glhs837
Power with Control
So, unlike Old Spic.... I mean Old Space, where you bulld crazy expensive Faberge eggs of spacecraft, only to throw them away, the intention is to build a thousand or more Starships. Cant do that using clean rooms and hand carved bespoke pieces of aluminum 30 feet long and CNC milled. You need a production line, more akin to auto or shipbuilding. This chart shows the stage of completion of the test articles currently under production/test. Not that 13 and 14 are mostly not built. That's because they really expected more losses in test. SN8, the one that crashed, did so well, they need fewer test articles. So those are going to never be built. SN15 will incorporate a lot of what they have learned these last 18 months. Potentially being the first one to go orbital before the end of this year. 9,10,11, and maybe 12 will all expand the suborbital envelope and hone the stage/launch/land/turnaround processes. Since the goal is for a Starship to be ready to launch again days or even hours after landing.
Note the big booster, BN1, is only eight rings and the tail section away from being complete, expect it to fly hops in the next 2-3 months at most. That things static fire will be a challenge, with I think 23 Raptors.....
Note the big booster, BN1, is only eight rings and the tail section away from being complete, expect it to fly hops in the next 2-3 months at most. That things static fire will be a challenge, with I think 23 Raptors.....