SpaceX

sizes Comparing

HCpRPX1aEAE7EoU
 
Comparisons:

Researchers at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) have just published one of the most rigorous independent analyses of Starship yet attempted and, unusually, they did not rely on SpaceX's own claims. The work is published in the CEAS Space Journal.

Instead, they extracted telemetry data from the publicly broadcast footage of the first four integrated flight tests, second by second, and used it to build and validate their own detailed models of the vehicle's performance. The result is a picture of Starship that is both more grounded and more impressive than the marketing suggests.

The analysis confirmed that in its current form, a fully reusable Starship that can deliver around 59 tons to low Earth orbit. That is roughly what a Falcon Heavy can achieve without recovering any of its boosters at all.

The next-generation version, equipped with the more powerful Raptor 3 engines and enlarged fuel tanks, is projected to achieve around 115 tons in reusable mode and potentially 188 tons if flown expendably, surpassing even the mighty Saturn V of the Apollo era. But the more striking part of the paper is a detailed design for a European alternative capable of launching over 70 tons to orbit, called the RLV C5.

More
link.springer.com

Comparison of SpaceX’s Starship with winged heavy-lift launcher options for Europe - CEAS Space Journal

The remarkable progress SpaceX made in the first four integrated flight tests of their Starship and Super Heavy launcher configuration indicates that a fully reusable space transport system might become a reality within a few years. Such a system could revolutionize the global launch market...
link.springer.com link.springer.com
www.universetoday.com

Europe's Answer to Starship

SpaceX's Starship is the most powerful rocket ever built and it may be about to change everything. But researchers at the German Aerospace Centre have been asking a question: does Europe have an answer? Their new study, built on meticulous analysis of Starship's own flight data, suggests the...
www.universetoday.com www.universetoday.com

Banked re-entry

Starship Reentry lifting body simulation and reentry strategies

Starship Reentry lifting body simulation and reentry strategies
forum.nasaspaceflight.com forum.nasaspaceflight.com

Heat shields

Deluge system impact

Compared with conditions without the water spray cooling device, temperatures across most areas of the deflector’s bottom surface were reduced by approximately 76%. As water spray velocity increases, the peak temperature and the high-temperature region on the deflector’s bottom surface gradually decrease, and the temperature in the area directly impacted by rocket exhaust also decreases. At a water spray velocity of 30  m/s, the lowest peak temperature occurs on the deflector’s bottom surface, representing a reduction of up to 37.6% compared to that at 10  m/s.

On stainless
 
Last edited:
This thing is looking more shuttle-like all the time, except the orbiter was designed to have payload doors that ran longitudinally.

Hubble doors as well--and even those became a headache for Musgrave. Starship's gulper eel/chomper mouth? We'll see.
 
publiusr said:
This thing is looking more shuttle-like all the time, except the orbiter was designed to have payload doors that ran longitudinally.

Hubble doors as well--and even those became a headache for Musgrave. Starship's gulper eel/chomper mouth? We'll see.
Click to expand...
It is? Why? Because it's got black tiles on it?
 
That and all the promises made about shuttle are being made about Starship--and how it's going to do this, and that, and the other thing.
 
publiusr said:
That and all the promises made about shuttle are being made about Starship--and how it's going to do this, and that, and the other thing.
Click to expand...
Starship is meeting more of the promises. Also, the shuttle was a static design when it came to major subsystems. Other than lighter ET, the main structural components didn't change. Starship has been under constant upgrades.
 
publiusr said:
Hubble doors as well--and even those became a headache for Musgrave. Starship's gulper eel/chomper mouth? We'll see.
Click to expand...
Huh? What does Hubble doors have to do with Starship.
Chomper will not be the standard nose. HLS, tanker, depot, Mars lander and Starlink will have a plain nose.

Just another unneeded post with a need to denigrate vs critique.

Southern saying is if you don't have anything good to say, then don't say anything.
 
Last edited:
History repeating itself....If you could go back in time, and save the Saturns from being replaced by STS--would you do it?

I would.

Say what you will about Bechtel pricing…you can’t blame them for for Mount Krakaboka:

 
Last edited:
publiusr said:
History repeating itself....If you could go back in time, and save the Saturns from being replaced by STS--would you do it?

I would.
Click to expand...
The Saturns were never an option. They cost too much per launch, they were only viable for the national priority literal moonshot program, after it was over they were dead as a dodo even if there was no replacement. The STS also ended up costing too much per launch, but killing it doesn't make the Saturns stick around.

