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SpaceX makes history with first all-civilian spaceflight

SpaceX has made history. Again.

The spaceflight company founded by the billionaire Elon Musk launched four private  passengers into orbit Wednesday on the first mission to space with an all-civilian crew .

A reusable Falcon 9 rocket carrying Jared Isaacman, a 38-year-old tech entrepreneur, Sian Proctor, a 51-year-old geoscientist, Chris Sembroski, a 42-year-old aerospace data engineer, and Hayley Arceneaux, a 29-year-old physician assistant, lifted off shortly after 8 p.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The four-person crew will now spend three days in orbit around Earth before re-entering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean.

It’s not the first time that private passengers have paid to fly in space, but the so-called Inspiration4 mission is the first expedition into orbit without any professional astronauts on board. The historic flight represents the next stage in the evolution of human spaceflight, as access to the cosmos expands beyond just governments and their space agencies.

“The door is wide open,” Isaacman said as he and his crew members reached space.

SpaceX's rocket roared into the night sky from the same launch pad as NASA's Apollo moon missions, as well as the first and last space shuttle flights. During their ascent into orbit, the crew members celebrated excitedly and flashed thumbs-up signs as they cleared each major milestone.

Isaacman, the founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments, a Pennsylvania-based payment processing company, paid an unspecified amount for the three-day joyride in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule. The Inspiration4 mission is part of a charity initiative to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. In addition to giving $100 million to St. Jude, Isaacman donated the three other seats on the Inspiration4 flight to his crew members.

“This dream began 10 months ago,” Isaacman said Tuesday in a preflight briefing. “We set out from the start to deliver a very inspiring message, certainly what can be done up in space and the possibilities there, but also what we can accomplish here on Earth.”

The Crew Dragon spacecraft will circle the planet 15 times each day from an altitude of nearly 360 miles, higher than the current orbits of the space station and the Hubble Space Telescope, according to SpaceX.

The Inspiration4 mission will resemble SpaceX’s routine flights to the International Space Station, except this time, the capsule will not dock at the orbiting lab. As such, the company added a new glass dome to the top of the spacecraft for 360-degree views.

NASA was quick to congratulate the Inspiration4 team Wednesday, tweeting that the launch "represents a significant milestone in the quest to make space for everybody."

The successful launch of the Inspiration4 mission is a key milestone for SpaceX and a boon for the burgeoning space tourism industry. Two months ago, rival billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson both launched to the edge of space in vehicles developed by their own respective aerospace companies. Though both flights over the summer were suborbital jaunts, both Bezos’ Blue Origin and Branson’s Virgin Galactic are planning to offer orbital joyrides for space tourists in the future.

These pioneering flights — for now, limited to those who can afford to spend millions of dollars on a ticket — could accelerate the expansion of private spaceflight, making trips to space more regular, and eventually more affordable.

The first space tourist, American multimillionaire Dennis Tito, launched to the International Space Station on an eight-day expedition in 2001. Tito reportedly paid $20 million to fly to the orbiting outpost aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Until now, only seven civilians, including Tito, had paid to fly in space.

Arceneaux, a bone cancer survivor now works  at St. Jude; Sembroski is a U.S. Air Force veteran; and Proctor is a licensed pilot and former NASA astronaut candidate.

Proctor secured her ticket to space through an online contest conducted by Shift4 Payments and Sembroski won his seat in a charity drive to raise money for St. Jude. 

The crew members have called their journey a “humanitarian mission,” and have spoken about how they hope to inspire people around the world. 

“I want to thank everyone for all the support, encouragement, and love,” Arceneaux tweeted Wednesday , mere hours before the launch. “And thank you to @StJude for being the reason I’m here today. This is for everyone who’s ever been through something difficult, and I know we all have. Hold onto hope because there WILL be better days.”

The Inspiration4 mission is just the start of SpaceX’s ambitions to launch paying customers into orbit. Earlier this year, the company announced that the first private space station crew, led by former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría, will launch to the orbiting lab in early 2022. López-Alegría will be joined by three men who are each paying $55 million to spend eight days at the space station.

In 2018, SpaceX also said Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, founder and CEO of the fashion retailer Zozo, would be the first private passenger to fly around the moon on a mission that is planned for sometime in 2023.

Denise Chow is a reporter for NBC News Science focused on general science and climate change.

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SpaceX weathered through the onset of the covid-19 pandemic last year to become the first private company to launch astronauts into space using a commercial spacecraft. 

It’s poised to build on that success with another huge milestone before 2021 is over. On Monday, the company announced plans to launch the first “all-civilian” mission into orbit by the end of the year. Called Inspiration4, the mission will take billionaire Jared Isaacman, a trained pilot and the CEO of digital payments company Shift4Payments, plus three others into low Earth orbit via a Crew Dragon vehicle for two to four days, possibly longer. 

Inspiration4 includes a charity element: Isaacman (the sole buyer of the mission and its “commander”) has donated $100 million to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, in Memphis, and is attempting to raise at least $100 million more from public donors. One seat is going to a “St. Jude ambassador” that’s already been chosen. But the two others are still up for grabs: one will be raffled off to someone who donates at least $10 to St. Jude, while the other will be a business entrepreneur chosen through a competition held by Shift4Payments. 

“This is an important milestone towards enabling access to space for everyone,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk told reporters on Monday. “It is only through missions like this that we're able to bring the cost down over time and make space accessible to all."

Inspiration4 marks SpaceX’s fourth scheduled private mission in the next few years. The other three include a collaboration with Axiom Space  to use Crew Dragon to take four people for an eight-day stay aboard the International Space Station (now scheduled for no earlier than January 2022); another Crew Dragon mission into orbit later that year for four private citizens through tourism company Space Adventures; and Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa’s #dearMoon mission around the moon in 2023 for himself plus seven to 10 others aboard the Starship spacecraft.

