Launching only 26 Starlink v3 satellites is a disappointingly small number. That's about ~52t or half the block 3 advertised payload capacity of 100t. Elon said on the Q3 earnings call that flight 14 carrying 26 V3 Starlinks was only about half loaded, so apparently the ship can launch twice as many.
I'm curious why they don't fully load it, I can speculate:
0) starship is still in testing, they don't want to change too many variables from flight 14 and add 50t of payload.
1) lower payload gives them more options in engine-out situations. On flight 14, both booster and ship had engines fail.
2) derisking for ship failure, each Starlink sat costs ~$1.2m, and losing $30m of satellites hits less hard than $60m if orbital insertion fails.
3) the dispenser installed on ship 42 only fits 26 sats, and increasing this would require a hardware modification and possible delays.
4) Starlink v3 manufacturing is delayed and they don't have enough units, which I find doubtful given Starship is years late and they should have a backlog of v3s waiting to launch.
5) block 3 has worse performance than expected and can't reliably deliver 100t to orbit. Recent comments that raptor 3 can only reliably deliver 230t of thrust instead of 280t support this. I speculate SpaceX is running raptor 3 >230t on booster ascent, which is why we keep seeing engines failing. This should be resolved by block 4 or 5 with raptor 4.
sbuttgereit 20 hours ago [-]
I think it's likely to be 0-2: just de-risking in a program still characterized as testing; or at least I understand it to still be thought of as a test program.
I can absolutely see not wanting to change too many variables while they're working out the full, targeted flight profile. I can also see, with sufficient confidence, that they'd make the line between test/production a bit fuzzy with carrying production payloads rather than mass simulators. Trade-offs... not much else to say.
For Starlink v3, I could absolutely see them delaying production starts until the capability to actually deliver them was closer to reality without regard to backlogs and schedule delays: why tie up capital in satellites sitting in a warehouse? Especially if you're also improving designs, adjusting those designs for new realities/tech/etc. getting ahead of that game would (my gut feeling) have more costs than benefits.
m4rtink 6 hours ago [-]
IIRC they mentioned recently Raptor 3 while being cleaner and lighter can't run at higher thrust than Raptor 2 safely. And hopefully Raptor 4 should be able to do that.
Until then all the system level performance estimates that expected the higher thrust per engine need to be revised back.
tgsovlerkhgsel 20 hours ago [-]
The derisking argument seems unlikely. They're either putting $30M of extra satellites at risk, or guaranteeing the loss of ~$10-15M worth of launch capacity by letting it go unused. If the satellites are that cheap, that would suggest a very low confidence in their rockets that isn't really warranted. (Granted, the value of that launch capacity is probably less once they get Starship actually operational).
trothamel 16 hours ago [-]
It seems reasonable to me.
Getting the Starship back is of huge value of them, and one of the main things that would stop that would be to lose enough engines that you don't make it to orbit. There's some payload number that lets you make it to orbit with, say, 2 engines failing to start - and beyond that, you just lose control of the vehicle all the time so it doesn't matter.
Assuming the payload is low enough value, it makes sense to fill it up as far as you can without lowering the probability of success unrealistically.
JumpCrisscross 18 hours ago [-]
> the loss of ~$10-15M worth of launch capacity by letting it go unused
What is the production rate of these birds?
If you have a 50/50 chance of success now and a 25% chance a month later, and you can't replace the lost birds in production in that interval, it makes sense to hedge irrespective of production cost.
bell-cot 20 hours ago [-]
I'll pick 0, 1, 5, and
6) Starlink v3 is itself new and nearly untested. Launching a lot of v3.00 models, then discovering that they really need to be upgraded to v3.01 to fix various hardware issues, is not a win.
xoa 19 hours ago [-]
>6) Starlink v3 is itself new and nearly untested. Launching a lot of v3.00 models, then discovering that they really need to be upgraded to v3.01 to fix various hardware issues, is not a win.
Yes, and that could also tie back into #4:
>Starlink v3 manufacturing is delayed and they don't have enough units, which I find doubtful given Starship is years late and they should have a backlog of v3s waiting to launch
This assumes that a delay isn't completely purposeful. Technology and their experience with Starlink has continued to advance over those years of delay, it's not like they simply stopped iterating with Starlink v2, they just couldn't do everything or put all the pieces together in one package due to size/mass. But I'd be unsurprised if they took advantage of those extra years to keep working on it. They've proven they can ramp Starlink production easily, it's not clear they'd have any reason to produce some big backlog and have it sitting in a warehouse. Seems better to tie it closely to Starship's dev cycle so they end up launching current stuff, not sats that have been sitting around and are now years old already. They can ramp v3 Starlink production alongside Starship.
testing22321 20 hours ago [-]
>Launching only 26 Starlink v3 satellites is a disappointingly small number. That's about ~52t
Which makes it the third heaviest orbital payload in all of history.
Funny thing to be disappointed about.
lukeschlather 17 hours ago [-]
I'm excited at the prospect of Starship landing on the moon. 100T payloads are maybe not required to make it happen, but probably are. For those of us who care about Artemis IV happening on schedule, being disappointed in a 52t payload capacity is very straightforward.
I'm not excited about more Starlink satellites.
tristanj 16 hours ago [-]
Starlink payloads are the literally the path to making Starship human spaceflight ready. Starship has to launch dozens to hundreds of times to identify and fix low probability failures. Without frequent Starlink flights testing and debugging the vehicle, it would take far longer to build a safe and reliable Starship.
They're also highly profitable, and fund/subsidize future missions. Recall, Starship development was funded by Starlink.
MarsZebra 15 hours ago [-]
The company is built around Golden Dome, not Moon/Mars
Ask your favorite AI about Michael D. Griffin and Pete Worden and their connection to SpaceX
testing22321 15 hours ago [-]
100T payloads are not even remotely required.
