SpaceX’s Starship booster “catch” at the launchpad wowed the space world, but big hurdles remain to launching humans to Mars in 2028.
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Transcript
Joe Anselmo:
Welcome to this week's Check 6 podcast, where we catch up on SpaceX's flight test of the Starship Super Heavy after its rather spectacular mission and booster recovery on October 13th. Not that anyone will have missed it, but in that flight test, SpaceX launched the Starship, returned and recovered the massive booster by catching it on the launch tower, and flew Starship to a controlled landing in the Indian Ocean. The test was the latest step forward in SpaceX Chief Elon Musk's ambition to cut the cost of launching people and payloads to orbit by 100-fold -- you heard that right, 100-fold -- and launch crews to Mars around 2028.
I'm Joe Anselmo, Aviation Week's Editorial Director and Editor-in-Chief of Aviation Week & Space Technology. And joining me to discuss the milestone and the path ahead for SpaceX, are Space Editor, Irene Klotz, who is based in Cape Canaveral, and Senior Editor, Guy Norris. Both have followed Starliner's progress closely.
Irene, there is so much to discuss here in our limited window. What were your impressions of that flight? I've followed the space industry a long time and I've never seen anything like that catch.
Irene Klotz:
Yes, it was quite remarkable. I think it even surprised SpaceX. They set the goal after Flight 4, Elon Musk did, to try and attempt a catch and had some delays getting things cleared for flight from the FAA. And they launched on the 13th of October. The goals of this flight, in addition to seeing if they could bring the Super Heavy booster back intact on the tower, also wanted to check improvements to the Starship heat shield, which nearly cost the ship on the Flight 4. But it did manage to hang on, if you remember that, that flap hanging during the reentry.
For Flight 5, the ship for the first time did land on target in the ocean, in the Indian Ocean. And then, the catch really kind of turned the corner on this idea of whether SpaceX could accomplish a landing without landing legs, basically to use the tower for both assembly and launch, and also as a way to remove the weight and just ease operability for reuse by having the booster in the tower.
There were a couple things that weren't perfect with it. Right after the flight, the first report was that there were some of the outer engine nozzles of the Super Heavy booster that were warped from the reentry heating, and then also there was a cover, an aero cover, that fell off just before the landing burn. It turned out later that that was actually covering some mission-critical valves for the landing burn. So SpaceX got kind of lucky that the harnesses and the valves remained operational for the landing burn. But all in all, a really impressive feat on fifth flight.
Joe Anselmo:
So Irene, the catch of the booster looked perfect. It was something out of a sci-fi movie I used to watch when I was a kid. But as you just noted, it actually might have been a little bit of a close call. Fill our listeners in.
Irene Klotz:
Well, on October, I think it was the 25th, about a week or so after the flight, Elon Musk posted a short clip on X that actually showed him playing a video game. And in the background, he was getting briefed on the flight from some SpaceX people. They were not identified. And in that, they referred to wanting to tell Elon about "some scary shit" that happened on the flight. And the leadoff on that was the information that there were about a hundred abort scenarios, and one of them nearly triggered the abort of the landing catch. And what would've happened is the Super Heavy would've attempted to crash on the ground near the launch tower. But that didn't trigger. They said they were about a second away from that.
And I think what was interesting about that is that the engineers were saying that they did not really have the time to go through, there were 100 abort scenarios, and they said that they did not have the time to kind of vet them as fully as all the abort scenarios that they vetted for Starship's first flight back in April of '23, which I think they said was the most risky flight. They had to go through the engineering data to mitigate the risk for that flight as much as what they tried to do for this Flight 5. They do have some solutions for that, and it's entirely possible that SpaceX could repeat this flight perhaps with a little bit more margins on all these issues for Flight 6, which they've not yet set a date for. But they do have FAA approval for that flight, provided they stick with a similar trajectory and flight plan as what they proposed for Flight 5.
Joe Anselmo:
Guy Norris, you just heard what Irene said. Isn't that part of the secret of SpaceX's success? They fly by the seat to their pants, they have a high tolerance for risk, a tolerance for failure. I can't imagine a NASA program doing something like this.
Guy Norris:
You're absolutely right, Joe. That's astonishing, what Irene just described is like a classic SpaceX scenario that we've sort of become increasingly used to. And they've really rewritten the real book on how to do space flight, space flight experimentation, and this sort of perpetual cycle really of test, fly fast, test, see what breaks, and test again.
And in fact, really that takes us to where we're going to go next with this mission. Because obviously, the key things that really SpaceX has to demonstrate is the ability to relight the Raptor engine, which is one of the building blocks of this whole program, this huge new engine. They have to show the ability to relight it in the vacuum in space. Remember, the Raptor itself is this full-flow staged combustion engine, which is sort of an amazing fuel cycle in itself. It's never been flown before. So even the fact that it's flown now on these five test missions is again pioneering.
But what has to be proven is the ability to shut it off and restart it in space. This is the next milestone that they'll need, because obviously you have to do the relight so that it can reenter. The reentry capability of the second stage obviously a vital, depend on this capability.
