Re:Starship – SN8 – High-Altitude Flight Test
by frakkingcylons on Wednesday December 09, 2020 @07:47PM
(#25367927)
SpaceX has a huge lead, no doubt. But there's a handful of smaller companies which are very promising. Rocket Lab's Electron vehicle has had 13 successful launches (3 failures) to LEO. Firefly and Relativity (which are founded by former SpaceX/Blue Origin employees) are making a lot of progress as well.
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Re:Starship – SN8 – High-Altitude Flight Test
by mabbo on Wednesday December 09, 2020 @09:13PM
(#25368741)
While the Electron is cool, the comparison is pretty far off.
The Electron can put 600kg into low Earth orbit.
Falcon 9 can handle 15,000 kg. Starship is expected to handle 100,000 kg.
The Falcon 1 is a good comparison to the Electron. If it had been fully developed it was expected to lift 600kg to leo by 2010 or 2011. 10 years ago, basically.
Re:Starship – SN8 – High-Altitude Flight Test
by frakkingcylons on Wednesday December 09, 2020 @11:02PM
(#25369538)
I didn't compare Electron to Falcon 9 or Starship.
Re:Starship – SN8 – High-Altitude Flight Test
by temporalparts on Thursday December 10, 2020 @12:49AM
(#25370259)
From the parent post:
> they're now at least a decade behind.
The original claim was that competitors are a decade behind spaceX and Electron's capabilities are comparable to the technology spaceX had a decade ago. The Falcon 9 comparisons are to highlight the decade delta.
edit: grammar