The other moon lander NASA is going forward with has a tiny fraction of that, and there are plenty of people who think it’s better.
tristanj 20 hours ago [-]
Launching at only half payload capacity is disappointing. Starlink is severely capacity constrained, SpaceX needs to get as many v3 sats as they can into orbit, instead of flying partial loads.
jryle70 11 hours ago [-]
Falcon 9 capacity over time went from 9,0000 kg expandable to LEO for v1, to 13,150kg for v1.1, to 22,800 kg for block 5 (17,500 kg reusable). Substantial gain.
So nothing to be disappointing about Starship. Raptor v4 is already on the roadmap, and more down the road. You can speculate all you want. I just don't understand why you have to be disappointed. That SpaceX doesn't just "move fast and break things"?
tristanj 10 hours ago [-]
I’m not saying Starship won’t improve. My point is Starship block 3 is designed for ~60 v3 sats, and this flight will only do 26. This is the fourth flight in a row with a half payload. Every flight they make below full load delays the Starlink network.
The analogy you used (Falcon 9's payload growth) spans over 8 years. How long will it take Starship to start flying full payloads?
timschmidt 8 hours ago [-]
> How long will it take Starship to start flying full payloads?
As long as it takes. Doing the never-done-before generally doesn't come with a firm finish date.
testing22321 20 hours ago [-]
They are testing, learning and evolving the program, and they’re doing it in public so we’re lucky enough to get some inside tech details.
It continues to improve. Be patient.
tristanj 17 hours ago [-]
I'm completely aware. But this is the third flight in a row with a half payload. If this trend continues, it's not a good sign for Starship block 3's performance capabilities.
testing22321 15 hours ago [-]
“If this trend continues” about Falcon 1. About Falcon 9 landings, about Falcon 9 reuse, about starlink capacity, about starship launching at all, about the heat shield, about the catch, about the towers, about drone ship landings…….
That has been the narrative about every single step spacex has ever taken.
And you know what the trend is?
They are kicking fucking ass. Annihilating old space and the writing the game one incremental win at a time.
Yes, the trend is incredibly good.
tristanj 14 hours ago [-]
Past wins are great, and I expect Starship to succeed. I’m sure block 4 will carry well over 100t.
Now the actual question: why is block 3 flying half loaded? You got a technical reason, or just vibes?
testing22321 13 hours ago [-]
Everybody outside SpaceX is speculating on the reason.
I’m an Engineer, I don’t speculate.
tristanj 12 hours ago [-]
You said:
> I’m an Engineer, I don’t speculate.
You also said:
> Yes, the trend is incredibly good.
So you do speculate. Just not when someone asks for a reason.
testing22321 12 hours ago [-]
I’m looking at Past performance.
You’re making stuff up (your entire first post is 100% speculation)
tristanj 12 hours ago [-]
I labeled my entire first post as speculation. What did I make up? Be specific.
imtringued 9 hours ago [-]
Well, I have some bad news. Starship isn't following the Falcon 9 development philosophy.
Starship is literally a boondoggle project by a space company that was the new kid on the block and now has the same hubris as the old kids on the block.
Nothing about the Starship development process is remotely close or has any similarity to Falcon 9.
Starship SpaceX is "old space".
The Falcon 9 philosophy was as follows: Make it work, then push the envelope and learn from the failures.
The Starship philosophy: Let's set ourselves ambitious goals that push the envelope from the start. Partial success is a failure. The cathedral must be finished before we can launch the first customer payload.
Hint: SpaceX doesn't want to cannibalize their cash cow Falcon 9. Typical old company thinking.
timschmidt 8 hours ago [-]
> Hint: SpaceX doesn't want to cannibalize their cash cow Falcon 9. Typical old company thinking.
They've already stopped booking new Falcon 9 launches for customers.
nsxwolf 2 hours ago [-]
I don't see you can be disappointed that the experimental test ships are deploying real production hardware in any amount.
randallsquared 17 hours ago [-]
If Starship succeeds, that will be about half an hour's worth of launch capacity in the early 30s.
tristanj 16 hours ago [-]
I'm fully aware. But Starlink is blocked by today's Starship launch cadence and payload capacity. Pointing out Starship could handle this payload 5 years in the future isn't helpful.
All of Starlink's future ambitions are blocked by today's Starship.
7e 20 hours ago [-]
If you assume Starship is a clusterfuck, it all makes sense. They will be able to meet their promised payload capacity after maybe the fifth full redesign of their engines.
rogerrogerr 12 hours ago [-]
Why do we act like full redesigns are a bad thing? A company that can iterate redesigns is hilarious powerful, as they've shown.
Gud 9 hours ago [-]
Why would I assume this? Seems to be doing great.
NooneAtAll5 20 hours ago [-]
dude, it was literally the first orbit launch
be glad it wasn't mass simulators
tristanj 20 hours ago [-]
Which is not what I'm discussing here. The second orbital launch will also be 26 satellites.
metalman 21 hours ago [-]
cut and paste of the mission plan with details of the cargo
November 13, 2026 18:45 - 20:00 AT
Starship Flight 15
Flight 15 of Starship is preparing to launch as soon as Friday, November 13, pending regulatory approval. The 75-minute launch window will open at 4:45 p.m. CT.
A live webcast of the flight will begin about 30 minutes before liftoff, which you can watch here and on X @SpaceX. Coverage is planned to continue through ship catch, with the potential for hours of live views from Starship as it orbits Earth, powered by Starlink. As is the case with all launches, the schedule is dynamic and likely to change, so be sure to check in here and stay tuned to our X account for updates.
