There is a lot riding on V3. SpaceX cannot afford to take too many launches to get V3 solid. If 2026 is another 2025 (3 V2 failures in a row followed by 2 V3 successes), then they can forget about landing on the moon before 2030.
My hope is that Flight 12 goes nearly flawlessly (at least gets to soft splashdown) and they can start testing in-space refueling in July/August.
If they can demonstrate in-space refueling by the end of 2026, then they have a shot at a lunar-landing demo in 2027 and a crewed-landing in 2028. But a lot has to go right for that to happen. Here's hoping it does.
> then they can forget about landing on the moon before 2030.
A crewed Moon landing before 30 is really implausible. Everyone is late, but the latest NASA OIG report put the Axiom suits very late (somewhere ~2031 if everything holds, but it notes it might not hold).
Were any of them actually failures? My understanding is they push limits and create intentional weak points to see where it fails, and something failing isn't a mission failure but rather part of the research process.
The goals of the V2 flights were to test the improved heat shield and to test satellite deployment. The first three V2 flights did not make it far enough to test either of those goals. It wasn't until Flight 10 that they could actually test that, and that was 9 months later.
Effectively, SpaceX lost 9 months due to problems with V2.
Sure, one could argue that it's still research (no customer was affected), and there was no way to know V2 would fail until it was tested.
But watching the stream, it was clear that the SpaceX team was very disappointed with the outcome. I remember watching Flight 1, which nearly destroyed the launch pad and didn't make it to SECO, but still SpaceX was ecstatic with the results.
2025 was supposed to be the year SpaceX tested in-space refueling. The V2 failures delayed that, and whether or not a different company could have done better (my guess is no), SpaceX still felt like they failed.
Small edit, 2 V2 (not V3) successes (flights 10 and 11).
Thank you! [Wish I could edit, but for some reason I can't, or I can't see the link to edit.]
It has a new engine design. If it can make it only a minute into launch, it'll provide a lot of useful data.
I am pretty sure that at least some SpaceX engineers are reading HackerNews.
But I don't think I ever seen any insiders comments here, even anonymously.
I assume they'd be covered by a ludicrous NDA.
question: what will happen if orbit refuelling goes wrong? Won't it destroy everything in orbit?
All Starship test launches are suborbital so if anything goes wrong, the ship and debris fall back to Earth.
Even if it was put in orbit, debris are not an issue because orbital decay at Low Earth Orbit (LEO) is significant. A satellite orbiting below 250km will fall back to earth within a few hours, and at 400km within a year. LEO below 500-600km has enough atmospheric drag to be self-cleaning.
Orbital debris are more significant issue at higher orbits 800km and above.
> what will happen if orbit refuelling goes wrong? Won't it destroy everything in orbit?
No. What is the mechanism through which you suspected this could happen?
Kessler syndrome presumably?
Keeping the orbits low enough, and/or intentionally going suborbital after docking/before starting the fuel transfer, will make the chances of that being possible very low.
It's also worth considering that they have demonstrated cryo propellant pumping between two tanks within a ship, so, AFAIK, transfer between two ships is more about testing the docking systems, than it is about the pumps. They could probably rig the system to first pump some inert gas to verify the quality of the docking, then try to pump propellants.
...caused by what?
Presumably the effect of any explosion would decrease proportional to the volume as it expands. Is there much volume in space?
Liquid handling in microgravity has always been weird. Big gas bubbles in the fluid, surface tension effects causing liquid to float in balls in the ullage, stuff like that. Turbopumps break if they ingest a larger bubble.
There could be some odd failure modes I would think. Failure to pump the liquid, broken pumps, who really knows? My guess would be that a failure mode would be a big spill, a failure to pump, only partially refilling, or broken turbopumps before an explosion.
For something like a transfer between Starships you can resolve a lot of those problems by (very) gently spinning the 2 craft. It won't take much force for the liquids to settle at the bottom of their respective tanks where you would presumably put the intakes.
A probably very naive question: why not pistons?
Because there’s a much, much simpler and easier way:
1. Connect the two ships
2. Connect the liquid valves from both cryo tanks together.
3. Spin the ships about the short axis
4. Open the vent valve for the cryo tank to receive liquid.
5. Lock closed the vent valve for the cryo tank to supple liquid.
Steps 2, 4 and 5 are how you normally transfer cryo fluids between dewars on earth. You just to create pseudo gravity / acceleration in the body frame of the ships to make it work in space.
NASA has used tanks with a bladder. Pressurizing gas on one side of the bladder, all fluid inside. Cold liquids (methane in SoaceX case) means materials are crucial. A big piston is heavy and could jam.
Seems like you could use peristaltic pumps
That would take ages!
Why?
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Have you met hardware guys? This is not how they operate, in my experience.
I mean I might be a hardware guy myself depending on your definition. I've never dealt with rocket engineers.. Are they "hardware guys" according to you? If so it seems you are using that term incredibly broadly.
Are you trying to say that "hardware guys" don't care if they're working to advance the agenda from a Nazi?
Historically, that has been true about rockets.
I mean, rocket guys have a long history of not minding advancing the agenda of a Nazi.
“They [sic] guy is a freaking nazi”
Presumably you’re at least fairly intelligent, nonetheless propaganda has done its job. Fascinating…
Just FYI, engineers are one of the groups most likely to lean right.
I’m hopeful tomorrow’s launch goes flawlessly!
Propaganda? He literally performed nazi salutes at a high visibility event. Not to mention all the wacko stuff he posts on twitter. A brilliant innovator can also have significant mental health issues.
> Just FYI, engineers are one of the groups most likely to lean right.
leaning right is one thing. Supporting Elon and Trump and MAGA is leaning far right.
OK deanCommie
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That's makes a lot of sense becuase the Nazi's were notorius for not having good rocket engineers
The whole DOGE debacle and in general the broad radicalization of western male youths has made me very cynical about the ethics of "young brilliant engineers".
not to say the archetype you describe doesn't exist, but disappointingly I am convinced they are far from the majority.