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Also known as not an orbit, or a suborbital flight / trajectory.
Saying a suborbital flight is a partial orbit is like saying a cessna can partially achieve hypersonic velocities.
There is no public information indicating design on this variant has even begun.
... And Starship+Heavy Booster was supposed to have completed a succesful orbital flight in Q2 2022, per NASA's contract with SpaceX.
Which it still has not done, in Q4 2024.
If SpaceX somehow completes an orbital flight of this thing in say Q2 2025, and keeps to the originally agreed contract timeline, well thats only 3 years behind schedule.
But this is Musk. Not the best track record on delivering on promises, more of a 'pray i do not alter the deal further' kinda vibe, but spoken with all the menacing intimidation of Darth Helmet.
So far he's gotten a banana to suborbit in this thing.
...
I'll eat a sock if a SpaceX launcher and lander gets human beings to the moon and back safely by the end of 2030.
Did I forget to mention Musk's plan for a moon mission requires the Starship Lunar Lander variant to remain in Earth orbit, rendevouz and dock with and refuel from something like 12 or 16 other Starships?
... And there is also no publicly available information indicating actual design of this refuelling system either, just vague cgi concept arts of a plan?
I'll eat two fucking socks.
Ehhh, two years late for a rocket isn’t terrible. Space is hard.
But yeah 2030 is an aggressive timeline. I’m shocked NASA didn’t go for an Apollo-style service module and lander that gets assembled in-orbit, launched by Falcon Heavies. That seems like the least crazy architecture and requires very little new technology.
The original timeline NASA gave to SpaceX was to have a successful landing on the moon, with humans, and their safe return, in Q2 2025.
7 months from now.
...
You could theoretically refuel the S-IVb, the Apollo/Saturn V third stage, in LEO, with Falcon Heavies...
...assuming you redesigned both to do refueling in orbit, which has never been accomplished before with huge volumes of cryogenic fuel.
But you could not actually launch even a completely unfueled, completely dry S-IVb with a Falcon Heavy.
The S-IVb is about 22ft in diameter.
The Falcon Heavy's final ascent rocket is about 12 ft in diameter.
There's almost certainly no way that would be aerodynamically stable through launch.
The service module and lander are just too wide.
...
NASA did actually award another contract to Blue Origin (Bezos Private Space Program) for an updated, embiggened Apollo style lander.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/05/blue-origin-wins-pivotal-nasa-contract-to-develop-a-second-lunar-lander/
That's going to be mated to a Locked Martin designed orbiter, and they'll all launch on the SLS.
... Assuming the SLS does not also fall (further) behind schedule or suffer from quality control problems.
A whole lot of SLS is built by Boeing. Not doing so great in the quality control department lately.
But hey at least one of the things so far has actually completed an uncrewed lunar fly by!
...
To conclude: Yes, Space is indeed hard.
But uh, the last thing Musk said about Starship+Booster is that it will actually have... half... the originally promised payload capacity to LEO.
... and they're going to making a Starship+Booster 2, that will have the original promised payload, and then a 3rd version that will have even more!
If you have to cut your effective payload capacity in half, thats a whole lot more than quality control problems, its fundamental design mishaps.
Yeah, the Starship was severely over-promised from the start, especially the payload capacity. I wish there had been more required demonstrations from the beginning, instead of just using the numbers promised by Musk, who is known to inflate numbers for marketing purposes.
Not to mention the assumption of orbital fuelling working perfectly without even doing any demonstrations at all or pointing to any existing technologies. It's a very Kerbal Space Program idea but significantly more complex in reality. Especially as now they are planning 5+ refuelling missions per Starship going to the Moon, which is logistically baffling.
Or...Elon maybe was talking out of his ass when he came up with the original numbers? If he went wildly optimistic on the "if I tell them to do it we'll do it" attitude it would explain it too.