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They can launch payloads that bring in revenue while working on that problem. There is a good chance they put a bunch of Starlinks on the next flight.

throwuwu 3y ago
Exactly, they’ve reached feature parity with large expendable launch systems so they can piggyback paying customers with a high risk threshold (starlink) on flights they’d be doing anyways. Given their cadence this phase won’t last long, they’ll likely achieve at least one successful landing next flight.
- ortusdux 3y ago
  They have also been eager to launch version 2.0 starlink satellites, but they don't fit in the falcon fairing. The first couple batches of those would be test articles as well, so I'd be surprised if the next starship launch doesn't a few on board.
  - dotnet00 3y ago
    They've been launching a version of the v2 sats that do fit in the Falcon 9 fairing and supposedly have all the functionality of the larger versions. The issue is that F9 can only carry ~24 of those at a time, which slows down the pace of expansion a lot.
    - ortusdux 3y ago
      The new 'Pez dispenser' on the starship is designed for the full sized V2 sats, which are about 2x the mass of the V2 minis.
- gorkish 3y ago
  Yes this would all be true, if it were true. It is likely to become true at IFT-4 but they are very demonstrably not quite where you say they are. This was still a suborbital flight and they cannot do much of anything that is commercially practical on suborbital flights (like launch satellites, even if they raise their apogee). They appear to have not had good control authority in coast and reentry. They did not do a relight/deorbit burn test that is likely an obstacle to tackle before they can make orbital flights. I assume we'll get some confirmation about these things soon enough, but please, you can be optimistic without being hasty.
  - DarmokJalad1701 3y ago
    > This was still a suborbital flight and they cannot do much of anything that is commercially practical on suborbital flights If they had flown a slightly steeper ascent and burned for a little longer (possibly a minute if not less), they would have ended in a stable orbit. Not doing that was intentional. They do not need engine relight capability to reach orbit - plenty of orbital rockets exist that cannot relight their final stage.
    - bdamm 3y ago
      Yes, but the point was that they can't launch starlinks or just about any commercially meaningful payload until they are reliably in orbit, and they can't reliably get into orbit until they demonstrate at least one relight, because they need to reliably re-enter the atmosphere for the reusability tests. So they are at least one more launch away from launching starlinks.
      - DarmokJalad1701 3y ago
        > commercially meaningful payload until they are reliably in orbit, Which then can do without a relight. > and they can't reliably get into orbit until they demonstrate at least one re-light And part of testing deorbit/landing capability includes testing that they can relight the engine. So they could launch the next one with Starlinks (possibly test articles of those as well since no full-size V2 satellites have been laucnhed yet). Get it into orbit and include a deorbit burn/re-entry as part of the flight plan. If the latter part somehow still does not work out ... they still got Starlinks into orbit. And they now have more data to fix it on the next flight. They already have several vehicles lined up for static fires and flight tests.
        bandyaboot 3y ago
        They won’t put starship into orbit until they can test relight. They won’t risk, nor would they be allowed to risk putting it up there without a demonstrated ability to bring it back down in a controlled manner.
- faceloss 3y ago
  [dead]
Laremere 3y ago
They might do one to test deployment, but it'd be a throwaway. Their relight test was skipped (not said why), so they still don't have confirmation they can control where Starship re-eneters. Until that happens, it's very unlikely they'll target actual orbital velocity. The Starlink satellites do have thrusters, but they're ion engines, so not nearly enough thrust to get that last bit into orbit before they'd re-enter.
- baq 3y ago
  99% chance that they lost attitude control hence couldn't point the business end towards wherever they wanted to. we know they can relight the engine on the booster and we know they can relight for landing burns. no surprise if the next launch has a couple pre-production big starlink birds.
  - LorenDB 3y ago
    On the contrary, they absolutely had attitude control. Otherwise reentry would have seen the ship tumbling out of control and quickly breaking up. Instead, SpaceX was able to begin a controlled reentry in the upright position, indicating nominal orientation performance.
    - baq 3y ago
      they were tumbling, just slowly. they started reentering side first. that it broke at 65km was unsurprising - shuttle experienced peak heating about there.
    - Plasmoid2000ad 3y ago
      I'm no so sure, it at least looked like it was tumbling before and throughout re-entry. If they had attitude control, I think they would have at least stopped the visible rotation at some point before re-entry? I'm not sure why the ship not immediatly breaking up, but eventually breaking up is proof that they at attitude control - especially against what the live feed showed - rotation.

