The big question is how confident is SpaceX in their engine relights and attitude controls. If high, then orbital flights with splashdown returns may come next. If low, then they’ll continue flying suborbital trajectories to ensure an orbital ship doesn’t become an uncontrolled hazard.
So far, the engine relights seem to have gone very well – even if there is a problem, there are 3 engines on ship that can do the job.
Attitude control seems fine when not overwhelmed by leaking fuel tanks.
In line with what you wrote, I do not think they will go orbital until they have actually forced an early reentry during a suborbital flight. That is, a suborbital flight with two landing zones, one if the retros work, one if they don’t. How else can they be sure?
From what I’ve read, there is only 1 remaining V2 Starship. My guess is the next flight will continue with testing critical technologies like active heat shield tiles and reentry thruster tests. They may even test moving propellant from one tank to another to simulate refueling.
They did the propellant transfer test last year.
We are talking about a ship to ship transfer, not the internal transfer last year.
They did a small test. Perhaps a larger volume transfer test might be useful before attempting it between two Starships.
I agree with Larry: use the last remaining V2 Starship for various test purposes with Indian Ocean splashdown.
Then start flying V3 which, I suspect, will require an Indian Ocean splashdown since it’s the first ship of that version to fly. Once they get some confidence in V3 they will attempt an orbit.
That’s in line with what Elon is saying. My guess is Flight 12, the first V3 version, will also be suborbital. If that is successful, then Flight 13 might be the first orbital mission. They might not attempt a Ship capture on that mission. If not, then they might land it in the Gulf near the launch site. My guess is the first attempt at capturing the Ship with the chopsticks will be Flight 14 or 15.
I think they won’t try to recover the Super Heavy booster on Flight 11. It’ll be the last of the V2s, so it won’t fly again. I think they’ll try for booster capture on all of the V3s because they’ll want to reuse them to accelerate the flight rate in 2026.
Agreed, the old Superheavy will need to be disposed of in some way, might as well perform some high-risk experiment with it. Otherwise it will consume resources to recover and scrap it at Starbase. It’s obsolete.
I’d love to see a full Starship donated to the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, but I doubt that will happen. They might be able to carry one on the Tennessee river, but I don’t know how they’d get it the rest of the way here. Plus, it wasn’t a NASA project, so the powers that be may not be interested.
They could fly it and land it there, if Huntsville builds some chopsticks.
Why Huntsville? They had nothing to do with it.
Because it’s a space and rocket museum. If things go well, Starship could have a big part of NASA’s future.
Agree with you and Larry J.
Agree about the likely sequence of mission profiles that is. But I think putting a Super Heavy in Huntsville would be like erecting a giant cross in Transylvania.
Try an Indian Ocean recovery…
By my count, SpaceX removed or swapped 53 heatshield tiles. Some of them were side by side. It continues to surprise me that it made it all the way down to a pinpoint landing and it speaks well that Starship can survive heat tile loss just about anywhere. Stainless steel is looking like a good choice.
It is indeed remarkable. Also encouraging that this is being done to prove that they have a robust system that can operate off nominal. When you have a complex system it is unlikely to have everything working perfectly so it is very important to know how it performs when parts aren’t working.
I don’t remember this being done with Shuttle except on an ad hoc basis when bits fell off on operational missions.
They also tested different types of heat shield tiles, including one with active cooling. I hope we hear how well that worked. Active cool8ng might be just what’s needed for rapid reuse.
I think that’s why the belly was orange. Spraying liquid methane over them caused some chemical interactions.
By the way, that cooling method was Tim Dodd’s idea, suggested to Elon during an interview and tour of the Starship factory.
The big question is how confident is SpaceX in their engine relights and attitude controls. If high, then orbital flights with splashdown returns may come next. If low, then they’ll continue flying suborbital trajectories to ensure an orbital ship doesn’t become an uncontrolled hazard.
So far, the engine relights seem to have gone very well – even if there is a problem, there are 3 engines on ship that can do the job.
Attitude control seems fine when not overwhelmed by leaking fuel tanks.
In line with what you wrote, I do not think they will go orbital until they have actually forced an early reentry during a suborbital flight. That is, a suborbital flight with two landing zones, one if the retros work, one if they don’t. How else can they be sure?
From what I’ve read, there is only 1 remaining V2 Starship. My guess is the next flight will continue with testing critical technologies like active heat shield tiles and reentry thruster tests. They may even test moving propellant from one tank to another to simulate refueling.
They did the propellant transfer test last year.
We are talking about a ship to ship transfer, not the internal transfer last year.
They did a small test. Perhaps a larger volume transfer test might be useful before attempting it between two Starships.
I agree with Larry: use the last remaining V2 Starship for various test purposes with Indian Ocean splashdown.
Then start flying V3 which, I suspect, will require an Indian Ocean splashdown since it’s the first ship of that version to fly. Once they get some confidence in V3 they will attempt an orbit.
That’s in line with what Elon is saying. My guess is Flight 12, the first V3 version, will also be suborbital. If that is successful, then Flight 13 might be the first orbital mission. They might not attempt a Ship capture on that mission. If not, then they might land it in the Gulf near the launch site. My guess is the first attempt at capturing the Ship with the chopsticks will be Flight 14 or 15.
I think they won’t try to recover the Super Heavy booster on Flight 11. It’ll be the last of the V2s, so it won’t fly again. I think they’ll try for booster capture on all of the V3s because they’ll want to reuse them to accelerate the flight rate in 2026.
Agreed, the old Superheavy will need to be disposed of in some way, might as well perform some high-risk experiment with it. Otherwise it will consume resources to recover and scrap it at Starbase. It’s obsolete.
I’d love to see a full Starship donated to the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, but I doubt that will happen. They might be able to carry one on the Tennessee river, but I don’t know how they’d get it the rest of the way here. Plus, it wasn’t a NASA project, so the powers that be may not be interested.
They could fly it and land it there, if Huntsville builds some chopsticks.
Why Huntsville? They had nothing to do with it.
Because it’s a space and rocket museum. If things go well, Starship could have a big part of NASA’s future.
Agree with you and Larry J.
Agree about the likely sequence of mission profiles that is. But I think putting a Super Heavy in Huntsville would be like erecting a giant cross in Transylvania.
Try an Indian Ocean recovery…
By my count, SpaceX removed or swapped 53 heatshield tiles. Some of them were side by side. It continues to surprise me that it made it all the way down to a pinpoint landing and it speaks well that Starship can survive heat tile loss just about anywhere. Stainless steel is looking like a good choice.
It is indeed remarkable. Also encouraging that this is being done to prove that they have a robust system that can operate off nominal. When you have a complex system it is unlikely to have everything working perfectly so it is very important to know how it performs when parts aren’t working.
I don’t remember this being done with Shuttle except on an ad hoc basis when bits fell off on operational missions.
They also tested different types of heat shield tiles, including one with active cooling. I hope we hear how well that worked. Active cool8ng might be just what’s needed for rapid reuse.
I think that’s why the belly was orange. Spraying liquid methane over them caused some chemical interactions.
By the way, that cooling method was Tim Dodd’s idea, suggested to Elon during an interview and tour of the Starship factory.