People are enthusiastic about SpaceX because, despite all his other failings, Elon fundamentally understands the single most critical fact about the space industry. COST is the most important feature of a launch system. So long as you can actually reach orbit, cost/kg in orbit determines what you can ultimately achieve with a system much more than system architecture or delta-v does. And you cannot engineer away excess cost after you first fly a system, it needs to be the first engineering criteria you consider. This is why SpaceX literally owns the current commercial launch industry, the vast majority of freely competed launches pick falcon 9.

SS/SH might well fail at a lot of it's goals. This doesn't change the fact that they built an absolutely world-beating engine for it, and even if the entire rest of the vehicle needs to be rearchitected, they'll still have that.
 
publiusr said:
History repeating itself....If you could go back in time, and save the Saturns from being replaced by STS--would you do it?
Click to expand...
No. There was nothing to fly on them. Rockets without payloads are useless. Past getting us to the moon, they have no redeeming features to make space flight sustainable.
And history isn't repeating itself.
Starship accomplishments
1. low cost high performance reusable engine
2. stage recovery without legs
3. Booster recovery
4. upper stage entry

and no need to worry. It has the components to make space launch cheaper
 
Last edited:
Tuna said:
the space industry. COST is the most important feature of a launch system.
Click to expand...
In a country with trillion dollar military budgets..flush that with the rest of the refuse.

Titan IVs were close to a billion a shot—up there with Moonshot costs.

Continued capability is what is most important.

In terms of cost:

Saturn V-B - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
Byeman said:
Southern saying is if you don't have anything good to say, then don't say anything.
Click to expand...
As a proudly blunt German, I can confidently tell you that the passive-aggressive so-called "Southern" (you do know, there is a reason why they lost the Civil War, don't you?) attitude is completely and utterly wrong. Trying to sweep disagreements under the rug is at best damaging in personal relationships, but it can be *FATAL* in technical/engineering discussions. And oh, BTW, check, if you will, the correlation of republican voting southern states with the local alligator population - reptilian brain drain, anyone?
 
Last edited:
Sunday is busy at Starbase

Booster 19 moved to Launch Pad 2 for testing on Monday 9 march 2026
Starship V3 SN01 return from Massey for Engine installation.
 
publiusr said:
In a country with trillion dollar military budgets..flush that with the rest of the refuse.

Titan IVs were close to a billion a shot—up there with Moonshot costs.

Continued capability is what is most important.

In terms of cost:

Saturn V-B - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
Click to expand...
Again, just repeating the same nonsense over and over for the last 20 years and over dozens of forums doesn't make it any more right.
One can't compare the military budget to NASA's. Different requirements and purpose. It is like comparing mortgage budget to entertainment budget. A military is a necessity but human spaceflight is a luxury.

Another common practice is posting misinformation.
Titan IV were not a billion dollars a shot. The Titan IV costs were $300-$500 million. Payload costs are not the point. They would be the same if they flew on the shuttle, Titan IV or EELV.
Titan IV was a stop gap measure to replace shuttle lift capabilities quickly.

"Continued capability " is not even a consideration for launch vehicles. Not important much less "most"
The most important factors for a launch vehicle are cost, robustness and availability.

Quoting a study from an entity has yet to demonstrate any ability to control cost in the last 60 years does nothing to help a case for continuing Saturn production. Still no need for a Saturn V-B.

It is funny that the same false arguments keep on getting reposted over the years even thought they get disproven over and over.
 
Sferrin said:
You sound upset.
Click to expand...
Plus this ignores all the differences in performance, manufacturing, design, and cost-what really matters, versus rhetoric. SpaceX can afford to manufacture multiple Starship prototypes for the cost of a single Orbiter, and the mature system will be substantially cheaper per flight. STS, like Saturn and like the SLS, was practically artisanal, and utterly unsuited to genuinely opening the frontier. SpaceX has learned a lot both from the past, and from operating F9/FH.
 
If only Starship was flying as well as Falcon
spacenews.com

First Starship V3 launch slips

SpaceX is pushing back the first launch of the latest version of Starship even as NASA is asking it to accelerate work on a lunar lander version.
spacenews.com spacenews.com
 
Last edited:
Michel Van said:
On X some sources claim that one SLS launch cost are 44 time higher as One Starship
With almost $4 billion for SLS, make for Starship launch cost of $90 million.
Click to expand...
Not really a valid comparison though. I'm no defender or fan of SLS but if these comparisons are going to be made then there needs to be a lot more rigour than a simple launch cost comparison. Starship as a single vehicle has no translunar injection capability so multiple launches are required to achieve that. If the goal was just LEO payload lift then the comparison makes more sense but why would anyone use SLS just for that?
 
The $4 billion is for complete Artemis launch (includes Payload).

