Could 2023 be the year SpaceX's Starship finally reaches orbit?
(2023/02/06)
- Reference: 1675710014
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/02/06/spacex_orbital_starship_launch/
- Source link:
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said over the weekend that, despite nearly two years since a successful launch, Starship will be flying again this March – with orbital ambitions.
"If remaining tests go well, we will attempt a Starship launch next month," Musk said in a [1]tweet , which is backed up by an FCC [2]application SpaceX filed for a Starship launch window between March and September.
According to SpaceX's application, the March launch will entail an "experimental orbital demo and recovery test of the Starship test vehicle from Boca Chica TX."
[3]
The last successful launch and recovery (or only , depending on how you classify them) was in May 2021, when Starship 15 reached 10,000 meters (32,808ft), or a little over six miles, and managed to land, but not without a little [4]unexpected methane fire .
[5]
[6]
The Karman line, commonly accepted to be the spot where Earth's atmosphere ends and space begins, is around 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, above sea level.
In early February, Musk said he was " [7]highly confident " Starship would reach orbit last year, which [8]didn't happen . Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX president and COO, [9]said in 2019 that the company "definitely" wanted to land Starship on the Moon "before 2022," which definitely didn't happen.
[10]
SpaceX has a [11]contract with NASA to land astronauts on the Moon using Starship as part of the Artemis program, which has been [12]extended to order additional work on Starship for a planned 2027 landing of astronauts on the Moon using the craft.
Space: The final (climate change) frontier
Whether or not Starship is successful in its upcoming launch attempt, a [13]study from a group of scientists out of New Zealand is pointing out something about the burgeoning space industry: we have very little idea the degree to which launches are harming the atmosphere and could put a new hole in the ozone layer.
Rocket fuels, the study found, emit "a suite of gaseous and particulate exhaust products" including carbon dioxide, water vapor, black carbon (soot), aluminum and nitrogen oxides, and reactive chlorine.
Based on current launch behavior, the team estimates that global rocket launches release 10 kilotons of carbon dioxide, six kilotons of water vapor, half a kiloton of chlorine, 50,000kg of nitrous oxides and around a kiloton each of alumina particulate and soot per year.
That's the yearly carbon footprint of 650 Australian citizens, Cosmos [14]pointed out.
[15]SpaceX demonstrates that it too can shower the Earth with debris
[16]SpaceX upgrades Starlink to reflect less light, can't launch without its Starship
[17]SpaceX Starship booster in flames after unexpected ignition
[18]If you want to launch Starship from Texas, here's some homework, FAA tells SpaceX
The cadence of space launches has continued to climb steadily since 2002, when around 60 launches occurred, to last year when there were around [19]180 successful orbital launches – 44 more than 2021. SpaceX alone accounted for 61 of the 180 launches last year, [20]nearly doubling its 2021 launch numbers.
Unfortunately, little actual data is gathered around launches and how the release of so much greenhouse gas and particulate matter in the upper atmosphere – as opposed to here on the ground – makes those launches even worse for the environment, the study said.
[21]
According to the study, greenhouse gas emissions from rockets could grow to equal the aviation industry in the coming decades, but a "lack of comprehensive in-situ emission measurements for modern launch vehicles … limits the predictive power of atmospheric modelling."
If you're wondering what this has to do with SpaceX's Starship, its Raptor engines further complicate the scenario because they use a newer form of rocket fuel that mixes methane and liquid oxygen, instead of refined petroleum rocket fuel and liquid oxygen. Because the methane-LOX fuel design is relatively new, its emissions "are poorly understood and not experimentally quantified."
Raptor engines, SpaceX's methane-powered model developed for Starship, are reportedly twice as powerful as the Merlin engines used in its current Falcon rocket series. Each Falcon uses [22]nine Merlin engines. Falcon Heavy, being three Falcons strapped together, boasts 27 Merlins.
Starship, at its full loadout, will include [23]33 Raptors in its booster and three more in the Starship craft itself – that's a lot of poorly understood emissions.