The upcoming flight is planned to be the first to return both Starship and Super Heavy to the launch site for catch. If successful, this will mark the first full recovery of an orbital launch system and a breakthrough moment in making Starship a reliable, rapidly reusable rocket.
Starship’s initial return to launch site mission is expected to orbit the Earth at an altitude of ~275 km and complete approximately 14 orbits around the planet over the course of a more than 22-hour flight. Similar to Starship’s first orbital mission, the flight profile has been designed with the opportunity to insert into a passively safe suborbital trajectory or safely deorbit at multiple pre-determined areas over the ocean after raising to an orbital altitude. Read more about the testing, mission design, and safety measures for first planned Starship catch.
Starship’s previous mission was the culmination of more than a dozen flight tests and years of development, sending Starship to orbit and deploying meaningful payloads to space for the first time. Watch “Go For Orbit”, the latest episode in the ongoing Starship series experience the moments behind flying the most ambitious Starship mission yet.
The booster’s primary objective on Flight 15 will be executing a successful launch, ascent, stage separation, boostback burn, and return to the launch site for catch. This will be the first return and catch attempt for a Super Heavy V3 booster. Three V1 boosters were successfully caught on earlier flight tests with two demonstrating successful reflights.
The Starship upper stage’s primary objectives include the deployment of 26 Starlink V3 satellites and the first return to launch site and catch at Starbase. Starship will only execute a return to launch site if the flight control team has ensured that the vehicle systems critical for reentry maneuvers and final landing burn and tower approach are healthy.
Starship will deliver 26 Starlink V3 satellites to orbit, which aim to greatly expand the network's capacity and user speeds. Each Starlink V3 satellite will add 1 Terabit of capacity to the constellation, with all 26 satellites equaling ~10 Starlink V2 Mini launches on Falcon 9.
After deploying from Starship, the Starlink V3 satellites will unfold their antennas and deploy their solar arrays and make initial contact with the ground and the rest of the Starlink constellation via radio frequency and laser links. The satellites will then begin raising their orbits with their onboard thrusters. Following their on-orbit checkouts, the satellites should begin serving customers as soon as a few weeks after launch.
Three of the satellites have been modified with a suite of cameras to scan Starship’s heatshield and transmit imagery down to operators. This method of analyzing Starship’s heatshield has been tested on previous flights and is one of several data sources to help inform Starship’s readiness to return to the launch site on Flight 15.
Starship’s heatshield will incorporate the improvements made on Flight 14 including additional retention mechanisms on tiles in areas deemed to be at highest risk of falling off during ascent and addressing areas with a flow path for plasma to get behind the tiles. The vehicle will also have a large portion of the heatshield equipped with a curved tile design that has shown the ability to reduce heating in the gaps between tiles.
Countdown
All Times Approximate
00:50:00
SpaceX Flight Director conducts poll and verifies GO for propellant load
00:35:33
Booster LOX (liquid oxygen) load underway
00:35:30
Booster fuel (liquid methane) load underway
00:35:12
Ship LOX load underway
00:35:11
Ship fuel load underway
00:21:40
Raptor begins engine chill on booster and ship
00:02:50
Booster propellant load complete
00:02:10
Ship propellant load complete
00:00:30
SpaceX flight director verifies GO for launch
00:00:17
Flame diverter activation
00:00:03
Booster engine startup command
00:00:00
Excitement guaranteed
FLIGHT TIMELINE
All Times Approximate
00:00:00
Liftoff
00:00:58
Max Q (moment of peak aerodynamic stress on the rocket)
00:02:19
Super Heavy MECO (most engines cut off)
00:02:21
Hot-staging (Starship Raptor ignition and stage separation)
00:02:26
Super Heavy boostback burn start
00:03:02
Super Heavy boostback burn shutdown
00:06:10
Super Heavy landing burn start
00:06:35
Super Heavy landing burn shutdown and catch
00:08:09
Starship engine cutoff
00:26:10
Starship orbital insertion burn start
00:26:30
Starship orbital insertion burn shutdown
00:35:01
Payload deploy start
01:17:40
Payload deploy complete
01:27:46
Early Hawaii Return Check
07:15:35
Mid Chile Return Check
20:41:55
Final Hawaii Return Check
21:35:57
Deorbit burn start
21:36:07
Deorbit burn shutdown
22:10:46
Starship entry
22:29:34
Starship is transonic
22:30:13
Starship is subsonic
22:32:16
Landing burn start
22:32:18
Landing flip
22:32:26
Landing burn 3 to 2 engines
22:32:33
Landing burn 2 to 1 engine
22:32:34
Starship landing burn shutdown and catch
xixixao 20 hours ago [-]
This is much longer (22h) than starship ever spent coasting, right? If it doesn’t make it back I’d expect problems with boil off.
ls612 17 hours ago [-]
That’s probably part of the point, to get real data on boil off and how they will need to spec their cooling system for the lunar and mars missions.
Does catching ship require any tower arm changes from the booster catches or is it the same hardware setup?
wmf 20 hours ago [-]
The same chopsticks are used for both. You can see this when they load the stack.
williamgators 19 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
mattlondon 18 hours ago [-]
I broadly agree with the sentiment. I don't agree with his political views or some of the other things, but I think he has been pretty pivotal in ushering in EVs as a viable thing, and now space access too. Who knows maybe we really will get to mars in the next decade or two.
Hopefully instead of wasting more money on politics, he can focus his attention/resources on something else transformative for humanity next. Fusion, cancer etc.
wilg 18 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
barbacoa 18 hours ago [-]
Surly there must be satellite photos of all these mass graves?
wilg 16 hours ago [-]
Very dismissive way to handle millions of deaths! Most are probably not in mass graves, but there are definitely some:
The reality is Starship works, SpaceX now has an astonishing lead over all of the competition, and they are cancelling Falcon 9 and arguably pulling up the ladder behind them.
