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Last year was the best in SpaceX history, CEO Elon Musk told his employees during a general meeting in South Texas. There have been 96 flights of SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, as well as the first two test flights of the massive new Starship rocket.
In 2024, SpaceX plans to make more than 140 launches of Falcon family rockets. According to a representative of NASA, which manages the agency's contract with SpaceX to develop Starship to land a man on the Moon, up to 10 test flights of Starship could take place this year, reports ArsTechnica.
According to Musk, SpaceX is working to extend the life of the Falcon 9's reusable first-stage boosters. SpaceX initially said each Falcon 9 booster could fly up to 10 times without major repairs. Some Falcon 9s have already flown nearly twice as many flights.
We made our 19th repeat flight. We're currently preparing Falcon 9 for 40 flights, and we're aiming for perhaps up to 150 flights this year.
—Musk said.
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Increasing the frequency of launches will require SpaceX to increase production capacity to produce more Falcon 9 second stages, which are used only once. And SpaceX will need to get even better at deploying its Falcon 9 launch pads between missions.
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What happened during the last flight of Starship?
Starship's second full-scale test flight, on November 18, exceeded SpaceX's pre-launch goals. Musk said the primary goal was for the rocket to get through the orbital insertion phase, which occurred just under three minutes into the flight when Starship's upper stage separated from the booster.
At this point, all 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy launch vehicle were operating flawlessly, after which Starship's upper stage fired six Raptor engines to continue its ascent into space. The super-heavy booster exploded moments later as it began to burn on reverse thrust to propel itself into a controlled fall. This was a secondary goal, but SpaceX engineers will have to fix the problem before it can recover and reuse the Super Heavy launch vehicle.
Starship, the rocket's upper stage, continued to fly until about eight minutes into its flight, when it broke apart in space over the Gulf of Mexico. This happened less than 30 seconds before Starship's engines were scheduled to shut down, as the vehicle gained enough speed to enter its planned trajectory, which would take it across most of the globe. If everything had gone perfectly, the ship would have re-entered the atmosphere and crashed near the Hawaiian Islands.
Musk said that Starship disintegrated when it released liquid oxygen at the end of its combustion. Raptor engines use liquid oxygen and methane as fuel.
Liquid oxygen eventually led to a fire and explosion. Ironically, if it had a payload, it would have reached orbit.
SpaceX plans to receive a commercial launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration in February. SpaceX launched its first two Starship test flights within days of receiving its FAA license.
New plans for Starship
SpaceX plans to debut the payload bay door on Starship on its next flight. The payload bay door will open to launch Starlink broadband satellites, whose design Musk compares to the Pez candy dispensing system. SpaceX is also preparing to test fuel pumping as part of a $53 million NASA contract it received in 2020. This Tipping Point demonstration will involve transferring super-cold fuel from the head tank on top of Starship into one of its main tanks while in space.
This is a precursor to future, more complex demonstrations involving two giant Starships docked together in Earth orbit. Then SpaceX will be ready to send the ship to the Moon for a test landing without astronauts on board. Following the successful completion of the test, NASA will prepare Starship to land the crew of the Artemis III mission, marking the first time astronauts will return to the Moon since 1972. This is now expected no earlier than September 2025, as NASA recently announced.
Starship's next test flight will also attempt to fire the spacecraft's Raptor engines again in space for the first time. Last year, Starship's first two flights were aimed at trajectories that would return the craft to Earth's atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean after completing an almost complete orbit around the planet. SpaceX chose this flight profile to ensure that Starship would return to Earth rather than become stuck in low Earth orbit.
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In Flight 3 we want to get to orbit and burn the engine in space from the main tank and prove that we can reliably deorbit. We want to transfer fuel from the main tank to the main one. This is important for NASA's Artemis program. And we also want to show off the payload door for… Pez for Starlink delivery.
Musk hopes to launch Starlink on Starship before the end of this year. All Starlink satellites were launched by Falcon 9 rockets. SpaceX is building a second launch pad for Starship at Starbase in South Texas.
For Artemis missions, SpaceX will likely have to launch Starships almost as often as they launch Falcon 9 rockets—several times a week—to collect methane and liquid oxygen into storage in Earth orbit. The manned Starship will then enter low-Earth orbit, connect to the storage facility, and, once fully fueled, depart for the Moon.
Crews of NASA astronauts will blast off from Earth on NASA's Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft before docking with the Starship lander in orbit around the Moon. Starship will ferry two of the four Artemis crew members from Orion to the lunar surface and then return to Orion for the return home.
NASA's plans for Starship
NASA is closely monitoring SpaceX's progress in developing Starship. The agency asked SpaceX to provide month-long landers for the Artemis III and Artemis IV missions, the first two lunar landing missions of the Artemis program. Before launching Artemis III, SpaceX must make an uncrewed landing on the Moon using Starship. Blue Origin will develop a lander for Artemis V, and the two companies are expected to compete for contracts for the next lunar landing missions.
Starship will be delivered in different configurations, such as a lunar lander, a tanker, a fuel depot and a satellite vehicle. But they will all have the same basic design with Raptor engines and stainless steel construction. Under the terms of NASA's Starship lander contract, SpaceX must use two super-heavy boosters, four Starship fuel tanks, one Starship storage facility, and one Starship lander for each Artemis launch campaign. SpaceX will also build a spare Super Heavy booster and two spare Starship fuel containers to support each Artemis mission.
SpaceX will use Super Heavy's reusable boosters and Starship's fuel tanks alternately for a series of launches to fill Starship's fuel storage in orbit. The company will demonstrate all this through an uncrewed landing test flight of Starship ahead of the launch of Artemis III. To do this, SpaceX will need at least two active Starship launch pads.
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Musk said SpaceX is developing upgraded Starships, which he called versions 2 and 3, with “better performance and endurance.” Version 3 of Starship, in particular, will increase the height of the world's largest rocket from 121 m to 140 m or more. The upgrade could also increase Starship's payload capacity from about 100 tons to more than 200 tons per flight, Musk said.
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