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The rocket BO sent up today is bigger than SpaceX's Starship and Super Heavy!? If I understood correctly, that's really impressive. It would also explain why it
by nomilk 2y ago
The rocket BO sent up today is bigger than SpaceX's Starship and Super Heavy!? If I understood correctly, that's really impressive. It would also explain why it appeared slow to rise at the start of the launch.
- philwelch 2y agoNo, starship/superheavy is bigger. But it hasn’t technically reached orbit yet.
- nomilk 2y agoThanks for clarifying.
- nyokodo 2y agoAlso, crucially, this was an operational test by BO whereas Starship and Super Heavy are still in developmental testing. New Glenn will now start launching commercial payloads assuming the outcome doesn’t reveal any problems with the overall launch.
- adastra22 2y agoI'm not sure that's a crucial difference. SpaceX doesn't operate the way the rest of the launch industry does. They could keep launching any of the last few iterations if they wanted, and it would be perfectly capable of reaching orbit and carrying a payload. Unclear what size payload from the info we have.
- tsimionescu 2y agoIs it actually capable of carrying a payload? Have they confirmed that? The fuel graphs they show during launcheshave always shown the ship being full on launch, empty by the end, it's not clear to me how they would carry cargo in addition to what they're showing now.
- adastra22 2y agoAll those reentry tiles, reentry & burn back fuel, and header tanks add up to a lot of launch weight that wouldn't be needed in an expendable mission profile.
- tsimionescu 2y agoSure, but that's not what this is about. The quoted capacity of Starship is supposed to be for a fully rapidly reusable Starship So the question remains: is the current Starship design capable of carrying a commercial payload to at least LEO, and then come back safely down as they demonstrated?
- adastra22 2y agoI don't see how that is relevant? Surely you'd be comparing against other launch vehicles, which are all expendable.
- imtringued 2y agoNot just that, they would have launched RocketLab's ESCAPADE on their first flight, if they hadn't missed the launch window.
- idlewords 2y agoNo, it's much smaller (though still a huge rocket). It appears to rise slowly because it accelerates more slowly than Starship (~1.2g vs ~1.5g when clearing the launch tower). People are saying things about Starship not yet being an orbital rocket because of technicalities. The reality is we have two huge rockets, made by American companies, that can now reach orbit, and that's pretty amazing.
- manquer 2y agoStarship is an orbital rocket, and will achieve actual orbit in few months, but I don’t think they are ready for a customer anytime soon, particularly an external one. That is entirely by choice, they want to focus their attention on iteration now, which is sensible as falcon 9 and heavy are more than enough to compete today. For a buyer in next two years it is either falcon heavy or new glen if they want heavy lift today.
- joak 2y agoBigger than Falcon 9, smaller than Falcon Heavy. Smaller than Starship/Super Heavy. I'm comparing here on payload capacity to LEO