The real criticism of SpaceX is they're now on the verge of quasi-monopolizing access to space. But the haters spent the last decade committed to "Starship doesn't work" so even after it does work, every other rocket is delayed and New Glenn vaporized its pad, they can't kick the supercopium and mount a critique of the company based in reality.
waterheater 18 hours ago [-]
Their quasi-monopolization of access to space is entirely due to unserious efforts by virtually all non-US governments to build reusable rockets. Yes, space is hard, but I see no technical reason why only SpaceX should be able to achieve such a massive lead. The only explanation is stubbornness: legacy rocketry programs killing innovation to protect their own jobs.
YetAnotherNick 17 hours ago [-]
Which non US government are you talking about. China is investing heavily and making at least some progress. EU couldn't get "legacy rocketry programs" working, so the reason is incompetence not stubbornness. India is trying a bit, but they don't have capacity to spend. Russia is also trying.
lukeschlather 17 hours ago [-]
I would call Blue Origin setting off the largest launchpad detonation in history a lot of things, but I would not call it unserious.
jcfrei 18 hours ago [-]
They are on the verge of quasi monopolizing - soon having lots of competitors I think is more accurate. If I were a SpaceX investor I would be more worried that Elon is once again squandering an early lead by losing focus - like he did with Tesla.
Gud 9 hours ago [-]
Tesla’s early lead is overstated. BYD was doing the same things at the same time, and are now in the lead.
AnimalMuppet 18 hours ago [-]
How are they pulling up the ladder behind them?
tcdent 17 hours ago [-]
At this point, services delivering payloads to space are scarcer than payloads themsleves. Launch service contracts from them are already essentially unavailable. Running ahead while Blue Origin and Rocket Lab still catch up is a significant strategic advantage.
Hot payloads for the next few years are network connectivity and compute, two verticals SpaceX has chosen to compete in, which are major sources of revenue. Aside from saving room for strategic relationships with the US government, they can easily utilize all available capacity themselves.
bell-cot 17 hours ago [-]
If (1) SpaceX is the only organization actually able to launch at scale (vs. promising eventual launching at scale while burning through $billions), (2) the Big Money in space will be made with large constellations of internet/cellular communications satellites and orbital DC's, and (3) SpaceX is winding down the launch services that it provides to outside customers - then all of SpaceX's competition for the $$$ will be stuck on the ground, giving them a monopoly.
Eventually, anti-trust law and/or another competent launch provider might break that monopoly. But Elon's buddy Don will control the Justice Dept. for a couple more years. And even for the competent, ramping up launch is slow.
WalterBright 15 hours ago [-]
There's nothing stopping other rocket companies from doing the same thing Musk is.
8 hours ago [-]
bell-cot 8 hours ago [-]
And yet, no matter how obvious the prestige (both national and personal), power (ditto), and wealth available to anyone who can build an org with capabilities similar to SpaceX, nobody else seems to be anywhere close. In spite of the massive subsidies and support which a number of governments (espec. China) are providing to credible would-be Musks.
What if at-scale rocket science is just extremely hard, and efforts to find "another Musk" continue to fail?
themgt 1 hours ago [-]
There's nothing stopping you from winning an NBA championship, just suit up and dunk the ball.
tcdent 17 hours ago [-]
Anti trust is completely out of the question. There is plenty of competition that is already selling contracts even if the physical product doesn't exist yet.
WalterBright 17 hours ago [-]
So we must break up a monopoly because it delivers more value at a lower cost than its competitors?
AnimalMuppet 16 hours ago [-]
No, bell-cot's point is that they are the same company that gets the profits from the payload. It's vertical integration (pun accidental, but not avoided). That gives them a massive financial advantage as a launch company. It makes it hard for anyone else to compete with them - if they have the capacity to handle all other customers' launches as well as their own.
Internet satellites... that does look like a monopoly, or at least effectively one.
WalterBright 15 hours ago [-]
Companies spin off parts of their process into separate companies all the time. Auto and airframe companies are notable examples. If it was more profitable to do these in house, they would.
sroussey 15 hours ago [-]
No, but the government could nationalize it and spin it out again.
anamax 11 hours ago [-]
Nationalizing Starlink involves paying the current stockholders what it's worth.
After nationalizing, Musk will have a huge pile of cash. He can then self-fund a new SpaceX/Starlink.
Yes, many current SpaceX/Starlink employees will stay put, but I'll bet that a critical mass will say "We get a fresh start on everything? I'm in."
WalterBright 15 hours ago [-]
We already have NASA.
newsclues 14 hours ago [-]
Which until spacex relied on ULA?
WalterBright 13 hours ago [-]
NASA couldn't do what spacex did, so NASA contracted the work out to spacex.
newsclues 1 hours ago [-]
NASA has relied on contractors for a long time. The big fat defence contractors have been getting contracts for decades before SpaceX existed.
idiotsecant 13 hours ago [-]
Serious question - could they actually nationalize starlink? Suppose starlink takes their C&C keys and builds a control center in some other country. What does the US government do?
MentalM 12 hours ago [-]
> Serious question - could they actually nationalize starlink?
Yeas, why not?
> Suppose starlink takes their C&C keys and builds a control center in some other country
That won't happen. It is obviously better to be fully legal billionaire (even if the government take away 99% of his assets) in the USA than to be in some other country (which can in any time change it's mind), wanted for treason by the USA. Not even close.
LanceJones 19 hours ago [-]
I've followed MSM coverage (and that of many science communicators) since Starhopper tests and can confirm that the majority of reporting has been of the "Starship can't/doesn't/won't work" ilk. The very same groups are now crying about a potential monopoly. EDIT for grammar.
imtringued 3 hours ago [-]
No that is a straw man. Nobody is complaining about SpaceX having a monopoly on a reproducible good, that is completely illogical. It's like saying McDonald's has a monopoly on the restaurant business. What SpaceX has is something like an internal monopsony that has swallowed the entire supply of their own launch capacity.