SpaceX has never really billed itself as a space tourism company as aggressively as  Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic have. While Crew Dragon goes all the way into low-Earth orbit, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo and Blue Origin’s New Shepard vehicles just go into suborbital space, offering a taste of microgravity and a view of the Earth from high above for just a few minutes—but for way less money. And yet, in building a business that goes even farther, with higher launch costs and the need for more powerful rockets, SpaceX already has four more private missions on the books than any other company does. 

When Crew Dragon first took NASA astronauts into space last year, one of the biggest questions to come up was whether customers outside NASA would actually be interested in going .

“A lot of people believe there is a market for space tourism,” says Howard McCurdy, a space policy expert at American University in Washington, DC. “But right now it’s at the very high end. As transportation capabilities improve, the hope is that the costs will come down. That begs the question of whether or not you can sustain a new space company on space tourism alone. I think that’s questionable.”

So why has SpaceX’s expansion into the private mission scene gone so well so far? Part of it must be that it’s such an attractive brand to partner with at the moment. But even if a market does not materialize soon to make private missions a profitable venture, SpaceX doesn’t need to be concerned. It has plenty of other ways to make money. 

“I’m not sure Elon Musk cares much if he makes money through this business,” says McCurdy. “But he’s very good at leveraging and financing his operations.” SpaceX launches satellites for government and commercial customers around the world; it’s got contracts with NASA for taking cargo and astronauts alike to the space station; it’s ramping up progress with building out the Starlink constellation and should start offering internet services to the public some time this year. 

“It really reduces your risk when you can have multiple sources of revenue and business for an undertaking that’s based upon the single leap of rockets and space technologies,” says McCurdy. “The market for space tourism is not large enough to sustain a commercial space company. When combined with government contracts, private investments, and foreign sales it starts to become sustainable.”

Space tourism, especially to low-Earth orbit, will still remain incredibly expensive for the foreseeable future. And that underscores the issue of equity. “If we’re going into space, who’s the ‘we’?” asks McCurdy. “Is it just the top 1% of the top 1%?” 

The lottery concept addresses this to some extent and offers opportunities to ordinary people, but it won’t be enough on its own. Space tourism, and the rest of the space industry, still needs a sustainable model that can invite more people to participate. 

For now, SpaceX appears to be leading the drive to popularize space tourism. And competitors don’t necessarily need to emulate SpaceX’s business model precisely in order to catch up. Robert Goehlich, a German-based space tourism expert at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, notes that space tourism itself is already multifaceted, encompassing suborbital flights, orbital flights, space station flights, space hotel flights, and moon flights. The market for one, such as cheaper suborbital flights, is not necessarily faced with the same constraints as the others.

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Starbase Tour and Interview with Elon Musk

Interview Part 3

On July 30, 2021 Tim Dodd received a tour of Starbase with SpaceX CEO, CTO, and founder Elon Musk. This article includes key takeaways from the over two-hour-long interview.

Manufacturing:

Musk once again emphasized that manufacturing is underrated and design is overrated; developing a production system is 10-100 times harder than designing the product, which according to Musk, proved especially true with Raptor. Furthermore, as volume production increases the amount of effort that goes into design rounds down to 0.

For example, Musk stated that designing a closed-cycle engine is easy. However, the extremely hard part is getting the cost-per-tonne of thrust under $1,000 – with each Raptor producing 230 tonnes of thrust, this means that each engine must cost less than $230,000 to produce. Musk continued stating that the cost-per-tonne to orbit, and the cost-per-tonne to the surface of Mars, is several orders of magnitude too high on current launch vehicles. For this reason, it is so important to move as much mass and complexity as possible to the ground systems, which Musk is calling “stage 0.” For example, SpaceX has opted to not fuel Starship through the booster, and will rather move the complexity and mass to the ground and fuel Starship from its side.

Super Heavy Design:

Musk noted that Super Heavy’s dry mass should be under 200 tonnes, although the dry mass is a moving target. The engines, including mounting mass, are 2 tonnes; the fuel tank and the liquid oxygen (LOx) tanks are roughly 80 tonnes; and the interstage is around 20 tonnes, including four grid fins that each weigh roughly 3 tonnes. Musk noted that he expects to be able to cut the mass of each grid fin in half, and that the current design is very mass inefficient. He further noted that currently everything is too heavy, including avionics, grid fins, and batteries.

The grid fins are currently electrically powered, using a modified Tesla Model 3 motor to drive them. In continuation of using Tesla parts, the batteries are currently energy optimized instead of power optimized, as a car needs several hours of energy, whereas the grid fins only need two or three minutes of power. Due to these reasons, Musk noted, like much of Starship’s design, the batteries are temporary, and battery mass can drop by a factor of ~10.

The booster is designed to carry 3,600 tonnes of propellant, of which ~78% of that is liquid oxygen. The Raptor burns at a mixture ratio of 3.5 to 3.7, which is fuel rich. A fuel rich mixture burns cooler than the stoichiometric ratio, which would melt the engine. Super Heavy’s propellant residuals (the amount of fuel that cannot be used without risking damage to the vehicle) are on the order of 20 tonnes, Musk notes, which is significantly higher than the 1 tonne propellant residual of the Falcon 9. With optimizations to design Musk noted that the final dry mass of Super Heavy should be between 160 and 200 tonnes.

An interesting note is the grid fins on Super Heavy do not fold in like on the Falcon 9, as they are another mechanism, which adds unnecessary complexity, mass, and failure modes. Additionally, the increase in drag from the grid fins being deployed during ascent is small, assuming they are not at a high angle of attack.

The grid fins on Super Heavy are not evenly spaced 90° apart, like on the Falcon 9. Musk said the reason for this change is Super Heavy requires more pitch control authority, so they positioned the gridfins closer together to increase pitch control.