Study co-author Dr Michele Bannister, planetary scientist at the University of Canterbury, says that rockets are the quintessential "charismatic technology," by which she means "the promise of what the technology can enable drives deep emotional investment – extending far beyond what the technology also affects."
To ensure we're not burned by the UV-intensive effects of increased space travel, the team says several things need to happen: quantifiable emissions standards need to be enacted at design and test phases, cross-disciplinary coordination is needed to ensure better in-situ measurements, stratospheric effects need to be considered as well, and there needs to be a normalization of making rocket emissions data readily available to aid in those studies.
Fortunately, the boffins from New Zealand say there's a whole group of scientists ready to take action whenever the rocket makers decide to get serious about the environmental cost of their projects.
"The ozone research community is well equipped to understand and give recommendations to these effects, and has existing frameworks to help develop sensible and non-restrictive regulation," the researchers said in the paper.
As for whether we need to worry about the environmental effects of Elon's methane rocket – let's just get the thing to orbit first. ®
Get our [24]Tech Resources
[1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1621998434289942529?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1621998434289942529%7Ctwgr%5E5f01359b2029d8c0bcb2b8bd508d5eaff0b62f6f%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.technology.org%2F2023%2F02%2F06%2Felon-musk-next-starship-launch-in-march%2F
[2] https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/els/reports/STA_Print.cfm?mode=current&application_seq=121139&RequestTimeout=1000
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y@GGkQKUh8ZqG4OYAYGBPwAAANI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/06/spacex_starship_lands_without_exploding/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y@GGkQKUh8ZqG4OYAYGBPwAAANI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y@GGkQKUh8ZqG4OYAYGBPwAAANI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/science/spacex-chief-elon-musk-highly-confident-his-starship-will-reach-orbit-this-year-2022-02-11/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/12/spacex_starship/
[9] https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/25/spacex-wants-to-land-starship-on-the-moon-before-2022-then-do-cargo-runs-for-2024-human-landing/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y@GGkQKUh8ZqG4OYAYGBPwAAANI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/02/us_moon_spacex/
[12] https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-awards-spacex-second-contract-option-for-artemis-moon-landing-0
[13] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03036758.2022.2152467
[14] https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/rocket-launches-ozone-layer/?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rocket-launches-ozone-layer
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/03/spacex_debris/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/01/spacex_satellite_brightness/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/12/spacex_starship/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/14/spacex_faa_launch/
[19] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00048-7#:~:text=2022%20was%20a%20record%20year%20for%20space%20with%20180%20successful,the%20Chinese%20government%20and%20businesses.
[20] https://www.space.com/spacex-celebrates-2022-61-launches
[21] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y@GGkQKUh8ZqG4OYAYGBPwAAANI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[22] https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/falcon-heavy/
[23] https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-super-heavy-33-engines-launch-pad
[24] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
"If remaining tests go well, we will attempt a Starship launch next month," Musk said in a [1]tweet , which is backed up by an FCC [2]application SpaceX filed for a Starship launch window between March and September.
According to SpaceX's application, the March launch will entail an "experimental orbital demo and recovery test of the Starship test vehicle from Boca Chica TX."
[3]
The last successful launch and recovery (or only , depending on how you classify them) was in May 2021, when Starship 15 reached 10,000 meters (32,808ft), or a little over six miles, and managed to land, but not without a little [4]unexpected methane fire .
[5]
[6]
The Karman line, commonly accepted to be the spot where Earth's atmosphere ends and space begins, is around 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, above sea level.
In early February, Musk said he was " [7]highly confident " Starship would reach orbit last year, which [8]didn't happen . Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX president and COO, [9]said in 2019 that the company "definitely" wanted to land Starship on the Moon "before 2022," which definitely didn't happen.
[10]
SpaceX has a [11]contract with NASA to land astronauts on the Moon using Starship as part of the Artemis program, which has been [12]extended to order additional work on Starship for a planned 2027 landing of astronauts on the Moon using the craft.