Starship doesn't work right now because it doesn't follow the Falcon 9 development process.
You first make it work, then you optimize and then you do the impossible.
The starship development process is: attempt the "impossible", then watch it not work out (which it didn't for Falcon 9 at first), and then optimize, then make it work.
Like, why exactly is full reusability necessary for Starship's success as a Starlink launcher? Why can't they do the reuse of the second stage after they've been flying payloads?
Something tells me they would be in trouble of they had to tell investors that their rocket is not as good as they advertise it. There is this strange incentive for them to delay their success as far as possible, which the exact opposite of the Falcon 9 development process.
It seems like SpaceX depends on Falcon 9 more than even its external customers otherwise they would have cannibalized its internal usage much sooner.
skew-aberration 15 hours ago [-]
The main negative coverage I've heard is actually that starship is clearly optimized for the commercial LEO market while it has received to date $3B (of $5B) of government funds intended for space exploration as part of a contract it may never deliver on (at least, as it was originally envisaged), delaying Artemis by years and costing the government at least a further $5B in funding of gateway projects which will also be delayed and require expensive re-engineering if/when they are ever deployed.
This could be seen as either straightforward corruption or a gamble on the Starship platform for future Mars exploration.
There are very sound economic reasons why rockets for Moon exploration like Saturn-V were built the way they were. Saturn-V was around $35-40B in today's money for 13 rockets and 6 landings (excluding lander, crew costs). It took 5.5 years from greenlight to first successful orbital flight (which was also its first flight). Starship will likely meet this target of 6 landings after about 20 years of development, $25B R&D (excluding crew/lander contracts), and possibly about $5B in launch costs. Asymptotic costs will of course be much lower, but launch costs do not dominate space exploration costs. The platform might be capable of Mars missions one day - but it's not clear how far out that goal is.
Starship being able to otherwise fund itself except for the Artemis R&D project is good for the government.
skew-aberration 9 hours ago [-]
Yes, starship funding itself as a workhorse for lifting to LEO is a good thing for the US.
That is not the point I made though. The question is why money was spent on starship as a lunar vehicle - that being the main criticism I have seen in the media (e.g. SmarterEveryDay video). Of course that could turn out to be misplaced, but there's no point denying that that is the main criticism.
> SLS still gets $2.5B every year, around $30 billion total so far
Not relevant to the HLS contract either.
But a) it is more like $40B and b) we don't have full numbers yet to make this comparison apples to apples. SLS costs come from the shorter timeline, the expensive shortcuts like ultralightweight shell, H2 fuel, disposable design, the crew rating, and the profit paid to manufacturers. We still don't know the equivalent numbers for starship: how long the timeline will be, the cost of taking the same payload to TLI, if the heavy structure will ever work as a lunar lander, if the booster can be used with an H2 upper stage / lander alternative, if the fully reusable architecture will work for lunar missions (depends on refueling performance), and finally how much profit SpaceX will make on these government missions (which depends on the market).
If those problems are all solved, and SpaceX gives NASA a good price, then we could see starship emerging as the best value somewhere between 2030 and 2035. Solving them in time for Artemis IV 2028 seems very unlikely now though.
timschmidt 8 hours ago [-]
> e.g. SmarterEveryDay video
The mission architecture discussed in that video has already been scrapped.
In-orbit refueling will permit missions to the moon and beyond. This has been stated repeatedly.
MentalM 12 hours ago [-]
> majority of reporting has been of the "Starship can't/doesn't/won't work" ilk
> The very same groups are now crying about a potential monopoly.
Be a realist: we should be thankful they don't do it simultaneously.
imtringued 8 hours ago [-]
I don't see how the monopoly argument makes sense considering everyone and their dog is building a rocket startup these days.
I mean Falcon 9 is dead simply because the Neutron rocket will make it obsolete for small sat launches.
And obviously Falcon 9 was never really meant to be a moon rocket either so that is where New Glenn comes in.
Starship was always meant to be a Starlink launcher and everything else was a bonus.
boredatoms 17 hours ago [-]
Is it really so hard to say 13Nov so that its not a bunch of numbers in a strange US-date format
jjk166 15 hours ago [-]
Sorry if you thought it was the eleventh of tredecimbruary.
fouc 17 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
jfengel 17 hours ago [-]
If that means "packing space into a box owned by a rich asshole", I'll pass. It hands even more money to a man who spent a billion dollars trying to buy an election, and he failed only because he so monstrously fucked up the country that not even that much money could salvage it.
It is a remarkable technical achievement. That is nowhere near my top priority. I'm not even certain I like "containerization of space".
Teever 16 hours ago [-]
If this is the top comment here people are most certainly going to respond to it and talk about why they hate Elon instead of 'appreciating what Starship represents.'
What motivates someone to make this kind of comment and derail the conversation from the technical stuff?
fouc 14 hours ago [-]
You're right, I was trolling. I should not have done that.
wilg 16 hours ago [-]
I appreciate Starship quite a lot, but it's much more sad that there are millions of dead people because of his other activities (cutting USAID). It's not reasonable to ignore this just because it sounds so bad it can't possibly be true. There has been no serious disagreement on whether this happened! That's more people dead from Elon than Americans dead from COVID-19!
Elon Musk decided to be explicitly partisan during one of the most politically divisive periods in American history. Nobody hates him because of his rockets, they hate him because he has taken many, many political and social stances that have nothing to do with his companies.
