SpaceX Mega-Rakete: Starship Super Heavy Orbitalflug von Boca Chica aus in der Fluganalyse

It's getting hot. Starship has achieved more and more goals from its tests, and there are actually few obstacles standing in the way of an attempt at orbital flight. The flight of by far the largest and most powerful rocket ever built could be imminent. It's time to take another look at SpaceX's planned flight path and clarify who can watch the flight from Earth. In today's video, we go over SpaceX's test flight parameters submitted to the FCC and what they mean for trajectory, flight time, and for Starship. This way you will be well prepared for this flight, which could have historical significance and will surely be broadcast live by SpaceX.

If you like today's topic, like the video and if you don't want to miss the latest developments in space travel, be sure to subscribe to SENKRECHTSTARTER! Now to the topic of today's episode: since the data situation is very modest and SpaceX is also known for doing things completely differently in the end: don't rely too much on the data and the trajectory that I am now presenting to you! But so far, it's the best we've got: We've seen several documents that SpaceX has filed with the FCC. The FCC is the Federal Communications Commission that regulates the allocation of radio frequencies in the US.

Not to be confused with the FAA: the Federal Aviation Administration is the federal aviation authority in the US, which ultimately also issues the rocket launch permit. Fun fact: As of late January 2023, the FAA had not yet granted this permission for the SpaceX spacecraft. But what is not, can still become. The documents presented by SpaceX to the FCC provided information for the launch phase and a possible landing of a Starship. From Boca Chica in Texas, where the Starship is currently being assembled and tested, it first travels 1,500 km across the Gulf of Mexico in an easterly direction. The Starship then flies over the 150 km wide Florida Strait between Florida's southernmost point, Key West and Havana.

In fact I was once in Cuba, a

super

cool country! Then the course continues over the water between Cuba and the Bahamas. Apparently, the Starship flies over land for the first time over the Turks and Caicos Islands, which belong to Great Britain. There are no more official photographs of the rest of the flight. A screenshot only shows the landing 100 km north of Hawaii, in the Pacific. That makes sense too. The FCC document only aims to regulate radio traffic in American territory. So why include more information? We originally suggested a 420x69 orbit simply because Elon Musk finds those numbers particularly funny.

We now know from the current FCC document that the apogee, that is, the point furthest from Earth on the trajectory, will be only about 250 km above normal zero. As I said, we still have information that a planned landing off Hawaii should take place at that time, but no other orbital parameters are known. However, a table is shown with the times of this first orbital flight of the Starship. With these times you can plan well if you want to see the first Starship launch live. We'll look at them more closely in a moment. But back to the trajectory: as we just described, the flight to the Caribbean has been chosen quite specifically and appears to selectively avoid continental masses.

Especially in the first phase of flight, it is still relatively easy to change the direction of the rocket and the resulting orbit. The angle at which it then flies parallel to Cuba will most likely be the final orbit. A small side note: with so-called dogleg maneuvers, you can still have a large influence on the inclination of an orbit. But that is not efficient. Generally speaking, from Boca Chica beyond Cuba, you may end up on the other side of the world, near Hawaii. The most plausible quick and dirty "simulation" was done by our Discord mod, Martin, back in the day.

Greetings! Of course, this method is not particularly precise and we must not forget that the Earth rotates. That is, if you think that in orbit you are going to exit just on the other side of Hawaii, the Earth will have rotated a little more when you get to that point. This can also be clearly seen in the ISS trajectory graphs, where both the current position and the point on Earth over which the ISS will fly over in the next orbit are plotted. In principle, however, with this direction-finding method you already have a good idea of ​​the trajectory.

To visualize everything a little better for you, I asked Robert de Wintermancer to visualize me the trajectory in the Kerbal Space Program. Wintermancer does YouTube tutorials on the Kerbal Space program and also live streams on Twitch. If you're looking for German videos about Kerbal Space Program or even want to learn how to play Kerbal Space Program as a complete newbie, be sure to check out Robert from Wintermancer! I will link his channel in the description below. Brief comment: Robert's video did not fly with the Starship but with a different rocket. So we can't rely too much on the acceleration values, but basically the orbital mechanics and the Earth's rotation fit our purpose quite well.

If, like Robert, from Boca Chica you take off on a heading of 97° and then enter an orbit with an inclination of 26°, that puts us right between Cuba and Florida. As well as in the FCC document. And with this orbit we reached Hawaii perfectly on the first orbit and we are so low there that Starship definitely returns to Earth due to the braking effect of the Earth's atmosphere. Therefore, of course, it can be stated that it is not an orbital flight if the perigee, that is, the closest point to the Earth, is within the atmosphere. But honestly, between a stable orbit and this safe orbit with guaranteed reentry there is only between 50 and 100 m/s delta-V.

Actually, that's not so much that you have to count the peas very carefully. Perhaps a brief explanation of the word "title." That means the direction of the compass. A heading of 0° is due north, a heading of 90° is a trajectory in an easterly direction from the launch point. Therefore, a heading of 97° designates an easterly launch with a slightly southerly component of 7°. With this direction of flight we are heading to an orbit with an inclination with respect to the equator of 26°. Attention: compass heading and orbital inclination are not the same. Now, one can, of course, wonder why 97° is actually needed.

