Questions tagged [spacex-starship]
Questions regarding SpaceX's Starship, formerly the Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) upper stage or BFS
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Is StarShip/Booster stack inherently unstable after Booster burns most of its fuel?
Few will ever forget the flight of Starship 24/Booster 7.
Perhaps the first moon rocket to perform aerobatics and hold itself together before finally self destructing. But would it be aerodynamicly ...
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What was the thin, black object that was moving around the engine bay of SpaceX Starship SN15?
SpaceX Starship SN15 flew and landed successfully but,
A few minutes into the flight, a long, thin seemingly black object was seen moving around the engine bay
What was this object?
What is it used ...
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Can a spacecraft be "too large to dock" to the ISS?
A comment below Is Starship planned to fly directly to the ISS without first stage? Is it even possible? says:
to my best knowledge, the Starship will never be near the ISS. it is too large to dock ...
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Other than safety qualifications, was there any technical/engineering reason why propulsive landing was cancelled for the DragonV2?
The Dragon V2 cannot perform a propulsive landing. But the Starship will be making propulsive landings. Why?
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Shuttle had heat radiators, but Starship has none - why?
Heat radiators were a big deal for the Space Shuttle - once the bay doors were closed it was important to deorbit quite quickly.
The SpaceX Starship doesn't appear to have specific radiator ...
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How much pressure would the raptor engines experience when Starship does an atmosphere entry burn at Mars?
The Starship second stage has 3 sea level engines and 3 vacuum engines.
When doing the atmosphere entry burn to mars, how many Bars will the raptor engines experience?
I'm thinking that because of the ...
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Why was Starship on IFT3 spinning?
During SpaceX testflight on IFT3, Starship aka S28 was spinning around its axis. It was very visible in the live stream and also concerning. During reentry its heatshield was facing the wrong way ...
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Why so many thermal insulation tiles on Starship are marked broken?
From the photos it seems that about 40% of the tiles were marked with orange strips at some moment, while another 30% with green strips as misaligned. Why the percentage is so high? Why they could not ...
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What is this ring-shaped part falling from Starship SN9 after launch?
The picture shown is a screenshot during the recent launch of SpaceX's SN9 from a live stream, and I noticed that a black ring fell off the exhaust/engine. It only shows up for around a frame or two ...
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Electrical power requirements for Starship or Falcon 9
Anybody know where one could dig up electrical requirements for Starship? In other words, if Starship were sitting on the launch pad drawing power prior to launch, what would the load be?
I imagine ...
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Methane or LOX tank at Boca Chica
As we can see on this picture from Mary "@bocachicagal" on NASASpaceFlight, there are two types of tank near the test stand.
Some are black and others are white or bright and shiny metal, ...
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How much noise would the BFR make at launch?
In addition to multi-planetary travel, SpaceX has plans to use the BFR for intercontinental travel. However, would the sound generated by the BFR's launch disrupt local communities and therefore make ...
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Why did Starship lose an engine on IFT-4?
By T+0:00:06 at the latest, the Super Heavy carrying Starship for Integrated Flight Test 4 appears to have lost an engine (source and image). I know it's not a huge deal, as they can complete missions ...
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What was the cause of the fire on the SpaceX Starship SN15
SpaceX Starship SN15 had a successful test flight and touchdown but a few minutes after it landed, a small fire was seen to break out next to the Fins.
Why did this break out?
What was the cause of ...
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SN11 was launched in fog. Why not wait for better conditions?
The fog certainly frustrated the external observers, but it doesn't seem ideal from SpaceX perspective either.
All the external observers were very distant from the launch/landing site and would be ...
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How much will Starship SN8 weigh on liftoff?
Apparently SN8 recently underwent a 'Cryo' pressure test and to do that the press stated that 1000 tonnes of liquid Nitrogen was used! Is that really true? That got me thinking: just how much does ...
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Why is a 1.5:1 TWR desirable for a reusable launcher?
According to a Teslerati article linked from another QA:
The most critical component for the booster, according to Musk, is that there is “a lot of force pushing up.” He states that to launch ...
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Starship deceleration during belly flop?
Was just wondering what level of deceleration did they get during that belly flop manouver?
Updated:
Hiya, you're all correct, and I was a tad vague in my question! What I'm after is the vertical ...
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Does Starship run on Slushies?
Cryogenic slush (a mixture of liquid and solid) can potentially store propellants at higher density than cryogenic liquid. For instance, hydrogen slush is 16-20% denser than liquid hydrogen. https://...
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What is the cause of soot in the plume of the Raptor engine?
Though the Raptor engine burns quite clean, it was clear from some early test flights that it did produce some visible soot:
There have been differing explanations for the exact cause of/source of ...
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How much does the SpaceX Starship flex during the Flop maneuver?
Poring over the woes (and sucesses) of Starship prototypes SN 5-11, I had read they were trying a thinner stainless steel skin in later iterations.
The flop maneuver places the centers of drag at the ...
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How does Starship/Superheavy system compare with the hypothetical successor of Soviet Energia/Buran system, "Uragan"?
The both were meant to be fully reusable and have comparable scale.
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What is the purpose of the inverted cone at the center of a Starship thrust puck?
In the center of the Starhip's thrust puck, where the lowest portion of the LOX tank should be, there is a heavily reinforced inverted cone. Why is it there? Why not just complete the tank in a ...
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Relative elevations of the bases for Falcon and Starship pad at LC-39A
The NASA environmental report of August 2019 (https://netspublic.grc.nasa.gov/main/20190801_Final_DRAFT_EA_SpaceX_Starship.pdf) provides a 2D view of of the planned changes to 39A for Starship. A ...
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How strong is the Starship bottom bulkhead?
