what the overall thermal flux to the fluid would be? Might be low enough that a small solar panel could power a heat pump to keep it cool indefinitely.
The historical comparison I think (and hope) to be most apt is that of the internet. Wind the clock back to 1990. It was there, and it was technically usable. But it was clunky, slow, expensive, and not much to do once you actually got on. But fast forward just 15 years, and suddenly everyone and their grandmother had high-speed lines to their homes. Another 15 years after that and it is almost ubiquitous, covering virtually every corner of the globe and much of the world's economy is utterly dependent on it.
More likely it's meant to receive fuel in orbit from a tanker than it is the tanker. A tanker must deliver fuel to orbit, then return. So it needs a heatshield and everything else, but the receiving vessel only needs to accept fuel to complete the test. It's never meant to return to Earth.
Makes me wonder if it is a fuel ship but has a really cool hidden door that opens to expose the connecting ports. I guess someone would have noticed that.
It's possible they could launch 27 first with a load of V2 sats. Then launch 26 to transfer fuel to it after the sats are deployed. When the fuel transfer demonstration is complete both ships get deorbited.
Looks like Space X is going to start building a space port to refuel, to work on other Star ships and a staging area. This is what ship 26 is for. The next thing they need to do is figure out witch modules from the international Space Station they could use for there space port. It's not a good business to get rid of the whole Space Station if a lot of the modules are in good working condition, they could be used help build moons orbiting station also. This would save billions in construction costs and there already in space. We don't even have to launch them there. This would save ton's of fuel and money. Is there anything wrong with saving money???
Possibly first two launches will be these cleans ships, that way they can test propulsion and rocket systems in space without having to land it. Looks like one will be a full tanker only and the other will bring starlink sats to orbit then transfer liquids to stationary ship.
It is not a mistake Space x don’t do anything without a reason. It probably is not mend to return to earth it might be just a fuel tanker to be disposed of after use
Wind tunnel testing, even when combined with computational fluid dynamics is still not accurate enough to measure the boundary layer effects on air flow disrupted by small protrusions such as the tile attachment studs. In order to detail the payload capability of the Starship orbiter, actual flight test is required.
Explanation of S26 and S27 mystery ID very simple. Elon already knows that S24/B7 launch will end in an explosion before MECO due to collapse of unpressurized Skirt of the Starship. Absence of flaps on S26 and S27 makes it much easier to try to pressurize the Skirt so explosion of next prototype can be avoided. Since SpaceX have not figured out yet how to do stage separation they will most likely just weld Skirt of S26 to the top of next booster they will use use for testing. After launch rocket will fall back to Earth as one piece (no stage separation) That accounts for S26. Once that test is done SpaceX will try to develop pressurized Skirt stage separation and test it. That accounts for S27.
Starship now has 6 engines. With 6 engines it can lift off from Earth fully fueled. Any reasonable estimate of the dry mass of the expendable version, i.e., no heat shield, ballast tanks, legs, flaps, shows it can reach orbit on its own, no SuperHeavy required. In fact, it should be able to deliver significant payload to orbit as an expendable SSTO.
OK----. In the next few Weeks Starship 26 and 27 should grow a white paint job, Solar Cells around the nose and airlocks into the Cargo Section with a bunch of windows... Hopefully, they will also have lightweight Decks added with life support equipment for Astronauts among other necessities for Human Habitation... Giving Space X a destination for Dragon Capsules... As well as a Cockpit for maneuvering in space that would include docking and fuel transfers... Simply because the Starship is too BIG to dock with the ISS... Musk must provide Space X with its own Space Station or launching Starship becomes a DEAD END with no Credible Jobs beyond launching a few satellites... When a Starship Space Station would provide Billions of Dollars a year income Destination for Dragon Tourists and Research Scientists for hundreds of companies across the World...
Ship 26 + Tesla battery packs (no need for solar arrays) + landing gear (optional) = spectacular demo soft landing on moon for show once no longer needed for ground testing. Or into lunar orbit. Hey, after all, Musk launched a Tesla into solar orbit as a demo. No need to worry about dust kicked up by landing by not using thrusters near the top of the lander as would be with the operational version.
I think Ship 26 is going to be used to test the chopsticks to ensure that it all works so that they do not lose the main ships. They could launch to a high altitude and land a number of times.
What if it's a target? Think about it - Why just show us that Starship can go to orbit and come down? Why not show that it can rendezvous and dock with another starship? Maybe S26 is just going to be there to be docked with?
Absolutely categorically Disagree! No, if we ignore NASA's designs, we can quickly build vast Lunar habitats for cities, farming, mining and industry able to provide space-bound nuclear power plants to enable human travel to & from Mars, and assist expanding a Martian settlement. Before human travel to Mars we send construction robots that build the first vast human habitats for habitation and farming to which the first human visitors will travel and from where they can base their operations on Mars.
Your thinking too much, ship 26 is just a expendable test ship, its goal is to get into orbit then crash in the pacific. Its just a proof of being able to get into orbit and the booster will try to land. My guess is once the booster can land then they will try to land ships from orbit.
Ship 26 is undoubtedly an expendable test vehicle for full stack launch. This idea that we are going to be shipping 1000s of tones of stuff to mars is ridicules. We are many decades away from maned mars missions.
Mabey Starship will never go to Mars. This all may be an evolution along the way. Look at the F1, then F5 that never developed, and ultimately the F9 and the related but different track FH. Remember the Red Dragon? That was supposed to be the mars lander. All these ideas were evolutionary and changed, or dumped, along the way. Why should Starship be any different? Right now it seems Starship is more of a heavy lift cargo to LEO concept along with a moon lander version. Something very different may ultimately be mass produced to colonize mars. Keep in mind methane, it is a very potent green house gas emitter, 80 times as potent as CO2 over 20 years. Is that sustainable on such a large scale?
My thoughts as well! Our boy Elon is gonna strike the first blow against the hostile races massing for attack around Jupiter by blowing up the fricken' Sun to starve out their solar panels and force a quick surrender.
The mystery Starship configuration is a test of SpaceX’s new welding technology and lighter/stronger structure. It’s the new “X” structure and proves a new technology for forming, joining the new basic structure, that will be used for all future Starship construction.
