Starship's Next Test Flight Could Be Its Make-Or-Break Moment
If Elon Musk is to be believed.
For all of the attention Elon Musk’s Starship has received, it hasn’t actually accomplished all that much. Even after three years and 13 test launches, it has yet to demonstrate it can reach orbit, let alone carry a small payload there, be fully reusable, or reach the preposterously low launch costs required to make this entire system viable. All it has done is carry a fraction of its promised payload on suborbital flights and be partially reusable, and even then the success rate hasn’t exactly been great. The gulf between where Starship needs to be and where it is is so cavernous it can accommodate the entirety of Musk’s ego and arrogance. And it’s not just me complaining about this. Higher-ups at NASA, expert engineers, industry insiders and analysts have all raised serious concerns about Starship’s fatal underperformance and its obvious inbuilt flaws. But it seems SpaceX is stepping up to prove us naysayers wrong, as, according to Musk, Starship’s next test flight will not only deploy a satellite to orbit but also attempt to land the upper stage for the first time. Ultimately, this could be Starship’s make-or-break moment, because it will either deliver on the progress the Starship program desperately needs, or the question of its viability will become crushing.
A Huge Leap
During SpaceX’s August 4th earnings call, Elon Musk said, “Flight 14 will be our first flight to fly our version three Starlink satellites, our communication satellites, to operational orbit,” and that they will also attempt to catch Starship (the upper stage) at the launch site for the first time.
Admittedly, it is Musk saying this, and he isn’t exactly what you would call reliable, especially when it comes to projects like these. But let’s assume he is telling the truth.
To even attempt this task represents a truly gigantic leap forward for Starship.
Take landing the upper stage. The reason previous launches haven’t attempted to land it is because of the insane risk. Starship is designed to come back and land on its launchpad. This launchpad itself is a major piece of expensive infrastructure, and it is surrounded by even more expensive infrastructure, as well as towns and protected habitats. So, SpaceX can’t risk a botched landing, as it would set them way back and see them buried under regulatory scrutiny (even under Trump). That is why they opted to test and refine the upper stage with a soft splashdown in the ocean miles away, as that allows them to perfect the landing and build up their confidence enough to justify risking landing it back at the pad.
So, why now?
Well, the previous flight, 13, had by far the best upper-stage landing so far. Not only did Starship conduct a perfect splashdown landing, but it didn’t explode upon contact with the water (unlike every other splashdown landing). In fact, more than two weeks later, it is still floating in the ocean. But, more importantly, Starship’s giant heat shield, a critical component that prevents breakup during re-entry, looked like it had done its job and survived for the first time (with more on that in a bit). During the earnings call, Musk claimed they had solved Starship’s biggest problem, stating, “I don’t want to jinx it or anything, but I think I would call the heat shield problem solved at this point,” and that they “do not see any technical obstacles to achieving rapid reusability at this point.” So, with what looks like a successful heat shield and evidence that it has the ability to land without blowing up, SpaceX seems ready to move on to actually landing Starship.
However, the reasons why Starship has never attempted to reach orbit are not so clear, as there is a myriad of possible reasons, from its catastrophically low payload to the fact that suborbital flights have a notably lower re-entry velocity than orbital flight, making landing the upper stage easier. Either way, the fact they have waited this long to even attempt to reach orbit is not a good sign. So, why attempt an orbital flight now? Well, Flights 12 and 13 both had much larger payloads than previous launches of over 30 tons. Now, this represents a third of their promised payload-to-orbit capacity and demonstrates a potentially fatal payload underperformance. However, this slightly larger payload may have demonstrated to SpaceX that Starship now has just enough power and capacity to reach orbit with a small payload.
Okay, so that is why Musk is taking this huge leap.
But what will Flight 14 tell us?
If It Goes Well
Well, if Flight 14 does actually reach orbit, deploy satellites, and land the upper stage, then Starship’s actual capacity and potential shortcomings will become dramatically more transparent. There will be nowhere to hide or to sweep uncomfortable issues under the rug.
Take the orbital payload.
So far, I and many others have only been able to estimate Starship’s current payload capacity. For example, in my previous article, we used the data from Flight 13 to estimate that Starship can only take 24.3 tons to LEO (Low Earth Orbit) when at least partially reusable (where it loses the upper stage). That is just an estimate, and my figures could very well be off.
But, if Starship can actually deploy some satellites to orbit, we will finally have a much clearer picture of its actual capacity.
The problem is that for Starship to be used to build giant satellite constellations or travel to Mars, it needs to reach its promised 100-ton payload to LEO. Even if it reaches a 50-ton payload to LEO, as some think it might, that would make its cost per kg to LEO about the same as Falcon Heavy, rendering the entire Starship program somewhat useless.
But Starship’s previous flights took less than 40 tons to an altitude of roughly half that of satellite orbits. What’s more, the Super Heavy Booster (lower stage) failed to land on both occasions. I have my suspicions that this may be because SpaceX didn’t fill them with enough propellant to land, effectively boosting the payload and sacrificing the booster. But to be clear, I have no proof of this; it is just a suspicion based on Musk’s history of sneaky PR tricks. Either way, Flight 12 and 13 carrying notably less than 50 tons on a far easier flight path with the boosters failing heavily suggests that the payload to orbit for Flight 14 will be microscopic.
And that is the problem. It is incredibly hard to increase the payload capacity of a rocket, particularly one using multistage rocket engines that are already pushed to the absolute limit, like Starship. Optimisation may create marginal gains, but not huge leaps. So, if Flight 14 only takes ten or twenty tons to LEO, it will heavily indicate that Starship’s mythical giant payload is just that, mythical, throwing the future of the program into question.
But, let’s say that somehow, Musk pulls it out of the bag and Starship actually delivers something like 70 tons to LEO, or double the payload of its previous suborbital flight. Test launches typically carry slightly lower payloads than their maximum capacity, so this would suggest that Starship could hit its 100-ton payload target.
Well, then the question of reusability comes up.
