4 ms·
Now do the same calculation in units of hubble space telescope and james webb space telescope masses. Then look at expected reusable launch cost and figure out
by bane 3y ago
Now do the same calculation in units of hubble space telescope and james webb space telescope masses.
Then look at expected reusable launch cost and figure out how many HSTs or JWSTs we could have put in orbit for the same cost.
- 93po 3y agoJWST would also be incredibly less expensive if it didn't have to do the very complex folding required by smaller rockets
- Retric 3y agoJWST would still have been an extremely novel and therefore expensive on Spaceship. We just don't build anything that uses that kind of sun shield or those sensors etc and everything needs to work on one shot, thus serious engineering effort.
- Teever 3y agoWith Starship flights it should be the right combination of cheap enough, frequent enough, and big enough to enable whole new paradigms of construction in space. We'll be able to design modular space telescopes that benefit from economies of scale, so that we'll be shipping up the sun shield in separate pieces anyways so if any particular one is lost that's okay we'll have an assembly line to produce more.
- Retric 3y agoLaunching several doesn't solve the issue of needing a design and construction that actually works. For something nobody has ever built before and we can't really test in zero g without launching etc. Unfolding the heat shield was a relatively minor design issue compared to say the instruments, we just had less ability to actually test it on the ground.
- birdman3131 3y agoHow much larger could we have made it still doing the folding on starship?
- 93po 3y agoI have no idea. Ariane 5 rocket has payload dimensions of 15x50 feet. Starship is 26x56ft. The unfolded mirror is 21 feet across, so if you increased that by 73%, then 36 feet. This is all probably really unfounded assumptions The benefit of starship here is probably being able to massively reduce the expense and risk of future JWST duplicates that don't need to fold. Also in the launch cost, which was $1 billion for Ariane 5 whereas Starship would be in the tens of millions.
- Shawnj2 3y agoLaunching JWST on Starship would still be incredibly expensive because JWST is at the Lagrange point on the other side of the moon and 1 starship needs like 30 other starships to fuel it to get there
- 93po 3y agoHow do you explain how the Ariane 5 used for the JWST, with a mass to GTO half that of Starship, was able to position the JWST without 60 launches?
- Shawnj2 3y agoSimple, it’s designed to launch a payload into lunar orbit and starship isn’t. To move something using starship into lunar orbit you need to move an entire starship there while the Ariane 5 is designed to do it in 1 launch at the expense of much less payload capacity and no reusability.
- 93po 3y agoI still don't follow. The Ariane 5 launched the JWST with enough fuel to get where it's needed. Starship can launch the exact same payload, plus twice the entire weight in extra fuel. Starship also offers no-reusability launch options for stuff just like this.