Space X

Totally not a dig at Boeing for not doing all up tests and their stuck valves. After the 737 debacles (LOTS of other problems too) Boeing have a lot to prove, or just one thing, whether the engineers or accounts run the company. Because the accountants will run it into the ground leaving Airbus (and the Russians) as the only ones who can build wide body airliners until the Chinese can.

Edit - this was a reply to - Shlippery's

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1425670276256251908Interesting that they'll be going back on Monday...I wonder how the Static fires / pressure tests will work?

The three keys to keeping a new human space program affordable and on schedule:

       1)  No new launch vehicles.

       2)  No new launch vehicles.

       3)  Whatever you do, don't develop any new launch vehicles.

Yes it's overkill. But reusable makes it a lot cheaper. Fuel is cheap compared to designing a whole new rocket. It's the reason SpaceX skipped the Falcon 5 project and went straight to Falcon 9 once they had the Falcon 1 working.

The bid from Bezos was twice the price. Even if you include the £2Bn Bezos said he'd stump up, the SpaceX bid is still a billion dollars cheaper. And still Bezos sued. This is a guy who got $13 billion richer in one day.

Technically SpaceX could cobble together something from a combination of Falcon Heavy and Dragon even if Starship is a complete flop so there's security there.

Blue Origin are at least four years late on the Be-4 engine and still haven't gotten to orbit. SpaceX have taken a basic Falcon 9 design from 10,450 Kg to LEO through 13,150 Kg and 22,800Kg to 63,800 Kg with the Falcon Heavy and Starship should do 100,000Kg multiple times with reusable hardware for a lower cost.

Note : Blue Origin's New Shepard (first flight 2005,) is roughly the same size and thrust as Falcon 1 (first flight 2006, orbit 2008, retired 2009). And the Be-4 is now four years late. Technically ULA could just about use some Raptors on their Vulcan in time to meet the NASA contracts if they throw everything at the problem.

ULA (a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin) have practically bet the company on Bezos getting the BE-4 engine working. 4 years overdue and counting.

The irony is that ULA could have gone for the AR1 in development by Aerojet Rocketdyne who've been in the engine business forever. Further irony is that Lockheed Martin took them over recently so the AR1 would've been made in house rather than by a direct competitor if New Glen turns out to be anything other than vapourwear :rolleyes:

Or continued to use Russian RD180 engines except they aren't allowed to because "they weren't invented here"

Meanwhile Boeing are having awful problems with their $4.2Bn Starliner capsule. The astronauts are going up on the flight proven, $2.6Bn to develop, Dragon instead. Who would have thought that Florida has humidity ?

This is costing both ULA and Boeing financially as NASA moves missions to SpaceX rockets.

Giant chopsticks

"Saves mass and cost of legs and enables immediate repositioning of booster onto launch mount — ready to refly in under an hour," wildly optimistic :)

Perhaps a dozen test flights next year, and eventual cost reduction to $30m a flight ?

Falcon v1.2 has had over 100 flights successful flights (payload to correct orbit) in a row all with 9 engines. Falcon heavy had 27 engines firing at once.

Rockets get lighter as fuel burns up so there's more redundancy later in the flight. Saturn V had several flights were one of the five engines shut down.

New engines use new very cold fuel liquid methane instead of kerosene / home heating oil. One fuel ignites as easily as turning on a gas ring (actually cold enough to suck the oxygen out of the air create a bomb) , the other is twice as dense, cokes up when used to cool the engines but you could stand in a paddling pool of it and drop lighted matches into all day long.

ESA are developing a reusable launcher partially in response to SpaceX taking business from Ariane The THEMIS will have Prometheus methane/LOX engines which should cost a tenth of the Vulcain that Ariane 5 uses.

OneWeb are sending birds up on a regular basis. And there's lot and lots of little stats going up. NASA's small satellite handbook has a wealth of info. : Of the total 1,282 spacecraft launched in 2020, 94% were small spacecraft with an overall mass under 600 kg, and of those under 600 kg, 28% were under 200 kg, and 9% were nanosatellites

Bezos wants to have a constellation too, all he needs is 7,774 satellites and someone to launch them.