3 ms·

How many fuel launches are required for that?

• agar 3y ago
  That's a matter of some debate. Somewhere between 6 and 12, I believe, is the range. SpaceX plans to stretch the second stage to increase fuel carrying capacity for tanker flights, so the actual number is TBD until both the revised Starship and its engines (Raptor 3) are built and tested.
  • datadrivenangel 3y ago
    It might take up to 20... NASA doesn't actually know / admit that it knows.
• imtringued 3y ago
  It depends on how many Starships you can launch simultaneously, because the time the fuel depot spends in orbit determines how much fuel is lost to boil-off. If you have a serial launch architecture, assuming reusability, refuling and relaunching, then the upper bound is around 20 launches. Even with expendable Starships, this is still cheaper than SLS, but not by much... This is why reusability is critical to the mission.
  • sixothree 3y ago
    I guess that means boil off would affect missions to the moon and mars as well.