If you're going to blame anyone, blame Musk for derailing his own companies' missions by taking sides politically as loudly as he has. He's a very poor representative for the things that actually matter.
whartung 17 hours ago [-]
I’m just waiting for them to paint the ships in bright colors with bumblebee patterns to ring in that Terran Trade Authority vibe.
ChocolateGod 16 hours ago [-]
Unfortunately they're the sort of people that if Elon Musk came out and said he was going to fund a cure for cancer they'd have a problem with it.
api 16 hours ago [-]
Nobody hates Musk for his rockets or cars.
It might be more related to snapping a Nazi salute at a Presidential inauguration and constantly promoting “race science” on X. That kind of thing.
If he had just shut up and built rockets and cars he’d be a hero like he was before he either got fash pilled or revealed himself. Not sure which it is but it doesn’t matter at this point.
I’ve never seen anyone burn that much goodwill.
The biggest thing I hate about it is the damage he’s done to the idea of a human future in space. It’s an important idea that needs better advocates.
Rendered at 16:59:08 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
I'm curious why they don't fully load it, I can speculate:
0) starship is still in testing, they don't want to change too many variables from flight 14 and add 50t of payload.
1) lower payload gives them more options in engine-out situations. On flight 14, both booster and ship had engines fail.
2) derisking for ship failure, each Starlink sat costs ~$1.2m, and losing $30m of satellites hits less hard than $60m if orbital insertion fails.
3) the dispenser installed on ship 42 only fits 26 sats, and increasing this would require a hardware modification and possible delays.
4) Starlink v3 manufacturing is delayed and they don't have enough units, which I find doubtful given Starship is years late and they should have a backlog of v3s waiting to launch.
5) block 3 has worse performance than expected and can't reliably deliver 100t to orbit. Recent comments that raptor 3 can only reliably deliver 230t of thrust instead of 280t support this. I speculate SpaceX is running raptor 3 >230t on booster ascent, which is why we keep seeing engines failing. This should be resolved by block 4 or 5 with raptor 4.
I can absolutely see not wanting to change too many variables while they're working out the full, targeted flight profile. I can also see, with sufficient confidence, that they'd make the line between test/production a bit fuzzy with carrying production payloads rather than mass simulators. Trade-offs... not much else to say.
For Starlink v3, I could absolutely see them delaying production starts until the capability to actually deliver them was closer to reality without regard to backlogs and schedule delays: why tie up capital in satellites sitting in a warehouse? Especially if you're also improving designs, adjusting those designs for new realities/tech/etc. getting ahead of that game would (my gut feeling) have more costs than benefits.
Until then all the system level performance estimates that expected the higher thrust per engine need to be revised back.
Getting the Starship back is of huge value of them, and one of the main things that would stop that would be to lose enough engines that you don't make it to orbit. There's some payload number that lets you make it to orbit with, say, 2 engines failing to start - and beyond that, you just lose control of the vehicle all the time so it doesn't matter.
Assuming the payload is low enough value, it makes sense to fill it up as far as you can without lowering the probability of success unrealistically.
What is the production rate of these birds?
If you have a 50/50 chance of success now and a 25% chance a month later, and you can't replace the lost birds in production in that interval, it makes sense to hedge irrespective of production cost.
6) Starlink v3 is itself new and nearly untested. Launching a lot of v3.00 models, then discovering that they really need to be upgraded to v3.01 to fix various hardware issues, is not a win.
Yes, and that could also tie back into #4:
>Starlink v3 manufacturing is delayed and they don't have enough units, which I find doubtful given Starship is years late and they should have a backlog of v3s waiting to launch
This assumes that a delay isn't completely purposeful. Technology and their experience with Starlink has continued to advance over those years of delay, it's not like they simply stopped iterating with Starlink v2, they just couldn't do everything or put all the pieces together in one package due to size/mass. But I'd be unsurprised if they took advantage of those extra years to keep working on it. They've proven they can ramp Starlink production easily, it's not clear they'd have any reason to produce some big backlog and have it sitting in a warehouse. Seems better to tie it closely to Starship's dev cycle so they end up launching current stuff, not sats that have been sitting around and are now years old already. They can ramp v3 Starlink production alongside Starship.
Which makes it the third heaviest orbital payload in all of history.
Funny thing to be disappointed about.
I'm not excited about more Starlink satellites.
They're also highly profitable, and fund/subsidize future missions. Recall, Starship development was funded by Starlink.
Ask your favorite AI about Michael D. Griffin and Pete Worden and their connection to SpaceX
The other moon lander NASA is going forward with has a tiny fraction of that, and there are plenty of people who think it’s better.
So nothing to be disappointing about Starship. Raptor v4 is already on the roadmap, and more down the road. You can speculate all you want. I just don't understand why you have to be disappointed. That SpaceX doesn't just "move fast and break things"?
The analogy you used (Falcon 9's payload growth) spans over 8 years. How long will it take Starship to start flying full payloads?
As long as it takes. Doing the never-done-before generally doesn't come with a firm finish date.
It continues to improve. Be patient.
That has been the narrative about every single step spacex has ever taken.
And you know what the trend is?
They are kicking fucking ass. Annihilating old space and the writing the game one incremental win at a time.
Yes, the trend is incredibly good.
Now the actual question: why is block 3 flying half loaded? You got a technical reason, or just vibes?
I’m an Engineer, I don’t speculate.
> I’m an Engineer, I don’t speculate.
You also said:
> Yes, the trend is incredibly good.
So you do speculate. Just not when someone asks for a reason.
You’re making stuff up (your entire first post is 100% speculation)
Starship is literally a boondoggle project by a space company that was the new kid on the block and now has the same hubris as the old kids on the block.
Nothing about the Starship development process is remotely close or has any similarity to Falcon 9.
Starship SpaceX is "old space".