Space: The final (climate change) frontier
Whether or not Starship is successful in its upcoming launch attempt, a [13]study from a group of scientists out of New Zealand is pointing out something about the burgeoning space industry: we have very little idea the degree to which launches are harming the atmosphere and could put a new hole in the ozone layer.
Rocket fuels, the study found, emit "a suite of gaseous and particulate exhaust products" including carbon dioxide, water vapor, black carbon (soot), aluminum and nitrogen oxides, and reactive chlorine.
Based on current launch behavior, the team estimates that global rocket launches release 10 kilotons of carbon dioxide, six kilotons of water vapor, half a kiloton of chlorine, 50,000kg of nitrous oxides and around a kiloton each of alumina particulate and soot per year.
That's the yearly carbon footprint of 650 Australian citizens, Cosmos [14]pointed out.
[15]SpaceX demonstrates that it too can shower the Earth with debris
[16]SpaceX upgrades Starlink to reflect less light, can't launch without its Starship
[17]SpaceX Starship booster in flames after unexpected ignition
[18]If you want to launch Starship from Texas, here's some homework, FAA tells SpaceX
The cadence of space launches has continued to climb steadily since 2002, when around 60 launches occurred, to last year when there were around [19]180 successful orbital launches – 44 more than 2021. SpaceX alone accounted for 61 of the 180 launches last year, [20]nearly doubling its 2021 launch numbers.
Unfortunately, little actual data is gathered around launches and how the release of so much greenhouse gas and particulate matter in the upper atmosphere – as opposed to here on the ground – makes those launches even worse for the environment, the study said.
[21]
According to the study, greenhouse gas emissions from rockets could grow to equal the aviation industry in the coming decades, but a "lack of comprehensive in-situ emission measurements for modern launch vehicles … limits the predictive power of atmospheric modelling."
If you're wondering what this has to do with SpaceX's Starship, its Raptor engines further complicate the scenario because they use a newer form of rocket fuel that mixes methane and liquid oxygen, instead of refined petroleum rocket fuel and liquid oxygen. Because the methane-LOX fuel design is relatively new, its emissions "are poorly understood and not experimentally quantified."
Raptor engines, SpaceX's methane-powered model developed for Starship, are reportedly twice as powerful as the Merlin engines used in its current Falcon rocket series. Each Falcon uses [22]nine Merlin engines. Falcon Heavy, being three Falcons strapped together, boasts 27 Merlins.
Starship, at its full loadout, will include [23]33 Raptors in its booster and three more in the Starship craft itself – that's a lot of poorly understood emissions.
Study co-author Dr Michele Bannister, planetary scientist at the University of Canterbury, says that rockets are the quintessential "charismatic technology," by which she means "the promise of what the technology can enable drives deep emotional investment – extending far beyond what the technology also affects."
To ensure we're not burned by the UV-intensive effects of increased space travel, the team says several things need to happen: quantifiable emissions standards need to be enacted at design and test phases, cross-disciplinary coordination is needed to ensure better in-situ measurements, stratospheric effects need to be considered as well, and there needs to be a normalization of making rocket emissions data readily available to aid in those studies.
Fortunately, the boffins from New Zealand say there's a whole group of scientists ready to take action whenever the rocket makers decide to get serious about the environmental cost of their projects.
"The ozone research community is well equipped to understand and give recommendations to these effects, and has existing frameworks to help develop sensible and non-restrictive regulation," the researchers said in the paper.