I am wondering how much of a role does the pressurization of the propelant tanks play in making them withstand the engine thrust.
What I am getting at is how much would the pressure offset or balance ...
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Is Starship monocoqué?
Does Starship have any internal bracing to support it? Or is it a "balloon tank" relying on tank pressure to stand?
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What is the white felt-like material between the heat shield tiles and stainless steel skin of Starship likely to be?
I suspect that the white padding material between the tile and the stainless steel skin might be [Nomex Felt][1], but I don't really know. Nomex was used on the Space Shuttle.
Flame-Resistant Felt - ...
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Why did Starship perform an abrupt course correction seconds before stage separation?
During Starship second integrated test flight IFT-2
There is a seemingly rapid attitude change seconds before stage separation, the whole vehicle making a turn towards the right of the image.
What is ...
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How will SpaceX build a SuperHeavy launch mount at LC39A, an active launch pad?
We have seen how fast SpaceX built the Boca Chica launch mount. We also saw the approach of building the base, then lifting segments built offsite (At the gas well site) to assemble them.
However, as ...
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Will the Starship skirt envelope heat during landing?
Starship lands on the pad using the landing burn of 1-2 raptor engines. The landing legs offer little vertical clearance from the ground, whereas during lift off, the suborbital launch pad provides ...
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What's the ratio of horizontal to vertical velocity and travel distance for starship?
As far as I understand the spacex starship trajectory is not exactly vertical, it looks more like the picture below.
If the height of the flight is 12.5km, then what is the horizontal distance it ...
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SpaceX starship landing legs deployment
After watching the flight of sn8 the landing legs didn't deploy. What makes them deploy? Velocity?
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Could SN8 miss its "bellyflop" if Center of Gravity is too far forward?
Very excited about the upcoming Space X Starship SN8 test flight, but was concerned about the ability to perform the high drag horizontal belly flop with some of the rocket thruster hardware missing ...
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Sea launch for starship super heavy will need some kind of flame diverter. Any idea how it will work?
Animations of starship taking off from a barge or platform appear as if there is no flame diverter at all. Any idea how that will be handled, especially since they plan so much traffic? Also how has ...
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Details on Starship's Reaction Control System thrusters
Recent renderings of the proposed lunar starship has stirred speculation about what those 12 small landing engines are, half way up the space ship. In guessing they may be the same engines being ...
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Scattering of exhaust gases during Starship IFT-2 hot staging
Various footage of the IFT-2 of SpaceX's Starship show intriguing pattern of, presumably, exhaust gases illuminated by the Ship's 3+3 engines (attached below). While this may be an optical illusion, ...
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How many tonnes of cargo are stored on the International Space Station?
I think I read somewhere that SpaceX's Starship should carry 100 tonnes to the moon, and that this amount of mass was greater than the total cargo on the ISS, but I can't find a reference confirming ...
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Fastest time to Moon for Starship
What is the fastest time to the Moon possible with Starship in the near future, assuming there is orbital refueling?
Is sustained acceleration and then deceleration possible at say 0.25G, to reduce ...
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How does SpaceX plan to utilize the (currently empty) high bay 2 in the VAB?
Elon Musk mentioned previously that SpaceX is in talks with NASA to utilize High Bay 2 in the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center, presumably for Starship operations, how would this be ...
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What if the Starship fins were fixed?
The body flaps on Starship have the responsibilty of controlling attitude during atmospheric flight. They are also needed to deal with the large moments created by carrying payloads in the nose.
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How big are the risks of Starship flipping during or after landing on the Moon?
Now that NASA has announced the selection of SpaceX to manufacture the Moon landing vehicle(s) for the Artemis program, I can't but notice how tall Starship is when compared to other concepts. Chances ...
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What happens at T-0 for the SpaceX Starship?
Every launch system defines a different event for T-0. The SpaceX Starship prototypes seem to ignite the engines at T-1.0 and accent seems to begin between T+1.0 and T+1.5. An overthrust abort for SN-...
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Superheavy assisted trip to Mars
i just had a thought and wonder about feasability, cost and possible implications.
What I assume is the plan:
A Superheavy pushes Starship into Orbit. Cargo Starships follow and refuel. Fueled up ...
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Why SN8 needed 12.5 km?
Is there a particular reason for chosing 12.5 km for the SN8 hop?
Why 5 km for example is not good enough?
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Any large scale rocket static fires, like SpaceX's 3 in one day?
SpaceX on Jan 13, 2021 did three static fires in one day.
Elon Musk tweeted:
All three static fires completed & no RUDs!
And that was in response to this tweet of his own:
Today at SpaceX is ...
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Would SN8 had landed safely with more fuel?
There was not enough pressure on the fuel tank so the engines were not working properly.
That means there was not enough fuel?
Is it possible there was enough fuel for landing but without enough ...
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Has SpaceX been communicating with the German SHEFEX program about their actively cooled heat shield tests?
The German SHarp Edge Flight EXperiment has used some sounding rockets to test aerodynamic control surfaces during hypersonic reentry. The nose consists of thin ceramic plates bolted to aluminum with ...
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Details about the BFR abort procedures?
What kind of emergency procedures will the BFR have during landings? I can see an abort to an alternate landing zone but what about when you have a an emergency ten seconds after engine shutdown?
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Are Starship header tanks used during ascent? And why?
Elon Musk tweeted that Starship SN8 failed to land due to insufficient header tank pressure:
Fuel header tank pressure was low during landing burn, causing touchdown velocity to be high & RUD [......
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How will SpaceX land its rockets on the unleveled surface of Mars?
SpaceX plans to send the Starship to Mars and to land it there, tail first in a vertical position.
Unlike the Perseverance rover, which seems to be able to land on uneven terrain without the need for ...
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