3 ms·
Well, no it wouldn't actually. It'd be a nice use for falcon heavy - to get them the necessary delta-v. But the constraint isn't cargo space on launch. This is
by jvanderbot 2y ago
Well, no it wouldn't actually.
It'd be a nice use for falcon heavy - to get them the necessary delta-v. But the constraint isn't cargo space on launch. This isn't a starlink constellation, the orbits are necessarily massively different, meaning each spacecraft needs its own large delta-v so a single-launch, multiple spacecraft option is less attractive.
The constraint is budget, fuel, and ambition.
Now what you could do is get a telescope out around a far outer planet and use the orbital parallax like we do from earth. A Starship might have a bunch of extra cargo space for this. But I just don't see how it is better than a big faring on falcon heavy.
EDIT: You know what? I am completely mistaken here. I was not thinking about the diff b/w FH and starship correctly.
- HPsquared 2y agoMore lift capacity means more fuel capacity onboard the telescope(s).
- baq 2y agoYou can easily put a third stage bigger than the whole F9 second stage in the payload bay of the Starship and you likely wouldn't need a super complicated unfolding deployment procedure for the payload thanks to the enormous volume. Once the thing becomes reliable there are zero missions the FH can do that starship can't with a payload equipped with a third stage motor.
- jvanderbot 2y agoOK I'll bite: What does starship add here? It's a very large re-useable faring that carries a stage + payload into orbit? Why not attach to the top of FH? Why: FH + Starship w/( rocket + payload) And not: FH + (rocket + payload)
- dotnet00 2y agoFH is already very thin and tall, probably not practical to stick another stage on top even if it could work payload wise. Besides that, SLS and New Glenn are the only ones with comparable lift capacities, SLS is way too expensive for the capability and the massive SRBs make the ride pretty rough, New Glenn is probably a feasible alternative, although probably more expensive than Starship.
- baq 2y agoStarship doesn’t add anything. Starship removes complexity by sheer brute force, cheaply due to reusabilty. You can architecture a mission with ridiculous (before starship, that is) mass and volume per dollar budgets. Falcon Heavy can lift a lot of mass but unless you’re launching tungsten into orbit you can’t fit interesting things into the fairing.
- eightysixfour 2y agoI think you are mixing some things up. Starship doesn’t launch on FH, it launches on Super Heavy, which is its only first stage option. A full Falcon Heavy stack can take 63,800kh to LEO. A Starship stack can take 150,000kg to LEO. The available Δv is substantially higher.
- dotnet00 2y agoStarship could give a single telescope a stronger boost than an FH could, and depending on the mass of one telescope (along with all the redundancies, power sources and transmitters such a long term mission would need), the telescope could be launched with an extra boost stage. So, several Starship launches for several telescopes.
- ianburrell 2y agoGaia is pretty small, 710kg. It was launched on Soyuz. Falcon 9 has payload to Mars of 4 tons, and Falcon Heavy has 9 tons to Pluto. I bet both would work.