Musk’s Engineering Philosophy:

Musk overviewed his five step engineering process, which must be completed in order:

• Make the requirements less dumb. The requirements are definitely dumb; it does not matter who gave them to you. He notes that it’s particularly dangerous if an intelligent person gives you the requirements, as you may not question the requirements enough. “Everyone’s wrong. No matter who you are, everyone is wrong some of the time.” He further notes that “all designs are wrong, it’s just a matter of how wrong.”
• Try very hard to delete the part or process. If parts are not being added back into the design at least 10% of the time, not enough parts are being deleted. Musk noted that the bias tends to be very strongly toward “let’s add this part or process step in case we need it.” Additionally, each required part and process must come from a name, not a department, as a department cannot be asked why a requirement exists, but a person can.
• Simplify and optimize the design. This is step three as the most common error of a smart engineer is to optimize something that should not exist.
• Accelerate cycle time . Musk states “you’re moving too slowly, go faster! But don’t go faster until you’ve worked on the other three things first.”
• Automate . An important part of this is to remove in-process testing after the problems have been diagnosed; if a product is reaching the end of a production line with a high acceptance rate, there is no need for in-process testing.

Additionally, Musk restated that he believes everyone should be a chief engineer. Engineers need to understand the system at a high level to understand when they are making a bad optimization. As an example, Musk noted that an order of magnitude more time has been spent reducing engine mass than reducing residual propellant, despite both being equally as important.

Musk noted that SpaceX has produced parts of version 2 of Raptor, called Raptor 2, including the thrust chamber assembly. Teams have finished the design of the turbo pumps, and are expecting to be ready to fire the first Raptor 2 by the end of August. Raptor 2 will reach 230 tonnes of thrust at 298 bar main combustion chamber pressure, with Musk commenting “come on… we have to get 2 more bar out of that thing!” Raptor 2 features a larger throat, which decreases the area ratio; this causes a decrease in specific impulse of around 3 seconds, but increases thrust significantly. Despite having a lower ISP, this allows for booster engines to be more efficient as it decreases gravity losses. Musk noted that Raptor 2 will be significantly cleaner looking than Raptor 1, as they will remove a large amount of plumbing.

Raptor Vacuum has a brazed steel tube wall nozzle extension that has an expansion ratio of around 80, giving the engine a specific impulse (ISP) of 378 seconds. Musk noted that teams are hoping to get the expansion ratio up to 90, which would increase the ISP to 380 seconds. Long term, SpaceX will have three Raptor variants: sea level engine with gimbal, sea level engine without gimbal, and vacuum level engine without gimbal.

It was also stated that SpaceX will move volume production of Raptor to McGregor, but keep the Hawthorne factory for development engines and Raptor Vacuum versions.

Starship Separation System and Attitude Control:

Following Musk’s five step plan, SpaceX has decided to remove the pushing separation system from Starship and will instead rely on conservation of angular momentum to separate the stages. Right before main engine cutoff (MECO), Super Heavy will gimbal its engines, causing the vehicle to start rotating. The latches between Starship and Super Heavy will then release, causing the vehicles to float apart; the whole process is similar to how SpaceX deploys the Starlink satellites. This serves two purposes, as it separates the stages while starting the booster’s flip, which it needs to conduct for the boost back burn.

In addition to this, SpaceX has decided to remove the dedicated hot gas thrusters from Super Heavy. To replace it, SpaceX will use the ullage gas from the tanks for attitude control by having four vents spaced 90° apart. By venting the tanks through these vents, they will be able to control the attitude of the booster during the flip. This has the advantage of using the ullage gas, which would need to be vented either way, to do useful work to the vehicle.

Once again following Musk’s five step process, Musk outlined that he is optimistic that HLS will not need the landing thrusters at the top of the lunar Starship. If SpaceX is able to demonstrate that landing on the moon with Raptor will not create too large of a hole in the lunar regolith, they may remove the thrusters from the lunar Starship. While the exact Raptor configuration for lunar Starship has not been decided, it is likely that it’ll be the same as the Earth variant with three sea-level Raptors and three vacuum Raptors.

Starship Design Philosophy:

Musk noted that SpaceX has polar opposite design methods for Starship and Dragon. He continued, saying that Dragon can never fail, must be tested extreme amounts, and has tons of margin. However, to develop the world’s first fully and rapidly reusable rocket SpaceX must iterate rapidly, which leads to lots of failures. Falcon is in-between, where SpaceX can afford to have a landing failure, but cannot experience a failure during ascent. In response to Dodd asking what SpaceX learned from the Space Shuttle, Musk continued stating that the biggest problem with the shuttle was that its design froze. Due to all Space Shuttle missions being crewed, design changes were high risk and low reward. Musk contrasts, stating the biggest advantage of Starship is “Starship does not have anyone on board so we can blow things up. It’s really helpful.”

In response to this, Dodd asked if Starship will ever have a launch escape system (LES). Musk explained that there are no plans to add LES and that instead Starship will fly a lot and have enough redundancy. Super Heavy will be able to lose several engines during ascent, while still having a fully successful mission, and an engine on Starship. Additionally, Musk stated that due to the inability to have an escape system on the moon and Mars, there is no reason to have one at all.

Furthermore, Musk noted that SpaceX’s goal is to push the envelope with each vehicle, such that it blows up, as this ensures SpaceX is getting lots of data while not having to store many vehicles. He further noted that every Starship has had major upgrades over the previous vehicle; such is the pace at Starbase. Because of this, the first 10 Starship’s that SpaceX gets back will likely not be reflown, as newer vehicles will be so vastly different.

Musk added that this is a freedom that SpaceX did not have with Falcon 9 as it was flying cargo from day one. However, SpaceX had the grasshopper and F9R programs, where they could test reusability technology.

Dodd asked Musk how he was feeling about Starship’s Thermal Protection System (TPS), to which Musk responded “we’ll find out!” He added that the TPS tiles have been holding up well during the sub-orbital flight tests. Each tile is mechanically mounted in a way so that the tiles can move a small amount, ensuring they do not get damaged during the expanding and contracting of the tank and tiles during the temperature changes of fueling and reentry.