As for whether we need to worry about the environmental effects of Elon's methane rocket – let's just get the thing to orbit first. ®
Get our [24]Tech Resources
[1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1621998434289942529?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1621998434289942529%7Ctwgr%5E5f01359b2029d8c0bcb2b8bd508d5eaff0b62f6f%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.technology.org%2F2023%2F02%2F06%2Felon-musk-next-starship-launch-in-march%2F
[2] https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/els/reports/STA_Print.cfm?mode=current&application_seq=121139&RequestTimeout=1000
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y@GGkQKUh8ZqG4OYAYGBPwAAANI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/06/spacex_starship_lands_without_exploding/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y@GGkQKUh8ZqG4OYAYGBPwAAANI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y@GGkQKUh8ZqG4OYAYGBPwAAANI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/science/spacex-chief-elon-musk-highly-confident-his-starship-will-reach-orbit-this-year-2022-02-11/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/12/spacex_starship/
[9] https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/25/spacex-wants-to-land-starship-on-the-moon-before-2022-then-do-cargo-runs-for-2024-human-landing/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y@GGkQKUh8ZqG4OYAYGBPwAAANI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/02/us_moon_spacex/
[12] https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-awards-spacex-second-contract-option-for-artemis-moon-landing-0
[13] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03036758.2022.2152467
[14] https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/rocket-launches-ozone-layer/?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rocket-launches-ozone-layer
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/03/spacex_debris/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/01/spacex_satellite_brightness/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/12/spacex_starship/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/14/spacex_faa_launch/
[19] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00048-7#:~:text=2022%20was%20a%20record%20year%20for%20space%20with%20180%20successful,the%20Chinese%20government%20and%20businesses.
[20] https://www.space.com/spacex-celebrates-2022-61-launches
[21] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y@GGkQKUh8ZqG4OYAYGBPwAAANI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[22] https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/falcon-heavy/
[23] https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-super-heavy-33-engines-launch-pad
[24] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: ozone holes - NOT from rockets (instead, volcanoes)
Anonymous Coward
"Until we launch nuclear engines that have NO air pollution, our cell phones, internet, television, and other worldwide communications are going to need *ROCKETS* to get them satellites into orbit, and those rockets are going to affect things... minimally."
Err, my cell phone doesn't use satellites, neither does my television, nor AFAIK my Internet. The only worldwide communications I do are international telephone calls and they don't use satellites either. Submarine cables, yes.
Re: ozone holes - NOT from rockets (instead, volcanoes)
jmch
"Err, my cell phone doesn't use satellites..."
GPS?
But I agree with your general point.
Also, carbon footprint of 650 Australians is pretty small
Re: ozone holes - NOT from rockets (instead, volcanoes)
LorenDB
> Until we launch nuclear engines that have NO air pollution
Except for extreme radiation and (in the case of Orion drives, which are the only type of nuclear engine that I'm aware of that actually could get itself from the ground to orbit) extreme nuclear blasts from the ground all the way to space. Sure, that's no air pollution. :D
Re: ozone holes - NOT from rockets (instead, volcanoes)
captain veg
I think this is called a "straw man".
But well done.
-A.
I hadn't realised just how little these chancers have actually achieved so far
captain veg
SpaceX is supposed to be a success. And yet 'in early February, Musk said he was "highly confident" Starship would reach orbit last year'.
You mean they haven't even done that yet?
Wow.
"The Karman line, commonly accepted to be the spot where Earth's atmosphere ends and space begins, is around 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, above sea level."
So not even close.
'Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX president and COO, said in 2019 that the company "definitely" wanted to land Starship on the Moon "before 2022,"'
Successful orbit: about 42 thousand kilometres.
Distance to the moon: about 400 thousand kilometres.
SpaceX so far: "a little over six miles".
-A.
ozone holes - NOT from rockets (instead, volcanoes)
Althouh there is some validity to rocket exhaust affecting ozone, the actual amount would be mininmal.
* Ozone holes are fund near the poles where cosmic radiation is less effective at creating it from O2 high in the atmosphere
* In general each ozone hole can be mostly attributed to volcanic activity in which the effluent gasses flow towards the hole
* The chemicals alleged to cause these holes are MUCH heavier than air,.and although for a short period of time the rocket will pass through the ozone layer, the amount of these chemicals that could interact with the ozone layer will be relatively small (in other words only a fraction can affect the ozone layer)
On a relate note...
Until we launch nuclear engines that have NO air pollution, our cell phones, internet, television, and other worldwide communications are going to need *ROCKETS* to get them satellites into orbit, and those rockets are going to affect things... minimally.