The Falcon 9 philosophy was as follows: Make it work, then push the envelope and learn from the failures.
The Starship philosophy: Let's set ourselves ambitious goals that push the envelope from the start. Partial success is a failure. The cathedral must be finished before we can launch the first customer payload.
Hint: SpaceX doesn't want to cannibalize their cash cow Falcon 9. Typical old company thinking.
They've already stopped booking new Falcon 9 launches for customers.
All of Starlink's future ambitions are blocked by today's Starship.
be glad it wasn't mass simulators
November 13, 2026 18:45 - 20:00 AT Starship Flight 15 Flight 15 of Starship is preparing to launch as soon as Friday, November 13, pending regulatory approval. The 75-minute launch window will open at 4:45 p.m. CT.
A live webcast of the flight will begin about 30 minutes before liftoff, which you can watch here and on X @SpaceX. Coverage is planned to continue through ship catch, with the potential for hours of live views from Starship as it orbits Earth, powered by Starlink. As is the case with all launches, the schedule is dynamic and likely to change, so be sure to check in here and stay tuned to our X account for updates.
The upcoming flight is planned to be the first to return both Starship and Super Heavy to the launch site for catch. If successful, this will mark the first full recovery of an orbital launch system and a breakthrough moment in making Starship a reliable, rapidly reusable rocket.
Starship’s initial return to launch site mission is expected to orbit the Earth at an altitude of ~275 km and complete approximately 14 orbits around the planet over the course of a more than 22-hour flight. Similar to Starship’s first orbital mission, the flight profile has been designed with the opportunity to insert into a passively safe suborbital trajectory or safely deorbit at multiple pre-determined areas over the ocean after raising to an orbital altitude. Read more about the testing, mission design, and safety measures for first planned Starship catch.
Starship’s previous mission was the culmination of more than a dozen flight tests and years of development, sending Starship to orbit and deploying meaningful payloads to space for the first time. Watch “Go For Orbit”, the latest episode in the ongoing Starship series experience the moments behind flying the most ambitious Starship mission yet.
The booster’s primary objective on Flight 15 will be executing a successful launch, ascent, stage separation, boostback burn, and return to the launch site for catch. This will be the first return and catch attempt for a Super Heavy V3 booster. Three V1 boosters were successfully caught on earlier flight tests with two demonstrating successful reflights.
The Starship upper stage’s primary objectives include the deployment of 26 Starlink V3 satellites and the first return to launch site and catch at Starbase. Starship will only execute a return to launch site if the flight control team has ensured that the vehicle systems critical for reentry maneuvers and final landing burn and tower approach are healthy.
Starship will deliver 26 Starlink V3 satellites to orbit, which aim to greatly expand the network's capacity and user speeds. Each Starlink V3 satellite will add 1 Terabit of capacity to the constellation, with all 26 satellites equaling ~10 Starlink V2 Mini launches on Falcon 9.
After deploying from Starship, the Starlink V3 satellites will unfold their antennas and deploy their solar arrays and make initial contact with the ground and the rest of the Starlink constellation via radio frequency and laser links. The satellites will then begin raising their orbits with their onboard thrusters. Following their on-orbit checkouts, the satellites should begin serving customers as soon as a few weeks after launch.
Three of the satellites have been modified with a suite of cameras to scan Starship’s heatshield and transmit imagery down to operators. This method of analyzing Starship’s heatshield has been tested on previous flights and is one of several data sources to help inform Starship’s readiness to return to the launch site on Flight 15.
Starship’s heatshield will incorporate the improvements made on Flight 14 including additional retention mechanisms on tiles in areas deemed to be at highest risk of falling off during ascent and addressing areas with a flow path for plasma to get behind the tiles. The vehicle will also have a large portion of the heatshield equipped with a curved tile design that has shown the ability to reduce heating in the gaps between tiles.
Countdown All Times Approximate
00:50:00 SpaceX Flight Director conducts poll and verifies GO for propellant load 00:35:33 Booster LOX (liquid oxygen) load underway 00:35:30 Booster fuel (liquid methane) load underway 00:35:12 Ship LOX load underway 00:35:11 Ship fuel load underway 00:21:40 Raptor begins engine chill on booster and ship 00:02:50 Booster propellant load complete 00:02:10 Ship propellant load complete 00:00:30 SpaceX flight director verifies GO for launch 00:00:17 Flame diverter activation 00:00:03 Booster engine startup command 00:00:00 Excitement guaranteed
FLIGHT TIMELINE All Times Approximate
00:00:00 Liftoff 00:00:58 Max Q (moment of peak aerodynamic stress on the rocket) 00:02:19 Super Heavy MECO (most engines cut off) 00:02:21 Hot-staging (Starship Raptor ignition and stage separation) 00:02:26 Super Heavy boostback burn start 00:03:02 Super Heavy boostback burn shutdown 00:06:10 Super Heavy landing burn start 00:06:35 Super Heavy landing burn shutdown and catch 00:08:09 Starship engine cutoff 00:26:10 Starship orbital insertion burn start 00:26:30 Starship orbital insertion burn shutdown 00:35:01 Payload deploy start 01:17:40 Payload deploy complete 01:27:46 Early Hawaii Return Check 07:15:35 Mid Chile Return Check 20:41:55 Final Hawaii Return Check 21:35:57 Deorbit burn start 21:36:07 Deorbit burn shutdown 22:10:46 Starship entry 22:29:34 Starship is transonic 22:30:13 Starship is subsonic 22:32:16 Landing burn start 22:32:18 Landing flip 22:32:26 Landing burn 3 to 2 engines 22:32:33 Landing burn 2 to 1 engine 22:32:34 Starship landing burn shutdown and catch
Hopefully instead of wasting more money on politics, he can focus his attention/resources on something else transformative for humanity next. Fusion, cancer etc.
https://www.propublica.org/article/usaid-cholera-deaths-trum... https://www.refugeesinternational.org/statements-and-news/ju...