Starship’s TPS tiles are currently made in Florida at “the Bakery.” While not all of the tiles are uniform, SpaceX is able to mass produce the tiles due to them largely being the same shape and size, a significant advantage over the Space Shuttle’s TPS system. Additionally, Musk described the tiles as having “no meaningful limit” to their lifespan.

Musk stated that the hardest parts of the vehicle to protect against reentry heating are the flap hinges. Ensuring hot plasma does not get into the hinges and destroy the vehicle is not trivial, as the seal must simultaneously not damage the tiles and survive the heat of reentry; this means a metal seal is required.

With a full heatshield, S20’s dry mass will “hopefully not be much more than 100 tonnes.” Musk added that adding one tonne to the ship removes about two tonnes from the payload capacity, after taking into account the added mass and increase in propellant needed.

Orbital Demonstration Flight:

Musk stated that on the orbital demonstration flight, S20 will reach orbital velocity, but have a positive perigee that is less than 80km. This will ensure the vehicle reenters safely in a controlled manner, even in the event of a failure. On the orbital flight, both the first stage (B4) and the second stage (S20) will be expended, as SpaceX’s goal for the first flight is to “make it to orbit without blowing up”. Additionally, SpaceX would like to demonstrate the ability to position the booster precisely, such that if the booster came down next to the tower, Mechazilla (the catching mechanism) would be able to catch it.

For the first orbital flight, SpaceX will use a crane to stack Starship on top of Super Heavy. While this is a harder way to stack the vehicles, it allows SpaceX to start testing the vehicle before the orbital launch tower is complete.

Musk noted that they will continue to launch from Starbase, Texas as long as the operational difficulties remain low. While Starship is launching from Texas, SpaceX will continue to work on the two oil rigs (named Phobos and Deimos ); however this is not a priority for SpaceX right now as SpaceX is just “thinking about the things [they] have to think about.”

New Nosecone:

Musk noted that the new nosecone design consists of two rows of stretch formed steel, whereas the old nosecone was made from three sections of stamped sections. The new nosecone is made by stretching steel over a big tool, which creates a far smoother and cleaner final product. Musk also noted that SpaceX has stopped all work on the fairing door for now, as it is not needed for an orbital demonstration flight. In a similar manner, SpaceX has not started work on Starship in-orbit refueling, as it’s not needed in the short term.

SpaceX’s Urgency

Musk noted that they are moving extremely fast as “if we operate with extreme urgency we have a chance of making life multi-planetary. It’s still just a chance, not for sure. If we don’t act with extreme urgency, that chance is probably 0.” Shyamal Patel, the director of Starship operations, added to this stating that “I tell the crane operators ‘what would you do if there was an asteroid heading to this planet in 8 days?'”

Closing Words:

Elon Musk closed the interview stating he is glad that people are becoming interested in rockets and how they work. He once again emphasized that becoming multiplanetary is very inspiring, and may be the most inspiring thing. Musk hopes the Starship program gives people confidence about the future and that humanity will have an exciting future in space; he hopes that science fiction will become a reality some day.

41 comments

Love the nitty gritty details 👍

I’d be interested to learn how the plasma flows around the ship during re-entry and if it would make sense to build a shield into the ship’s body to protect the hinges.

“the fuel tank and the liquid oxygen (LOx) tanks are roughly 8 tonnes” Musk said 80

Thank you for pointing it out!

That was fantastic!

Are the not-so-small lift points the actual catch points too? I think Elon tweeted a while ago that such points would be used instead of the grid fins as originally stated. But are we back to the fins now that they don’t fold (simpler=more robust).

Won’t SH need RCS thrusters at the catch for fine maneuvering? The grid fins won’t have control authority at near zero velocity, and it’s hard to see gimbaling being that precise. Elon said 6 bar from tank ullage is enough for vacuum but will it work for this?

And… can you give Elon follow-up questions? Like IF the HLS landing engines can’t be eliminated will they be pressure fed? And 99.99999% surely methalox. And will they need to lift HLS off the surface?

Mr Musk picture is a rare example of a happy Billionaire. its so difficult to be happy when you are that rich, Mr Musk hit the sweet spot.

Fantastic interview! Musk hasn’t given us this kind of detail anywhere else.

Can you share when will you upload the next part?

Musk’s engineering philosophy is sheer brilliance, loved hearing him articulate their process down to 5 steps

“The engines, including mounting mass, are 2 tonnes”

Listening to the interview the number seems to relate to each engine (58 tonnes for 29 engines)

Since the lunar Starship, and other variants that don’t have aerodynamic surfaces and a TPS, don’t have the ability to re-enter earth atmosphere, there is no reason for them to have sea-level Raptors. That pretty much is a given.

The post said “While the exact Raptor configuration for lunar Starship has not been decided, it is likely that it’ll be the same as the Earth variant with three sea-level Raptors and three vacuum Raptors.”

It does imply they may have to gimbal the vacuum Raptors to land on the moon. Net result is higher payload capacity, or less fuel to take off from earth.

It’s a minimal implication – Elon said they expect to use 3 regular center and 3 Rvacs for HLS. A regular center one togimbal for control – and having more than one gives redundancy. Anyway, somewhere in these interviews he threw cold water on the idea regular SS would use only Rvacs to get to orbit after separation from SH. All 6 engines will be used.

Vacuum Raptors have much larger exhaust bells so the gimballed positions might not have enough clearance for them. Other than that you are correct that RVac would be preferable for the non-returning variants.

I agree they will require a wider mounting pattern, but just assumed they would do that

While they will need a pretty large thrust to get out of earths gravity well, they need very little thrust to land/taskeoff on the moon. Might still require vacuum Raptors in outer position, with a much smaller engine on gimbal for landing since the minimum throttle on the Raptor may be near 10X what is needed for landing.

Sea-level raptors can still be fired in vacuum, they are just not as efficient since they are subject to under-expansion, which reduces their ISP. But they should still reliably and safely work. Thus, they can be used to control a lunar descent/takeoff, and for in-space thrust vectoring. Vacuum raptors, however, cannot (or, at least, should not) be fired in any significant atmosphere as they would be subject to over-expansion, which can cause flow separation, which causes combustion instability, that could (will?) lead to the engine blowing up.