throwuwu 3y ago

Exactly, they’ve reached feature parity with large expendable launch systems so they can piggyback paying customers with a high risk threshold (starlink) on flights they’d be doing anyways. Given their cadence this phase won’t last long, they’ll likely achieve at least one successful landing next flight.

ortusdux 3y ago
They have also been eager to launch version 2.0 starlink satellites, but they don't fit in the falcon fairing. The first couple batches of those would be test articles as well, so I'd be surprised if the next starship launch doesn't a few on board.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  They've been launching a version of the v2 sats that do fit in the Falcon 9 fairing and supposedly have all the functionality of the larger versions. The issue is that F9 can only carry ~24 of those at a time, which slows down the pace of expansion a lot.
  - ortusdux 3y ago
    The new 'Pez dispenser' on the starship is designed for the full sized V2 sats, which are about 2x the mass of the V2 minis.
gorkish 3y ago
Yes this would all be true, if it were true. It is likely to become true at IFT-4 but they are very demonstrably not quite where you say they are. This was still a suborbital flight and they cannot do much of anything that is commercially practical on suborbital flights (like launch satellites, even if they raise their apogee). They appear to have not had good control authority in coast and reentry. They did not do a relight/deorbit burn test that is likely an obstacle to tackle before they can make orbital flights. I assume we'll get some confirmation about these things soon enough, but please, you can be optimistic without being hasty.
- DarmokJalad1701 3y ago
  > This was still a suborbital flight and they cannot do much of anything that is commercially practical on suborbital flights If they had flown a slightly steeper ascent and burned for a little longer (possibly a minute if not less), they would have ended in a stable orbit. Not doing that was intentional. They do not need engine relight capability to reach orbit - plenty of orbital rockets exist that cannot relight their final stage.
  - bdamm 3y ago
    Yes, but the point was that they can't launch starlinks or just about any commercially meaningful payload until they are reliably in orbit, and they can't reliably get into orbit until they demonstrate at least one relight, because they need to reliably re-enter the atmosphere for the reusability tests. So they are at least one more launch away from launching starlinks.
    - DarmokJalad1701 3y ago
      > commercially meaningful payload until they are reliably in orbit, Which then can do without a relight. > and they can't reliably get into orbit until they demonstrate at least one re-light And part of testing deorbit/landing capability includes testing that they can relight the engine. So they could launch the next one with Starlinks (possibly test articles of those as well since no full-size V2 satellites have been laucnhed yet). Get it into orbit and include a deorbit burn/re-entry as part of the flight plan. If the latter part somehow still does not work out ... they still got Starlinks into orbit. And they now have more data to fix it on the next flight. They already have several vehicles lined up for static fires and flight tests.
      - bandyaboot 3y ago
        They won’t put starship into orbit until they can test relight. They won’t risk, nor would they be allowed to risk putting it up there without a demonstrated ability to bring it back down in a controlled manner.
faceloss 3y ago
[dead]

Laremere 3y ago

They might do one to test deployment, but it'd be a throwaway. Their relight test was skipped (not said why), so they still don't have confirmation they can control where Starship re-eneters. Until that happens, it's very unlikely they'll target actual orbital velocity. The Starlink satellites do have thrusters, but they're ion engines, so not nearly enough thrust to get that last bit into orbit before they'd re-enter.

baq 3y ago
99% chance that they lost attitude control hence couldn't point the business end towards wherever they wanted to. we know they can relight the engine on the booster and we know they can relight for landing burns. no surprise if the next launch has a couple pre-production big starlink birds.
- LorenDB 3y ago
  On the contrary, they absolutely had attitude control. Otherwise reentry would have seen the ship tumbling out of control and quickly breaking up. Instead, SpaceX was able to begin a controlled reentry in the upright position, indicating nominal orientation performance.
  - baq 3y ago
    they were tumbling, just slowly. they started reentering side first. that it broke at 65km was unsurprising - shuttle experienced peak heating about there.
  - Plasmoid2000ad 3y ago
    I'm no so sure, it at least looked like it was tumbling before and throughout re-entry. If they had attitude control, I think they would have at least stopped the visible rotation at some point before re-entry? I'm not sure why the ship not immediatly breaking up, but eventually breaking up is proof that they at attitude control - especially against what the live feed showed - rotation.