Now, the reason they haven't done it so far, well they hoped to do it on one or more of the earlier flights potentially in March, the third test flight that they did. But control of the vehicle was lost on that, and I think Irene remembers that pretty well. And on the last two, it doesn't seem that they've really attempted to go anywhere near that test because they were really focusing on getting the reentry capabilities tested, which they of course made a home run with that on this, one of course of the second stage, as we saw from video out in the Indian Ocean where the buoy was attached to the camera. And it looked like they nailed it pretty well.
So really, it's the fact that the FAA has been very stringent on kind of its requirements for a controlled reentry, and of course the precise deorbit burn is what they need. But sort of one of the aspects is to bring back the Starship, they would need to come back to Texas if that's where they wanted to try and attempt the landing. They'd have to come in over Mexico and part of Texas, of course. So that's the reason they have to be completely assured that the Raptor is going to work.
Joe Anselmo:
And Elon Musk, his end goal has always been getting to Mars, getting people to Mars. There's two upcoming launch windows for potential Mars missions. The first in 2026, they're going to send an uncrewed vehicle. And then, the goal would be if they can succeed there to actually send humans to Mars in 2028. How likely do you think that is, Guy, that they can meet that target? It's pretty ambitious.
Guy Norris:
It's hugely ambitious. But you can never say no, can you, with SpaceX? They've proved that the doubt is wrong so many times. But okay, let's go through a quick lineup of what we need to happen. Beyond the in-space relight of the Raptor, we need to see the Starship obviously land. So as we just mentioned, that's dependent on the Raptor relight, but also finding a place to land. Maybe Irene can talk about that as well in a minute.
But one of the possibilities is that this time round, SpaceX has outlined a plan to build four of these giant towers, two near where Irene lives and two in Texas. And at the moment, if you want to re-land the Starship as they want to do it, they're going to have to use one of those towers. So one of the potential scenarios is they're looking at putting legs on the Starship. One version is going to have to have legs eventually anyway, and land it somewhere else, potentially in the Pacific, going back to the early days of SpaceX and out in the Johnston Atoll area, or even somewhere like Australia has been mentioned as a potential. So that's the first thing that's got to happen.
Then they've got to do a re-flight of the Super Heavy first stage. That's going to be something which is the next big milestone beyond that. Then begins this long series of big proving flights going out into deep space, beginning with this sort of a long duration test flight, which is a milestone that NASA really requires for the human landing system, human launch system I should say. That needs to show that a Starship can fly around the moon or in the cislunar environment for months at a time to show that it can autonomously operate in the cislunar area just in case there's a delay in getting the crew up from Earth for any manner of reasons. Starship's still got to be a viable vehicle when they get to the moon.
Then beyond that, there's the uncrewed lunar landing. Then if that goes well, then there's a crewed landing. So finally, you're looking at probably 2028 by the time, if all goes well, that that's possible. And it's only then that obviously you can begin thinking about Mars, so 2030, 2031 potentially. I don't know, Irene, what do you think?
Irene Klotz:
That was a great list. One more big technical milestone that's to be demonstrated and developed is propellant transfer in orbit.
Guy Norris:
Yes.
Irene Klotz:
It's interesting that NASA's entire architecture for Artemis, for the crewed missions, relies on both Blue Origin's lander and SpaceX's lander being able to refuel in orbit. That also has wide implications for all kinds of other programs and possibilities in LEO and beyond.
What's interesting with SpaceX is if they're going to follow the Artemis moon architecture in parallel with Mars development, or if they split them off and kind of do both. They seem to be really good at handling multiple programs simultaneously. It was interesting that the launch of Starship Flight 5 was followed by the Super Heavy flight of Europa Clipper, followed by the return to flight of the Falcon 9, which had been temporarily grounded by an upper stage engine issue, and Starlink missions were flying. So they're really good at multitasking.
I think it depends on if they want NASA backing on the Mars missions, or is this something they're going to just kind of do on their own? But certainly, everything is at least three years behind where Elon Musk initially said it would be. But I think that's also very purposefully motivating for the workforce. NASA does exactly the same thing on the Artemis program. They're presumably looking at an Artemis 3 landing with this SpaceX human landing system based on Starship in two years, which seems highly unlikely given even just the flight tests that Guy was just talking about that need to happen first.
But they're certainly making progress, and one of the slowdowns has been clearing the public safety issues with Starship flights that the FAA is responsible for. And they have an opportunity now with Flight 6 if they want to kind of balance what they're going to do for improving the risk posture of the booster versus expanding the operational envelope of Starship. So we'll kind of see where they pick up.
Guy Norris:
Irene, do you reckon that they're going to use Flight 6 to do this relight test? Is that going to be part of it? Because if they could, obviously that would open the potential for using the large capacity of Starship to launch these bigger Starlink satellites next year that they're talking about, even before they get to any of the deep space stuff.
Irene Klotz:
I think it would depend what they proposed to the FAA. If they proposed a relight, the FAA would need to review that. The relight would obviously be occurring over a unpopulated area in case it did not go successfully. And if Starship had an uncontrolled reentry, that again, it would be over unpopulated areas. So I don't know what SpaceX has proposed for that.
