Musk introduces starships: in theory, they can fly three times a day

Share with friends and circles of friends with wechat scanning QR code February 11. On Thursday evening, US Eastern time, Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, delivered a speech at Starbase, Texas, introducing the latest progress in starship development plan to fly three times a day musk pointed out that the design of the starship is to fly three times a day. Theoretically, the aircraft can be launched again every six to eight hours, the booster can take off again in an hour, and it only takes six minutes to reach space and return musk also said that this reusable feature is the key to putting a 100 ton payload into earth orbit, which is very important for building a self-sufficient city on Mars. "I think we should do it as soon as possible." musk began to talk about the technical specifications of the Starship. The spacecraft can put 100 to 150 tons of payload into orbit, and may carry 200 tons of propellant into orbit to refuel other interstellar spacecraft in space, which he said is necessary to go to Mars this is also an important part of SpaceX's variant starship developed for NASA's human landing system (HLS). As part of Artemis III, the third mission of Artemis' return to the moon program, the spacecraft will return American astronauts to the lunar surface in 2025 musk calls the launch tower and launch system "zero stage", which is as important as the first and second stages. He also revealed that it took SpaceX 13 months to build the launch tower at Starbase. The launch tower can not only support rocket launch, but also "catch" the Starship when it returns from orbit to help complete the recovery musk also introduced the super heavy booster. From the perspective of thrust, it will be the largest launch vehicle ever to enter orbit. The thrust is more than twice that of NASA Saturn 5 rocket, which helped humans land on the moon. Musk said that the super heavy booster will be the largest of all aircraft. Of course, it must be able to fly musk said: "the super heavy booster was originally 70 meters high, but then the team removed an additional part and accidentally reduced its height to 69 meters." musk introduced the heat shield of the starship in detail. "It's the largest heat shield in the world," he said, noting that it was produced by a small factory in Florida called bakery. "We need a heat shield that can withstand extreme temperatures but can't be ridiculously expensive, and the team has achieved that goal," Musk said take the opportunity to put pressure on FAA at present, one factor hindering the entry of interstellar spacecraft into orbit is environmental assessment. Musk was asked when he might conduct an orbital test flight, but he seemed to deliberately avoid the essence of the problem. "We don't know much about the FAA evaluation. We only know a rough idea. It may be approved in March. That's all we know," he said Musk later added that he was confident that the Starship would enter orbit by the end of this year SpaceX hopes to launch its starship and carrier rocket into orbit from Texas. This is the main place where the company builds rocket prototypes and has conducted several high-altitude test flights. But to launch into orbit in Texas, SpaceX first needs FAA approval. The agency is responsible for issuing licenses for launching rockets into orbit to ensure that rocket launches do not cause damage to personnel or property the FAA initially reviewed SpaceX's boccachika facility in 2014 and created a complete environmental impact statement (EIS) to examine how the facility may affect surrounding areas (especially wildlife reserves). No major problems were found in the evaluation, but that was when SpaceX proposed that boccachka launch the smaller Falcon 9 rocket and Falcon heavy rocket. SpaceX has now abandoned the idea of launching Falcon rockets from the facility and focused on launching starships there. At the same time, the proposed SpaceX launch site has significantly expanded its scope and even included major modifications, such as the addition of a natural gas plant that pretreates methane, one of the main propellants required for the Raptor engine of the Starship the FAA is currently considering whether to grant the Starship a license to launch in boccachka. As part of the decision-making process, SpaceX provided a draft evaluation detailing the company's future plans for the construction of the facility. When the evaluation report was released, the FAA invited the public to comment on the proposal and received 18000 public comments. These opinions are very different, some strongly support SpaceX, others strongly oppose it, and some critics also call on the FAA to conduct another assessment based on the documents submitted by SpaceX FAA may take action, and the agency may draw the following three conclusions: 1) the update of SpaceX will not have a significant impact on the region; 2) SpaceX must take some measures to mitigate its impact on surrounding areas; 3) The FAA must conduct the assessment again. As the agency meets more people, collects more data, and conducts extensive research in cooperation with other federal agencies such as NASA, the process may take months or even years to complete the FAA said the agency should make a decision by the end of February. The decision was originally due to be finalized in late December last year, but FAA and SpaceX took much longer than expected to respond to a large number of public comments. As the February deadline is approaching, the timing of Musk's speech is obviously not a coincidence. Musk had a history of putting pressure on the FAA, which did not make a favorable decision for the SpaceX rocket launch at that time March orbit test flight past history shows that Musk's timetable is always too ambitious, and many are even impractical in hindsight. During the demonstration in September 2019, musk said that SpaceX would try to put the Starship into orbit within six months. Obviously, this did not happen Musk's latest forecast for the orbital test flight of the starship in November last year was in January or February this year, but considering the FAA's decision-making schedule, March may be the earliest reasonable time frame, and the premise is that the FAA's decision is beneficial to SpaceX's plan. Whether SpaceX is really ready for the launch in March remains to be seen promised to continue cooperation with NASA musk said that SpaceX will use starships to jointly carry out Star chain launch missions and manned space missions with NASAMission. In 2021, NASA awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract to develop a starship as a human lunar lander that can carry NASA astronauts to and from the lunar surface. So far, NASA's goal is to make the first manned landing using a starship as early as 2025, although this date is also considered unlikely in his speech, musk did not give a timetable for when he expected to perform these tasks. But he mentioned the so-called "dearmoon" mission, which is expected to carry out a manned flight around the moon in 2023. However, it is unclear whether this timetable will be achieved. In less than 24 months, there seems to be a lot of work to be done the starship is not for human use only. SpaceX has also formulated an ambitious plan to use the spacecraft to launch star chain satellites in order to provide broadband Internet services for the world. SpaceX submitted an update request to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last year, hoping to use the Starship to launch the upgraded and larger satellite chain. Musk's recent email shows that starships are crucial to the overall success of the star chain project lament that human civilization is too fragile musk reiterated his commitment to the development of interstellar spacecraft, the most important reason is to make mankind a multi planetary species. "In the long run, it is very important and necessary for us to become a multi planetary species and eventually surpass the solar system," he said musk also pointed out another reason, that is, in order to inspire mankind, he believes that there are too many problems to be solved on earth. "I totally agree that more than 99% of the resources should be used to solve the problems on earth. But one day, we can turn Mars into a planet like earth," Musk said musk also talked about many theoretically possible things, but did not explain in detail how difficult some tasks will be to perform. He said it would take a lot of work to transform Mars. This sounds exciting and encouraging, but it will take decades At the same time, musk urged mankind to act quickly. "Frankly speaking, today's civilization feels a little fragile," he said (small)

2023-03-22 10:04:50

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