I mean “Thrust instability” not “Combustion instability”. Thrust instability can still lead to the engine blowing up.

Elon said that Starship needs the 3 sea level raptors to reach orbital velocity at lift off after booster séparation.

Since the booster powers the flight for nearly the first 3 minutes, it should be around 60km at MECO. This is where a vacuum optimized engine will perform much better than a sea level optimized engine. Since the lunar and Mars Starships will never go back to earth, there really isn’t a reason to carry heavy sea level engines that are not optimal.

Elon says they might need the base engines to gimbal during lunar landing (if not using high engines on moon), and the vacuum ones have too big a nozzle to gimbal enough.

Standard Raptors only throttle between 90-225T of thrust which is matched to earth gravity of 9.81ms^2. Our Moon’s gravity is 1.62ms^2, or about 16% which suggests a standard Raptor engine is over powered for Moon landing operations by a factor of 6x to 10x. Sea level raptors have a target weight of 1,500 kg (3,300 lb) each, which for 3 of them is a lot of extra mass to pack to the moon and back, and a lot of extra fuel. Elon talks extensively about optimizations which are wrong, and the process for proper optimization …. trying to optimize sea level Raptors for moon operations is just plain wrong, when the right approach would be to optimize with a much smaller engine, or to optimize the vacuum Raptor throttle range with as placement that can be gimballed.

Excellent interview thanks Tim and Elon.

The writeup doesn’t (yet?) include the bit about the relative complexity of the launch site infrastructure, or I missed that bit 🙂

I really want a transcript of the story about the fiberglass around the Tesla battery, that illustrates point “the most common error of a smart engineer is to optimize something that should not exist” That is some a story that everyone in every industry should read.

Ugh – the Engineering philosophy is awesome. It can be applied to every kind of project no matter what it is. Thanks for this!

After Elons tweet about not being on is best because of lack of sleep and serious back pain I could help noticing that during the second part. Soooo looking forward to the third part. You guys keep up the good work.

I believe the statement “Additionally, each required part and process must come from a name, not a department, as a department cannot be asked why a requirement exists, but a person can” actually was said about the first principle dealing with requirements. Those five principles were the key to the entire discussion for me. Thanks for getting & doing this interview!

Nice summary, thx.

Did the question of improvements to weld quality come up during the interview? Seems like weld/production quality is incredibly important to speed and confidence for each new launch. I don’t recall hearing EM commenting on that in the first two interviews.

If flying lunar regolith takes out 5 engines on landing, can it take off and achieve lunar orbit on 1 engine. In an emergency would a sea level engine work on the moon?

Thank you for the write-up! I was able to digest the lessons much better reading this after watching the video.

One suggestion: for posteriority’s’ sake, embed the video on top of the writeup so it’s more accessable for future search queries.

Using ullage gas venting for maneuvering SH in space or near-space sounds great – Elon said 6 bar is enough force in vacuum. But what about the last moments of maneuvering into the catcher arms? As SH slows the grid fins will have less and less control authority. Trevor, please have Tim ask this as a follow up when/if he can! And will there be a moment or two of hover or near hover?

Why no links to the interview videos on YouTube?

“the extremely hard part is getting the cost-per-tonne of thrust under $1,000 – with each Raptor producing 230 tonnes of thrust, this means that each engine must cost less than $230,000 to produce”

No, Elon was speaking primarily about operating and replacement costs, not just capital costs. If each earth-launched starship (SS+Booter) was expected to last, say, 10 launches, then you’d need the cost per run + 1/10 capital replacement cost to be <$230k. Obviously, for this to work, the launch lifetime must be longer than 10 and the capital replacement costs must be driven down.

Thanks for sharing the tour video footage with everyone Tim!

Great summary of the 5 steps, my sythesis is here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/elon-musk-five-steps-moving-fast-john-held/?published=t

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• Everyday Astronaut

Watch a tour of SpaceX’s Starbase facility with Everyday Astronaut [Part 1 of 3]

Over the weekend Tim Dodd, creator of Everyday Astronaut, walked around SpaceX’s Starbase facilities. The 3 part Starbase tour, given by Elon Musk himself with Everyday Astronaut, gave never before seen views of the facility.

In this first part of the interview, Musk and Dodd walked around the high and mid bays to discuss the current status of Starship. Musk went over Starship’s manufacturing difficulties and compared the process they take to what Tesla had to do with refining the production of their battery packs. A big takeaway from Musk was that manufacturing is a much bigger problem to solve than designing the rocket. Taking those ideas from paper and turning them into a real life, commercially viable option seems to be what a lot of time is being spent on nowadays.

In the video, you get to see up-close views of Booster 4 being stacked in the high bay, one of the booster’s grid fins, and SpaceX’s HLS mockup. In the short amount of time since the interview was filmed, SpaceX has fully integrated and transported Booster 4 to the launch site and began the final integration of Starship 20.

There are two more Starbase tour videos coming from Dodd. The first part ends on a slight cliffhanger with a discussion about SpaceX’s lunar Starship while they walk into a tent full of Raptor engines. No timeframe on when the next part of Everyday Astronaut’s Starbase tour will release. But it will be worth a wait for those looking for the nitty-gritty details.

• SpaceX works at stunning speed installing 29 Raptor engines overnight on Super Heavy Booster 4 ahead of Starship SN20 orbital flight
• SpaceX hits 90,000 subscribers across 12 countries using Starlink satellite internet service
• SpaceX Inspiration4 mission documentary series coming to Netflix in September

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Seth Kurkowski covers launches and general space news for Space Explored. He has been following launches from Florida since 2018.

• Sun. Apr 28th, 2024

Starbase Central

Dawn of the Space Age!

