Starship Was Doomed From The Beginning - by Will Locketthttps://www.planetearthandbeyond.co/p/starship-was-doomed-from-the-beginning...
The January test had a dummy cargo equivalent to 10 Starlink V2 satellites, weighing only eight tonnes or 8% of its designed payload. Meanwhile, the most recent test had just half of this in a transparent attempt to reduce vibration by reducing the load to spare the obviously flawed fuel system, which obviously didn’t work.
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The Super Heavy Booster weighs 160 tonnes dry, doesn’t make it to space, and its peak speed is only roughly 4,600 mph. Meanwhile, Starship has a dry mass of around 150 tonnes, makes it to space, and reaches an orbital speed of at least 17,500 mph. This means that during landing, Starship has over 13.57 times the kinetic energy of the Booster! And that doesn’t account for the fact that Starship carries significantly more propellant during landing than the Booster.
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The Block 1 tests of Starship showed that Musk’s plans to rely heavily on a bellyflop manoeuvre during reentry to slow down Starship and scrub off that kinetic energy using atmospheric resistance were a no-go. The craft repeatedly spiralled out of control, control surfaces failed, and reportedly, the inside of the craft became several times hotter than an oven. Fixing these issues would add a tonne of weight, as the front fins would need to be massively reinforced, and the giant heat shield would need to be beefed up significantly. On top of that, these tests confirmed that SpaceX’s engines couldn’t produce the mythical levels of thrust Musk promised, and as such, the projected payload to LEO was cut in half.