Re:Orbital Test Launch of Starship in ~4 hours
by cubefox on Monday April 17, 2023 @11:25AM
(#35602175)
Though it should be mentioned that SpaceX currently no longer pursues Starship upper stage reusability, as the upcoming upper stage prototypes do no longer have a heat shield. Is seems likely that they want to first finalize lower stage reuse, as it is likely much more expensive to produce.
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Re:Orbital Test Launch of Starship in ~4 hours
by DennisP on Monday April 17, 2023 @11:35AM
(#35602323)
That just means they're not testing reentry in the next several flights. They have a new heat shield design that will fly later.
Re:Orbital Test Launch of Starship in ~4 hours
by _kst_ on Monday April 17, 2023 @12:53PM
(#35603395)
Without a heat shield, Starship wouldn't be able to bring a crew back from orbit (or higher), regardless of reuse.
Starship HLS, the planned lunar landing version, probably won't need a heat shield, but they'll definitely need shielding on any version meant to bring a crew back to Earth. They're just not bothering with heat shielding for tests that don't need it.
(I don't know what kind of shielding the Starship that was supposed to launch today has.)
Re:Orbital Test Launch of Starship in ~4 hours
by cubefox on Tuesday April 18, 2023 @02:34PM
(#35617987)
Starship launching and landing humans on Earth seems quite far away, if it happens at all. Of course they need the heat shield until then, but the much more immediate benefit of the heat shield comes from reducing cost of cargo flights by allowing for reusability of the upper stage. For ordinary non-human payloads, mainly satellites.