The simplest, if they wanted to just fly fast, and I believe this ship that they're flying is the last of their Version One, so there's going to be a review needed once they change the configuration of the ship: more power, lighter weight, could be bigger. So I don't know. I think it would just depend on the flight profile. They did have approval on Flight 3 to do a relight, so perhaps it's not as big of a stretch for the FAA to look at the implications of a Starship engine relight in orbit for Flight 6.
Guy Norris:
I think that's one of the incredible things about this story so far, is the rapid evolution of what we've seen with Starship as well. And you mentioned this is the last of the Block 1s I believe as well. And when you look at, and as you mentioned, how the flap was hanging off, barely hanging onto it by its hinge on the way back on Flight 4. But we've seen the incredible advances that they've done in the improved thermal protection system in general, and apparently this new ceramic kind of capability. They've got the improved fairing over the flap joint, which again goes to the improvements that they have invoked quickly.
But what's going to be exciting is as you go to this sort of Block 2 version, we're going to be able to see this new forward flap. For more aerospace-related listeners, it looks like a canard on a fighter aircraft. And it's slightly upward tilted, a bit like the Rafale on the French fighter aircraft, the Rafale, its sort of upward canard. It's going to be moved further forward and upwards so that it's sort of more to leeward when that sort of reentry phase is happening.
The original design that they're flying at the moment, Elon Musk has said is too heavy and draggy, and it's really pushed the nose high up, which is not great for hypersonic heating. So we're going to see that, for example, come along pretty soon probably the flight after next. So yeah, it's just astonishing.
Joe Anselmo:
Irene, you and I both covered Dan Goldin when he ran NASA in the 1990s, and we liked him because he talked about revolutionary advances. But I don't even remember Dan Goldin talking about a hundred- fold reduction in launch costs. If SpaceX really succeeds in this, what happens to all the other launch service providers?
Irene Klotz:
Huh. Well, that's a good question. I think it bears remembering that there's different reasons for all the different launchers. Europe, Japan, Russia, China, all want indigenous capabilities for launch. So whatever SpaceX is doing in the United States, there's international interest in maintaining domestic capabilities.
In the United States, starting with the military, they want more than one non-redundant systems to reach orbit. So that means at least two completely different kinds of launch systems. NASA wants a dual redundancy US capability to fly people into LEO, which is why Boeing Starliner remains in this program, though they have yet to become an operational system. And there's the small launch vehicles. Rocket Lab is doing really well. Firefly has a lot of different contracts. And there's several new boosters coming up, so it'll be interesting.
I think people really are divided on whether they're planning for an operational Starship, scientists coming up with ideas for massive telescopes and things that can be launched on Starship, whereas they wouldn't have even dreamed that before. A telescope like James Webb had to be extremely carefully folded. It took decades of development to come up with something that could fit into our rocket fairing and then deployed in orbit. Some of those engineering challenges just become obsolete if you have a system with the payload capability and diameter of a Starship. I don't know.
It's also a question of a taxpayer-funded program versus a private company. SpaceX owes its existence to NASA, NASA funding. NASA is very interested in continuing to look to the next generations after SpaceX. But for sure, it is the elephant in the room. Even at the IAC, SpaceX didn't really have a presence there, but pretty much everything revolved around the Starship Flight 5, the conversations and just what the implications are if the system is able to become operational.
And it puts NASA in a very interesting position, because on the one hand, their architecture for the humans to the moon is completely dependent on SpaceX. And yet, the lift capacity and the flexibility and the alternative architecture that an operational Starship presents is a direct potential challenge to the mainstay SLS Orion programs that NASA has been funding with billions and billions of dollars for more than a decade.
Joe Anselmo:
Guy Norris, we're just about out of time, but let's give you the final word.
Guy Norris:
Oh. Well, building on what Irene says, it'd be interesting to see how the two SLS elements like the Orion become integrated with perhaps SpaceX's Starship system. They're both in a way linked, aren't they, intimately in some of these NASA plans?
But I think what's interesting to me is the fact that Elon Musk has talked about this Moonbase Alpha plan, which is totally dependent on the lift capability of Starship. The Version 3 that he is outlined has a lift capacity over 200 tons of payload. It's just astonishing things, and he's saying that using Version 2 and Version 3 launches, 10 launches a day is what he's talking about, and 1.5 million tons per opportunity, and 250,000 tons to Mars per opportunity. It's a different world. So I, for one, am all for it. I really hope that some of this vision is achieved.
Joe Anselmo:
Okay. Well, I'll note that the two of you have been talking about Elon Musk for 25 minutes and did not once bring up politics. That was by design. That's not what Aviation Week does. If our listeners want to hear about politics, plenty of places to go for that.
But that is all the time we have for today. A special thanks to our podcast producer in London, Guy Ferneyhough. Don't miss out on the next episode by subscribing to Check 6 in your podcast app of choice. And one final request, if you're listening to us in Apple Podcasts and want to support this podcast, please leave us a star rating or a review. Bye for now, and join us again next week for another Check 6.
Speaker 4:
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