The real criticism of SpaceX is they're now on the verge of quasi-monopolizing access to space. But the haters spent the last decade committed to "Starship doesn't work" so even after it does work, every other rocket is delayed and New Glenn vaporized its pad, they can't kick the supercopium and mount a critique of the company based in reality.
Hot payloads for the next few years are network connectivity and compute, two verticals SpaceX has chosen to compete in, which are major sources of revenue. Aside from saving room for strategic relationships with the US government, they can easily utilize all available capacity themselves.
Eventually, anti-trust law and/or another competent launch provider might break that monopoly. But Elon's buddy Don will control the Justice Dept. for a couple more years. And even for the competent, ramping up launch is slow.
What if at-scale rocket science is just extremely hard, and efforts to find "another Musk" continue to fail?
Internet satellites... that does look like a monopoly, or at least effectively one.
After nationalizing, Musk will have a huge pile of cash. He can then self-fund a new SpaceX/Starlink.
Yes, many current SpaceX/Starlink employees will stay put, but I'll bet that a critical mass will say "We get a fresh start on everything? I'm in."
Yeas, why not?
> Suppose starlink takes their C&C keys and builds a control center in some other country
That won't happen. It is obviously better to be fully legal billionaire (even if the government take away 99% of his assets) in the USA than to be in some other country (which can in any time change it's mind), wanted for treason by the USA. Not even close.
Starship doesn't work right now because it doesn't follow the Falcon 9 development process.
You first make it work, then you optimize and then you do the impossible.
The starship development process is: attempt the "impossible", then watch it not work out (which it didn't for Falcon 9 at first), and then optimize, then make it work.
Like, why exactly is full reusability necessary for Starship's success as a Starlink launcher? Why can't they do the reuse of the second stage after they've been flying payloads?
Something tells me they would be in trouble of they had to tell investors that their rocket is not as good as they advertise it. There is this strange incentive for them to delay their success as far as possible, which the exact opposite of the Falcon 9 development process.
It seems like SpaceX depends on Falcon 9 more than even its external customers otherwise they would have cannibalized its internal usage much sooner.
This could be seen as either straightforward corruption or a gamble on the Starship platform for future Mars exploration.
There are very sound economic reasons why rockets for Moon exploration like Saturn-V were built the way they were. Saturn-V was around $35-40B in today's money for 13 rockets and 6 landings (excluding lander, crew costs). It took 5.5 years from greenlight to first successful orbital flight (which was also its first flight). Starship will likely meet this target of 6 landings after about 20 years of development, $25B R&D (excluding crew/lander contracts), and possibly about $5B in launch costs. Asymptotic costs will of course be much lower, but launch costs do not dominate space exploration costs. The platform might be capable of Mars missions one day - but it's not clear how far out that goal is.
SLS still gets $2.5B every year, around $30 billion total so far (at least billion every year since 2011) and cost 40% more than they said it would: https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/cost-of-sls-and-orion
Starship being able to otherwise fund itself except for the Artemis R&D project is good for the government.
That is not the point I made though. The question is why money was spent on starship as a lunar vehicle - that being the main criticism I have seen in the media (e.g. SmarterEveryDay video). Of course that could turn out to be misplaced, but there's no point denying that that is the main criticism.
> SLS still gets $2.5B every year, around $30 billion total so far
Not relevant to the HLS contract either.
But a) it is more like $40B and b) we don't have full numbers yet to make this comparison apples to apples. SLS costs come from the shorter timeline, the expensive shortcuts like ultralightweight shell, H2 fuel, disposable design, the crew rating, and the profit paid to manufacturers. We still don't know the equivalent numbers for starship: how long the timeline will be, the cost of taking the same payload to TLI, if the heavy structure will ever work as a lunar lander, if the booster can be used with an H2 upper stage / lander alternative, if the fully reusable architecture will work for lunar missions (depends on refueling performance), and finally how much profit SpaceX will make on these government missions (which depends on the market).
If those problems are all solved, and SpaceX gives NASA a good price, then we could see starship emerging as the best value somewhere between 2030 and 2035. Solving them in time for Artemis IV 2028 seems very unlikely now though.
The mission architecture discussed in that video has already been scrapped.
In-orbit refueling will permit missions to the moon and beyond. This has been stated repeatedly.
> The very same groups are now crying about a potential monopoly.
Be a realist: we should be thankful they don't do it simultaneously.
I mean Falcon 9 is dead simply because the Neutron rocket will make it obsolete for small sat launches.
And obviously Falcon 9 was never really meant to be a moon rocket either so that is where New Glenn comes in.
Starship was always meant to be a Starlink launcher and everything else was a bonus.
It is a remarkable technical achievement. That is nowhere near my top priority. I'm not even certain I like "containerization of space".
What motivates someone to make this kind of comment and derail the conversation from the technical stuff?
https://mortality47.org/deaths/usaid-cuts https://www.propublica.org/article/usaid-cholera-deaths-trum... https://www.refugeesinternational.org/statements-and-news/ju...
If you're going to blame anyone, blame Musk for derailing his own companies' missions by taking sides politically as loudly as he has. He's a very poor representative for the things that actually matter.
It might be more related to snapping a Nazi salute at a Presidential inauguration and constantly promoting “race science” on X. That kind of thing.
If he had just shut up and built rockets and cars he’d be a hero like he was before he either got fash pilled or revealed himself. Not sure which it is but it doesn’t matter at this point.
I’ve never seen anyone burn that much goodwill.
The biggest thing I hate about it is the damage he’s done to the idea of a human future in space. It’s an important idea that needs better advocates.