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Maybe Starship has matured enough by then to launch Europa Clipper on it? It might be able to put the probe on a much faster trajectory than Falcon Heavy could.
by _Microft 5y ago
Maybe Starship has matured enough by then to launch Europa Clipper on it? It might be able to put the probe on a much faster trajectory than Falcon Heavy could. Does anyone know of (informal?) plans regarding that?
Keep in mind that Artemis 3 [0] is scheduled to launch in september 2024 and the mission includes a moon landing with the planned Starship human landing system (HLS) [1]. Mr Maezawa's flight around Moon is also scheduled for the early 2020ies (no earlier than ("NET") 2023), so Starship is meant to be reliable enough for crewed missions then.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_3#Mission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_3#Mission
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship#Starship_Human_Landing_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship#Starship_Human...
- mabbo 5y agoIt would be odd to change the contact that late, I would imagine. But it's an interesting possibility. Still, Starship has a long way to go.
- mlindner 5y agoStarship isn’t a functional vehicle yet. It’s a long way from being able to be a launch vehicle for NASA’s most expensive payloads.
- rst 5y agoNASA tends to be extremely conservative regarding booster technology -- allowing reused boosters only after commercial customers had thoroughly proved them out, for example. Which is justifiable -- most commercial launches are communications satellites for which it's possible to insure the launch for enough to buy another, while NASA's payloads are unique and far more expensive.