On Starship there is not much information estimation went to $10~100 million
until 10 march 2026 they revealed the launch cost of $90 Million for Starship.
looking at Falcon 9 launch and production cost, seems Starship/superheavy have production cost around $45 Million

source:
www.basenor.com

SpaceX Scores $90M Starship Contract to Launch Starlab Space Station

TODAY — 1h ago 30-Second Brief The News: Voyager Space's 10-K SEC filing reveals a $90 million contract with SpaceX to launch the Starlab commercial space station aboard a Starship vehicle. Why It Matters: This is one of the largest publicly confirmed commercial contracts for Starship...
www.basenor.com www.basenor.com

https://twitter.com/x/status/2031509240209199606
View: https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/2031509240209199606
 
That's launch price, not cost. As with F9, SpaceX will need real competition before they'll dramatically lower their external pricing.
Ozair said:
Not really a valid comparison though. I'm no defender or fan of SLS but if these comparisons are going to be made then there needs to be a lot more rigour than a simple launch cost comparison. Starship as a single vehicle has no translunar injection capability so multiple launches are required to achieve that. If the goal was just LEO payload lift then the comparison makes more sense but why would anyone use SLS just for that?
Click to expand...
If you're going to get that granular, yes, Starship as a single vehicle could launch a payload to TLI, there's nothing in principle blocking SpaceX from selling launches to do just that (and I think you mean it cannot itself fly to the Moon in a single launch). LEO comparisons are the best we can do for now, though SpaceX has also announced that they are selling landed mass on the Moon at the rate of $100 million/ton, which is also unmatchable by the SLS, so to do an apples-to-apples comparison (short of reasoned guesswork) we have to look at LEO. While $4 billion isn't the SLS's cost, ~$2.2 billion is still absurd.
 
BlueAbyssal said:
That's launch price, not cost. As with F9, SpaceX will need real competition before they'll dramatically lower their external pricing.

If you're going to get that granular, yes, Starship as a single vehicle could launch a payload to TLI, there's nothing in principle blocking SpaceX from selling launches to do just that (and I think you mean it cannot itself fly to the Moon in a single launch).
Click to expand...
My understanding is that to provide enough delta-V for translunar Starship would have to go expendable and that would likely only be a small payload mass. It couldn't do it with the vehicle today but would likely require stripping it down for an expendable mission. Happy to be corrected on that? Of course SLS is expendable so that would approach a closer comparison for the lunar mission.

BlueAbyssal said:
LEO comparisons are the best we can do for now, though SpaceX has also announced that they are selling landed mass on the Moon at the rate of $100 million/ton, which is also unmatchable by the SLS, so to do an apples-to-apples comparison (short of reasoned guesswork) we have to look at LEO. While $4 billion isn't the SLS's cost, ~$2.2 billion is still absurd.
Click to expand...
Agree 100%. SLS was hobbled from the start though, it was never optimised for LEO so it would be beyond stupid to expect it to operate that as a preferred and low cost option, especially in today's market.
 
Ozair said:
My understanding is that to provide enough delta-V for translunar Starship would have to go expendable and that would likely only be a small payload mass. It couldn't do it with the vehicle today but would likely require stripping it down for an expendable mission. Happy to be corrected on that? Of course SLS is expendable so that would approach a closer comparison for the lunar mission.
Click to expand...
I have to generalize a bit because Starship’s ongoing development means nothing is set in stone, but based on third-party estimates for Starship V3 (the iteration that recently rolled out), conservatively a reused Starship could put about twenty tons on a TLI, and expended about fifty tons.
Ozair said:
Agree 100%. SLS was hobbled from the start though, it was never optimised for LEO so it would be beyond stupid to expect it to operate that as a preferred and low cost option, especially in today's market.
Click to expand...
It was hobbled because Congress didn’t actually care if it did anything. NASA isn’t particularly important to the government, so there was no reason to give the SLS anything besides a flat budget. It’s served their purpose-employment-excellently.
 
BlueAbyssal said:
I have to generalize a bit because Starship’s ongoing development means nothing is set in stone, but based on third-party estimates for Starship V3 (the iteration that recently rolled out), conservatively a reused Starship could put about twenty tons on a TLI, and expended about fifty tons.

It was hobbled because Congress didn’t actually care if it did anything. NASA isn’t particularly important to the government, so there was no reason to give the SLS anything besides a flat budget. It’s served their purpose-employment-excellently.
Click to expand...
The Senate Launch System. Gotta love politicians.
 
Ozair said:
Not really a valid comparison though. I'm no defender or fan of SLS but if these comparisons are going to be made then there needs to be a lot more rigour than a simple launch cost comparison.
Click to expand...
You know, you could build 100 outhouses with the cost of a single mansion--and they'd all smell like methane too ;)

A better metric:
Payloads to the Moon

SLS 1
Starship 0
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom