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What's more likely to orbit first now: SLS or Starship?
by alecfreudenberg 4y ago
What's more likely to orbit first now: SLS or Starship?
- the_duke 4y agoA Starship launch is months away at best. I'm betting on 2023. Unless there are some serious issues with SLS it will launch first. Significant delays would be really, really bad for SLS. They already extended the lifetime for the SRBs...
- panick21_ 4y agoWho remember when we were talking about what will launch first, SLS or Falcon Heavy. Good times. I remember being called a idiot SpaceX fanboy that understands nothing about engineering when I said Falcon Heavy would launch first. And by somebody who worked at NASA as far as I can tell. Unless there is a longer delay with upper stage refuel, they likely make it first.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoYeah, the comments boiling down to "Starship doesn't exist, SLS does" are hilarious. > "Let's be very honest again," Bolden said in a 2014 interview. "We don't have a commercially available heavy lift vehicle. Falcon 9 Heavy may someday come about. It's on the drawing board right now. SLS is real. Falcon Heavy launched four years after he said that. SLS still hasn't.
- Karellen 4y agoWill Starship's upcoming test flight count as "to orbit"? IIRC they're not planning on circularising the orbit - i.e. perigee will be well inside the atmosphere, and the vehicle will re-enter and splashdown before getting back to the starting longitude.
- fallingknife 4y agoIf they can get it out of the atmosphere, up to orbital velocity, and back in, and land it in one piece, they will have done the hard part, and getting it fully to orbit will be a foregone conclusion.
- alecfreudenberg 4y agoGood point on the mismatched comparison. My assumption is the hardest part is an orbital altitude, not the completion of orbit. The completion of an orbit just seems to be an unnecessary safety and control risk. If you can't land it, it makes sense to sandwich the 'orbital altitude' and 'smile and wave around the moon' mission into one. For SpaceX, focusing on the altitude seems to make the most sense. Especially considering that refilling may even be a higher priority than a moon pass. NASA appears focused on inspirational discovery/science, while SpaceX is focused on making life multiplanetary. These are closely related, but fundamentally different missions.
- colechristensen 4y agoThis is the kind of scrub that gets retried in days.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoPer the official NASA livestream, they're taking the rest of the day off and they're going to have meetings tomorrow to plan meetings about meetings about when to schedule the next scrub.
- iruoy 4y agoI'm not so sure. If the rocket needs to be rolled back I don't think they can make the September 2 or 5 launch windows. They should've just done the full Wet Dress Rehearsal.
- alecfreudenberg 4y agoWith the Starship/FCC test window opening tomorrow (9/1), are there additional launch permits that will specify a particular date? Or can they send it when they want?
- dotnet00 4y agoThey still need the launch license from the FAA (what they have right now is the environmental review). It'll probably take a few days or weeks once static fire testing is done.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]