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The private lander's mission control looks like the proverbial two-pizza team. Would it that the silent revolution in spaceflight, hidden under the glamour of

The private lander's mission control looks like the proverbial two-pizza team. Would it that the silent revolution in spaceflight, hidden under the glamour of reusable rockets, is incredibly sophisticated telemetry, communication, on-board automation? A computing stack that's making the 1x mission control a 10x mission control? I understand there will be other teams elsewhere (delivery vehicle, remote sensing etc. etc.). But that image is rad too --- from one or a few space agencies co-orchestrating a program to multiples more doing so. Obviously some version of this has been going on for decades, but somehow the imagery on their website struck a chord.

JonChesterfield 3y ago
Linkedin suggests about 250 people. Lots of them with software in the name. Company looks very lean relative to the semiconductor monsters I'm more familiar with.
datadrivenangel 3y ago
JAXA has done rocket launches with a ground crew of less than 10. Obviously the extended support staff is much bigger than that to enable so few people to launch a rocket, but the number of people required when things are ready to go can be very small.
kragen 3y ago
better, lighter-weight computing stacks have been a huge boost; that's what made cubesats possible. but the much bigger deal is the dramatic drop in launch costs driven by spacex, even though so far that's only a factor of 3.4 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cost-space-launches-low-earth-orbit https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cost-space-launches-low-e... with lightweight computers driven by the cellphone industry, it became possible for a small team or even individual to launch a low-power ham radio satellite or weather satellite. but they can't launch a high-resolution space telescope, earth observing satellite, or high-power communications satellite, nor can they do laser communication pointcasting. and lightweight computers are a crucial enabler for starlink-style communications constellations, but there's only one of those, because that's still a big-money kind of project suppose that, instead, you had 01980s computing power, but the cost of space launch dropped by a factor of 100. if you need to launch a 200-kg satellite to get the sky-observing optical aperture you're looking for so diffraction doesn't cremate you, you don't care if the onboard computers weigh 1 gram or 10 kilograms. (i mean, you do care, because it lets you cut your launch budget 10%, but it's not a dominant determinant of viability.) with saturn v or zenit 2, according to the plot linked above, that launch would cost you a million dollars. today, at falcon heavy's 1500 dollars per kg, it's 300,000 dollars, which is already a radically more feasible project spacex's 'starship' is supposed to carry 150 tonnes to leo for 10 million dollars. that's 70 dollars a kilogram. our hypothetical 200-kg aditya athalye space telescope satellite would then cost 14000 dollars to launch. it becomes a hobby project comparable in cost to an engine lathe or a camper van. this would change the economics of space in a profound way, far beyond what cellphone chips have done for comparison, the csis aerospace security project number for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scout_(rocket_family) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scout_(rocket_family) on that chart was 118500 dollars per kg in 01961. (but of course you couldn't launch a cubesat on it for that price; it was a military thing.) by 01967 saturn v had brought that down by a factor of 22. after that it remained constant for 43 years until falcon 9 in 02010. starship, if it works, will reduce launch costs by that same factor of 22 over the current falcon heavy number i described above, and by a factor of 73 over saturn v
- HeadsUpHigh 3y ago
  The decline in price per kg from Falcon 9 has made a big difference and yet it's nowhere near as impactful as Starship is going to be... falcon 9 is either too powerful for LEO missions and limited by fairing volume( so can't really launch space stations on a falcon 9) or too weak to push further into GEO and into the solar system. Starship will enable a lot of LEO applications previously unthinkable.
- idlewords 3y ago
  The big improvement is not launch costs, but miniaturization and automation. A university team can make a credible lunar rover or cubesat today using off-the-shelf components. Unlike launch vehicles, that technology did not exist in 001960, or even 002000, at any price.
  - kragen 3y ago
    i came here for an argument, but this is just contradiction it doesn't matter if you can make a credible lunar rover or not if the price to launch it is three times the grant the nsf will give your university team. given that nasa published their lunar roving vehicle documentation in mostly 0001973, down to circuit schematics and some machining dimensions, i'm pretty sure a university team in 00002000 could have duplicated it for less than the several million dollars the launch would cost. it only took boeing 17 months to design and build them in the first place, and they mostly use technology from the 000001940s (aluminum tubing, nylon webbing, wire mesh wheels, silver-zinc plexiglass batteries, brushed dc motors, cable brakes; fiberglass arm rests and fenders were apparently the highest-tech part and, unsurprisingly, the part that failed) https://www.nasa.gov/history/alsj/alsj-LRVdocs.html https://www.nasa.gov/history/alsj/alsj-LRVdocs.html with respect to cubesats, you're in violent agreement with my comment. you obviously can't put a trs-80 in a cubesat. in 0000002000 you could put a basic stamp in it, but you couldn't get mems gyros and accelerometers, and you weren't going to be able to run your star tracker camera off a pic16. computer and imu miniaturization is a big deal for cubesats. that's one of the main points of my comment the other main point is that it isn't nearly as big a deal for bigger satellites; when we were launching cubesats (before i joined the team) it was really important that we could use tiny cellphone components, but once we were launching 37kg monstrosities, the fact that the gumstix boards only weighed a few grams was just nice, not critical. the optics weighed a lot more so tell us, what's your experience?
danlugo92 3y ago
> A computing stack that's making the 1x mission control a 10x mission control Isn't this obvious...? Given SpaceX's auto-pilot mission to the moon and all of these latest missions to asteroids and such...? BTW They land on asteroids because they already have enough rock moons, asteroids are more varied than different surfaces of the moon, no conspiracy here. (I upvoted you BTW)