Starbase Tour w/ Elon Pt1

By Kevin-Dean Livingstone

Join The Everyday Astronaut as he takes a tour of SpaceX’s Starbase facility with Elon Musk as our tour guide! This is part 1 of 3

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Hispasat Amazonas Nexus Mission

Starlink group 4-37, o3b mpower 1 & 2, swot – surface water and ocean topography.

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Elon Musk’s Starship rocket reaches space for the first time

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Richard Waters in San Francisco

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

SpaceX’s Starship rocket reached space for the first time on Saturday though both the ship and its main booster were lost minutes into the flight, dealing another setback to Elon Musk’s ambition of carrying humans to Mars.

The 400ft-tall rocket — the most powerful ever launched — left its launch pad alongside the Gulf of Mexico in Texas just after 7am local time and rose above a height of 100km, the point at which space begins, before the mishaps that affected its first failed launch in April recurred.

After nearly three minutes of flight the spacecraft successfully separated from its first stage, a step further than SpaceX managed in the first test. However the first part of the rocket, known as a super heavy booster, spun out of control and failed to return to the ground as planned.

SpaceX eventually hopes to reuse both stages of the rocket to bring down the cost of flight, though it had only planned to land the booster during Saturday’s test.

The engines on the rocket’s second stage, bearing the spaceship that Nasa hopes to use to carry astronauts to the Moon later this decade, fired successfully and nearly completed their scheduled six-minute burn before SpaceX reported that it had lost contact with the craft.

The rocket’s first launch in April ended in a fireball after several of its 33 engines malfunctioned and its upper stage failed to separate from the main booster. The intense blast from its engines also severely damaged the launch pad, throwing up large chunks of concrete and sending a cloud of dust across the surrounding landscape.

SpaceX made a number of changes after that failure, including building a water-cooled steel launch pad to be able to withstand the lift-off. The most important design change was moving to a system of “hot firing” in which the second stage of the rocket fires its engines before separation from the first, providing extra power.

The Federal Aviation Administration gave its go-ahead on Wednesday to a second launch attempt, setting the stage for a blast-off as early as Friday. SpaceX put the launch back by a day to replace a part.

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International Edition

SpaceX's Starship will go interstellar someday, Elon Musk says

"A future Starship, much larger and more advanced, will travel to other star systems."

SpaceX's Starship megarocket could eventually live up to its bold name.

A future iteration of Starship, which conducted its third-ever test flight last week , will go interstellar, according to SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk .

"This Starship is designed to traverse our entire solar system and beyond to the cloud of objects surrounding us. A future Starship, much larger and more advanced, will travel to other star systems," Musk said via X early Monday morning (March 18).

Related: Relive SpaceX Starship's 3rd flight test in breathtaking photos

Starship consists of two stainless-steel elements: a huge first-stage booster called Super Heavy and a 165-foot-tall (50 meters) upper-stage spacecraft known as Starship, or just Ship.

Both of these vehicles are designed to be fully and rapidly reusable, and both are powered by SpaceX's next-gen Raptor engine — 33 for Super Heavy and six for Ship.

When stacked, Starship stands about 400 feet (122 m) tall. It's the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, capable of carrying up to 165 tons (150 metric tons) to Earth orbit in its reusable configuration. For comparison, SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket has a maximum payload capacity of about 25 tons (23 metric tons). 

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Starship performed quite well on last week's test flight, making serious progress compared to its first two jaunts, which occurred in April and November of last year. For example, the first test mission lasted just four minutes and the second ended about eight minutes after launch. But Thursday's (March 14) flight lasted about 50 minutes, ending when the Ship broke apart during its reentry to Earth's atmosphere . 

Starship Die Cast Rocket Model Now $69.99 on Amazon . 

If you can't see SpaceX's Starship in person, you can score a model of your own. Standing at 13.77 inches (35 cm), this is a 1:375 ratio of SpaceX's Starship as a desktop model. The materials here are alloy steel and it weighs just 225g.

Note: Stock is low so you'll have to act quickly to get this. 

— SpaceX launches giant Starship rocket into space on epic 3rd test flight (video)

— Starship and Super Heavy: SpaceX's Mars transportation system

— Is interstellar flight really possible?

SpaceX sees Starship helping humanity settle the moon and Mars . NASA buys into this vision: The agency selected Starship to be the first crewed lunar lander for its Artemis program . If all goes according to plan, Starship will put astronauts down on the moon for the first time on the Artemis 3 mission, which is tentatively scheduled to lift off in September 2026.

A lot more work, and many more test flights, will be needed to get Starship ready to carry astronauts in deep space. And getting an interstellar version up and running will require a far bigger leap — one that it's tough to imagine today.

Humanity is nowhere near developing a spacecraft that can travel between the stars on a reasonable timescale; the distances are just so intimidatingly huge. For example, the nearest star to our sun, the red dwarf Proxima Centauri , lies 4.2 light-years away. That's about 25 trillion miles (40 trillion kilometers). It would take a probe powered by conventional rocket propulsion tens of thousands of years to cover that exotic ground. 

Researchers have ideas about how to make the journey more feasible. The Breakthrough Starshot initiative , for instance, is working on a system that would accelerate sailcraft to 20% the speed of light using super-powerful ground-based lasers. Such vehicles could reach Proxima Centauri just 20 years or so after liftoff, if everything works out. 

That's a very big "if." And the Breakthrough Starshot craft would be tiny, with bodies about the size of a postage stamp. Developing an interstellar craft big enough to carry people would be a much taller order. 

That's apparently what Musk has in mind, given that this future interstellar Starship will be "much larger" than the current behemoth. You and I probably won't be around to see that future craft fly, if it ever does; Breakthrough Starshot, which was announced in 2016, has been eyeing a possible debut launch in the 2030s or 2040s , and even that timeline may be ambitious .

