7 ms·
SpaceX is about to launch about 1600 tons to space this year, massively more than has been the global combined tonnage in the years before. And their launch slo
by m4rtink 3y ago
SpaceX is about to launch about 1600 tons to space this year, massively more than has been the global combined tonnage in the years before. And their launch slots are selling like hotcakes (which is also due to others turning out to be pretty incompetent in producing any rocket comparable to Falcon 9 in a decade, but thats a different story).
So I think the demand is there & finally the costs are low enough to enable many missions that we just can't afford before (like all those lunar landers showing up recently) and I don't think this trend will slow down any time soon, thankfully.
- rbanffy 3y agoI find it odd we haven’t embraced the modular spaceship and EOR approach. Think of a Falcon 9 second stage but instead of payload, it had more tank, more fuel, a docking ring and a set of RCS thrusters. It gets to orbit, finds its ”passenger”, docks to it and pushes it into whatever trajectory it wants to go. Add a truss with multiple docking rings to your payload and you can add multiple tugs to give a larger payload a bigger kick. Even packing a few kick stages on top of F9s or F9 heavies would enable some interesting missions - as both trajectory can be higher energy and payload doesn’t need to be trimmed to the minimum viable mass.
- yencabulator 3y agoDelta-V is more constrained by available fuel than number of tugs. An in-orbit refueled SpaceX Starship (or a fleet of them) will likely handle all the requirements we are able to manufacture for, in the near future.