JonChesterfield 3y ago

Linkedin suggests about 250 people. Lots of them with software in the name. Company looks very lean relative to the semiconductor monsters I'm more familiar with.

datadrivenangel 3y ago

JAXA has done rocket launches with a ground crew of less than 10. Obviously the extended support staff is much bigger than that to enable so few people to launch a rocket, but the number of people required when things are ready to go can be very small.

kragen 3y ago

better, lighter-weight computing stacks have been a huge boost; that's what made cubesats possible. but the much bigger deal is the dramatic drop in launch costs driven by spacex, even though so far that's only a factor of 3.4 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cost-space-launches-low-earth-orbit https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cost-space-launches-low-e... with lightweight computers driven by the cellphone industry, it became possible for a small team or even individual to launch a low-power ham radio satellite or weather satellite. but they can't launch a high-resolution space telescope, earth observing satellite, or high-power communications satellite, nor can they do laser communication pointcasting. and lightweight computers are a crucial enabler for starlink-style communications constellations, but there's only one of those, because that's still a big-money kind of project suppose that, instead, you had 01980s computing power, but the cost of space launch dropped by a factor of 100. if you need to launch a 200-kg satellite to get the sky-observing optical aperture you're looking for so diffraction doesn't cremate you, you don't care if the onboard computers weigh 1 gram or 10 kilograms. (i mean, you do care, because it lets you cut your launch budget 10%, but it's not a dominant determinant of viability.) with saturn v or zenit 2, according to the plot linked above, that launch would cost you a million dollars. today, at falcon heavy's 1500 dollars per kg, it's 300,000 dollars, which is already a radically more feasible project spacex's 'starship' is supposed to carry 150 tonnes to leo for 10 million dollars. that's 70 dollars a kilogram. our hypothetical 200-kg aditya athalye space telescope satellite would then cost 14000 dollars to launch. it becomes a hobby project comparable in cost to an engine lathe or a camper van. this would change the economics of space in a profound way, far beyond what cellphone chips have done for comparison, the csis aerospace security project number for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scout_(rocket_family) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scout_(rocket_family) on that chart was 118500 dollars per kg in 01961. (but of course you couldn't launch a cubesat on it for that price; it was a military thing.) by 01967 saturn v had brought that down by a factor of 22. after that it remained constant for 43 years until falcon 9 in 02010. starship, if it works, will reduce launch costs by that same factor of 22 over the current falcon heavy number i described above, and by a factor of 73 over saturn v

HeadsUpHigh 3y ago
The decline in price per kg from Falcon 9 has made a big difference and yet it's nowhere near as impactful as Starship is going to be... falcon 9 is either too powerful for LEO missions and limited by fairing volume( so can't really launch space stations on a falcon 9) or too weak to push further into GEO and into the solar system. Starship will enable a lot of LEO applications previously unthinkable.
idlewords 3y ago
The big improvement is not launch costs, but miniaturization and automation. A university team can make a credible lunar rover or cubesat today using off-the-shelf components. Unlike launch vehicles, that technology did not exist in 001960, or even 002000, at any price.
- kragen 3y ago
  i came here for an argument, but this is just contradiction it doesn't matter if you can make a credible lunar rover or not if the price to launch it is three times the grant the nsf will give your university team. given that nasa published their lunar roving vehicle documentation in mostly 0001973, down to circuit schematics and some machining dimensions, i'm pretty sure a university team in 00002000 could have duplicated it for less than the several million dollars the launch would cost. it only took boeing 17 months to design and build them in the first place, and they mostly use technology from the 000001940s (aluminum tubing, nylon webbing, wire mesh wheels, silver-zinc plexiglass batteries, brushed dc motors, cable brakes; fiberglass arm rests and fenders were apparently the highest-tech part and, unsurprisingly, the part that failed) https://www.nasa.gov/history/alsj/alsj-LRVdocs.html https://www.nasa.gov/history/alsj/alsj-LRVdocs.html with respect to cubesats, you're in violent agreement with my comment. you obviously can't put a trs-80 in a cubesat. in 0000002000 you could put a basic stamp in it, but you couldn't get mems gyros and accelerometers, and you weren't going to be able to run your star tracker camera off a pic16. computer and imu miniaturization is a big deal for cubesats. that's one of the main points of my comment the other main point is that it isn't nearly as big a deal for bigger satellites; when we were launching cubesats (before i joined the team) it was really important that we could use tiny cellphone components, but once we were launching 37kg monstrosities, the fact that the gumstix boards only weighed a few grams was just nice, not critical. the optics weighed a lot more so tell us, what's your experience?

danlugo92 3y ago

> A computing stack that's making the 1x mission control a 10x mission control Isn't this obvious...? Given SpaceX's auto-pilot mission to the moon and all of these latest missions to asteroids and such...? BTW They land on asteroids because they already have enough rock moons, asteroids are more varied than different surfaces of the moon, no conspiracy here. (I upvoted you BTW)