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with  Space.com  and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

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• danR There is no iteration of this series that could possibly be thought to be capable of interstellar travel except in the sense of unmanned/robotic/AI probes. Nobody is going to Alpha Centauri in anything less than a nuclear (fission) -powered spacecraft, which makes it rocketry crime that Nixon cancelled the Nerva Program some 50 years ago. Only in the past 10 years has any serious R&D been devoted to this, eg., the NASA/DARPA nuclear hybrid thermal/electric project, but the funding is still a pittance. Had NERVA been continued, actual manned missions to the reaches of the solar system could have been realized in the next 10 years. Elon is not sending anyone to the stars. It's been, paradoxically, Blue Origin that has been picking up nuclear propulsion contracts; but thanks to Nixon, they'll be at it for another 30 years before BO is stellar-bound. Reply
• billslugg I shook hands with Dick Nixon in Wayne, PA in May of 1968. Little did I know he would go on to commit rocketry crime. He seemed like such a nice guy at the time. Reply
• Actionjksn When they are able to put a Starship into LEO, and then start using other Starships to transfer LOX and methane to it and fill the tanks, while it is orbiting Earth, then I believe it will be capable of making a round trip to Mars. Just getting off the ground and then reaching orbit consumes a massive amount of fuel, especially LOX. If you fuel your tanks while in low Earth orbit you eliminate all of that fuel consumption. They need to slingshot out of LEO and head to Mars with full tanks. This also eliminates all of the wind resistance which also burns a lot of fuel. They might even be able to make the entire trip with just one engine, which would really save on fuel, while also saving wear and tear on the other engines. Reply

Actionjksn said: They might even be able to make the entire trip with just one engine

• Laz musk talks cow farts Reply
• Classical Motion At this present time, the only way to safely go to Mars is with a heavily shielded rotating structure. Lots of mass. And lots of supplies. Lots of mass too. It would take lots of fuel for lots of acceleration and lots of deceleration. So we would have to send a complete gas station and grocery/hardware store there to be available. And this doesn't include a plan B or a plan C.....for emergencies or hardware failures. It's a location without refuge. You must maintain an environment. A man machine made world. It's just not worth the time and money. You might possibly send a Starship interstellar, but it could never return. We might not be able to plot a course to another star. Following the star light only works if the craft is going faster than the star. And even then the course is a long curve trajectory, instead of the shortest intersecting bee line at the years future location. One would have to lead a star like leading a target. Even if you could go at light speed. If you aim a laser at a star you will always miss it. Except for Sol of course. Unless Sol's velocity can move it's diameter length in 8 minutes. Light does not bend, but emitter motion changes it's angle. Following a moving light is following an angle. Not just distance. Reply

Admin said: A future, more advanced version of SpaceX's Starship megarocket will travel to other star systems, according to Elon Musk. SpaceX's Starship will go interstellar someday, Elon Musk says : Read more

danR said: Nobody is going to Alpha Centauri in anything less than a nuclear (fission) -powered spacecraft, which makes it rocketry crime that Nixon cancelled the Nerva Program some 50 years ago.

Actionjksn said: This also eliminates all of the wind resistance which also burns a lot of fuel. They might even be able to make the entire trip with just one engine, which would really save on fuel, while also saving wear and tear on the other engines.

Classical Motion said: At this present time, the only way to safely go to Mars is with a heavily shielded rotating structure. Lots of mass. And lots of supplies.

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Elon Musk and SpaceX set to hit rocket milestone with Starlink satellite launch

E lon Musk’s SpaceX is preparing to launch 23 Starlink satellites atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida Tuesday in what will be an important milestone for the private space company.

The launch from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station will mark the 300 th time that SpaceX has landed a rocket booster after launch. Following stage separation, the first stage booster will land on a droneship floating in the Atlantic Ocean. This is the ninth flight for the booster, which was previously used on five Starlink missions and NASA’s Crew-6 mission that took four astronauts to the International Space Station in March 2023, according to SpaceX .

Liftoff is targeted for 6:17 pm ET, with backup opportunities available until 9:25 pm ET. If needed, additional opportunities are available on Wednesday, starting at 5:50 pm ET, the company says.

Related: For Elon Musk and SpaceX, ‘the third time’s the charm’ for Starship flight test

SpaceX has pioneered reusable rocket technology in an attempt to lower costs and revolutionize the space industry.

This is a busy time for SpaceX. The company kicked off the year by sending its first Starlink direct-to-cell satellites into orbit, and plans to make  12 launches a month  in 2024.

Last month SpaceX launched the third flight test of its giant Starship and Super Heavy rocket early Thursday. Starship successfully achieved orbital insertion, coasted in space and re-entered Earth’s atmosphere before SpaceX lost contact with the spacecraft as it broke apart. The company was not planning to recover either the Super Heavy Rocket or Starship.

Related: Musk’s SpaceX hits rocket mil e stone in latest Starlink Falcon 9 launch

The test marked an important milestone for SpaceX. In April 2023, SpaceX’s first test launch near Boca Chica, Texas, ended when the rocket  exploded  just minutes into its flight. Starship launched its second flight test in November, but it too exploded over the Gulf of Mexico.

The  largest  rocket ever built, Starship provides more than twice the thrust of the Saturn V rockets that took astronauts to the moon. Together, Starship and the Super Heavy Rocket are 396 feet, taller than the Statue of Liberty and the Saturn V.

SpaceX also hit a  landmark  for its reusable rocket technology in the early hours of Dec. 23, 2023 when the company launched 23 Starlink satellites into low earth orbit from Cape Canaveral. Shortly after launch, the rocket’s first-stage booster landed on a droneship floating in the Atlantic Ocean, marking the 19 th  launch and landing of the booster, a first for the company. 

Related: These are the space stocks to keep an eye on in 2024

The first-stage booster had previously been used in 13 Starlink launches, as well as in the Crew Demo-2, ANASIS-11, CRS-21, Transporter-1, and Transporter-3 missions, according to  SpaceX .

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Tesla’s biggest retail shareholder is voting against Elon Musk’s $55 billion package

Tesla’s biggest retail shareholder, Leo Koguan, confirmed that he is voting against Elon Musk’s $55 billion package and the re-election of two board members.

We first reported on Koguan in 2021 when the little-known investor became  the third largest individual shareholder in Tesla  behind Elon Musk and Larry Ellison.

The Indonesian-born Chinese American businessman is better known for founding SHI International Corp, a large private IT company that made him a billionaire. He is also involved in academia and philanthropy.

Koguan has previously described himself as an “Elon fanboy” (the featured image above is him and Musk) and believes in Tesla’s mission to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. He has been willing to put his money on it and by 2022,  he had invested more money in Tesla than Musk himself .

Of course, Musk invested early in Tesla, and therefore, he holds a bigger share with a smaller investment.

Koguan is the third largest individual shareholder in the company, but you could argue that he is the biggest Tesla investor as he invested more than anyone in the company: $3.5 billion.

In comparison, Musk’s net invesment in Tesla is now negative after he sold tens of billions of dollars worth of stocks to buy Twitter.

Koguan hasn’t sold. In fact, he recently bought more shares – bringing his total to over 27 million shares. This makes him an important player in the upcoming shareholders votes that Tesla’s board announced this week.

Tesla has asked investors to reinstate Elon Musk’s $55 billion CEO compensation package after it was invalidated by the board over governance issues at Tesla. The automaker is also seeking the re-election of Kimbal Musk, Elon’s brother, and James Murdock, a friend of Elon, to the board of directors.

We previously reported on Koguan being frustrated with those governance issues. He recently said that “ Tesla is a family business masquerading as a public company ” – in reference to Musk doing whatever he wants.

As the biggest retail shareholder in Tesla, Koguan says that he has been unable to get in touch with the board to communicate his concerns.

Following the release of Tesla’s proxy, Electrek asked Koguan how he plans to vote his more than 27 million Tesla shares, and the investor said that he plans to vote against Musk’s compensation package and against the re-election of Tesla’s two current board members.

Koguan is the largest Tesla investor to make his intention known, but as it is usually the case in shareholder votes, the institutional investors are expected to be the difference makers.

That said, Koguan’s Trsla position is bigger than some institutional shareholders, like T. Rowe Price.

Electrek’s Take

Koguan, like many other shareholders, is frustrated with Tesla’s board for not enforcing any rule for Elon Musk, who is now a part-time CEO with clear conflicts of interest at Tesla.

While the vote is technically strictly about Musk’s 2018 CEO compensation plan, many shareholders are using it as a vote of confidence for the CEO and the board and it is obviously scaring the board since they launched a website to try to convince shareholders and the board already disclosed discussions with institutional shareholders.

Top comment by Beario

I have held tight for 6 years with my investment. If Leo is voting "NO" then that should be a sign to Musk that shareholders have had enough with the under the big top antics. It's all about the business side of things as an investor and the sentiment here is that the focus should be on the company full time. If you want to be a part time CEO, then accept part-time pay. It is not personal, it is business.

Outside of X, it seems like the shareholder sentiment is clearly with Koguan, but Musk is really popular on the platform for obvious reasons. It will be interesting to see if the loud Tesla fans on X have the shares, or if it will even matter at all with institutional shareholders.

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Maybe Elon Musk shouldn't have quite so many jobs

• Elon Musk runs Tesla and a lot of other companies at the same time.
• Normally investors don't like CEOs to do that. But they've given Musk a pass.
• But now there are real investor concerns about Tesla. Will that force Musk to narrow his focus?

Elon Musk runs Tesla. And Space X. And the company formerly known as Twitter. And Neuralink, the company making chips that are supposed to go in your brain . And a company that operates a tunnel under Las Vegas. And an AI startup , too.

Normally, people who run big publicly traded companies are encouraged to just do that one thing and are discouraged from doing side projects . But Musk does his own thing, and for a long time, the idea that he's a guy who does so many things was part of the pitch: Normal people couldn't pull this off, but Elon is Not Normal.

None of this is secret. Tesla spells it out to shareholders in its public filings , where it describes all of Musk's other jobs.

And this year's proxy filing describes how some of those jobs intersect: Tesla, for instance, has spent $200,000 advertising on the company formerly known as Twitter ; and Twitter has spent $1.2 million via "commercial, consulting and support agreements" with Tesla — which presumably refers to Tesla staff who have worked on Twitter since Musk bought it in 2022 (though Musk has previously described some of that work as volunteering). There are also interlocks between Tesla and Space X; and Tesla and Musk's tunnel company.

And on top of all that, Musk has essentially used the fact that he runs other companies to justify his demands for a $55 billion pay package from Tesla — if he didn't get it, he posted on the social network formerly known as Twitter, he'd be tempted to spend more time doing cutting edge work at one of his other outlets.

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And for a long time, this has all been … fine. Particularly over the last few years, when the market fell head over heels for Tesla and turned it into a company with a trillion-dollar valuation.

Tesla's stock price might cause a rethink of Musk's roles

But now Wall Street has turned on Tesla amid concerns about electric car demand in general and at Tesla in particular. Earlier this month the company reported its first year-over-year sales decline since 2020 , and it just laid off 10% of its workforce .

Tesla stock is now down more than 60% from its pandemic-era peak; it's dropped 37% so far this year.

All of which makes me wonder if some Tesla investors will eventually work up the nerve to demand that Musk spend more time working on Tesla and a little less on at least some of his side projects. Or, failing that, if Musk will at least start performatively demonstrating that he's spending more time on Tesla.

The knee-jerk response here ought to be: Good luck with that! Musk does what Musk wants. And that's worked out great for the third-richest man in the world .

But even Elon Musk sometimes has to accept the world as it is, not the way he'd like it to be, which is why he was compelled to buy Twitter after trying to get out of a binding sales agreement .

And if Tesla keeps stumbling, and its price keeps dropping, maybe he'll decide that he doesn't need to do quite so many things at the same time.

Watch: What happens when Elon Musk moves markets with a tweet

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