If you look at Boca Chica, it is already at the 26th degree of latitude. So isn't it enough to fly exactly in the compass direction of 90° east to then reach a 26° orbit? But the Earth also rotates, and we have to compensate or include this rotation when establishing the orbit. In fact, the rotation of the Earth or its components makes things a little easier for the rocket, because the “rotation” is obtained for free. Where do you get the most free energy? exactly, at the equator. But that's only really relevant for geostationary orbits and a few others as well.

In polar orbits, which are particularly interesting for Earth observation, you can also start very well at higher latitudes. But back to Starship's trajectory: as our Kerbal Space Program rocket accelerates toward the farthest point from Earth, apogee, we see that the trajectory perfectly follows the path that was also described in the photos in the FCC archive. In fact, after stage separation and ignition of the Starship Raptors, it doesn't take long until the upper stage burns out: the so-called DRY, the second engine shuts down. Now, of course, the interesting question is where the orbit will continue. The FCC document does not provide photographs or information about it.

From the Caribbean it heads east across the Atlantic passing through Brazil. Around the border between Angola and Namibia, the Starship flies over land for the first time from the Caribbean, before reaching probably the farthest point on Earth between Africa and Madagascar, the apogee or apoapsis. From now on, the orbit will bring the Starship closer and closer to Earth. The Starship then reaches the next milestone near Australia. Here it flies between Australia and the Philippines. Of course, only the imaginary footprint on the ground. The Starship is still in space right now. We now assume that it is headed into an orbit that will definitely result in Starship returning to Earth.

This means: an elliptical orbit, whose lowest point (the periapsis) is so far into the Earth's atmosphere that air resistance upon re-entry will definitely cause the Starship to sink, either in one piece or in parts, i.e. , Remains to be seen. And if the Starship were to fall apart upon re-entry, these parts should in no way reach the US, of course, or any other country. That means that if SpaceX were to lose control of the Starship at the worst possible moment, debris would have to crash into the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of the United States.

Now, that's just a not-so-far-fetched speculation, since we don't have any other orbital parameters available. Now it can be discussed whether it would really be an orbital flight. Fun fact: Yuri Gagarin has never completed a complete circumnavigation of the Earth. But I think that if you reach orbital speed, you have every right to talk about orbital flight. What do you mean? Write me in the comments. Well, assuming the flight goes as planned until re-entry into the atmosphere, it would be a huge achievement for SpaceX. I think then many critics of the Starship program would be very, very quiet.

But even if the flight ends in a fireball much sooner, SpaceX will have plenty of data to do better next time. And the next booster and the next Starship are almost ready. Elon Musk had announced on Twitter that he wanted to produce five full Starship Booster and Starship stacks this year. It remains to be seen how many will fly. For the Starship concept to work with complete reuse, it is necessary, of course! - happens more than launching the biggest, most powerful rocket into orbit. For a landing on water to occur, not only must the flight go smoothly, but above all the re-entry.

While SpaceX and others have some experience with ablative heat shields, ceramic heat shielding is the pinnacle of reentry. I think there is no longer a doubt that SpaceX is the best rocket builder in the world. That didn't fall from the sky, but rather Spacex has worked very hard to achieve it over the years, with the help of NASA. It remains to be seen how quickly this mastery will be achieved with Starship's heat shield. If re-entry was successful and the heat shield slowed the Starship from orbital speed to "just" hypersonic speed, now would come the part we already know about high-altitude testing: now that the horizontal speed has completely dissipated, The Starship falls towards Earth without traveling any significant distance on Earth.

Since this free fall occurs belly first, the so-called "belly flop", in German we would probably say "Bauchklatscher", i.e. with a lot of surface area against the direction of the fall, the speed will reach the final speed of approx. 300 kilometers per hour quite early. In order for it not to really become a "belly punch", the Starship has to capsize. During this turn of the Starship, the so-called roll maneuver, and the ignition of the raptors against the direction of fall, the deceleration will briefly increase again and then, at best, allow a soft landing in the sea. And SpaceX also gives us a moment in the FCC file: 5420 seconds after takeoff, that is, 90 minutes after takeoff in Boca Chica, the landing would occur.

We'll see if the transmission lasts that long or if the booster leaves the launch pad intact. If there is a launch, you must have at least 10 minutes. In these 10 minutes, that would be exactly the period, similar to Falcon 9, in which the stage separation and landing of the

super

heavy

booster would occur after takeoff. Landing or landing zone is a good keyword: It's worth noting that SpaceX also filed a document with the FCC that directly describes a landing at the starbase. In a previous document, the booster landed in the water 32 kilometers off the coast of Boca Chica. I'd also say this is probably a better guess for the first flight than trapping the booster directly at the starbase with Mechazilla.

My video about the soft water landing of the Starship Booster and its swimming behavior is one of the most viewed videos here on SENKRECHTSTARTER. I'll link it to you in the description below. It currently seems inconceivable that SpaceX plans to land on the tentacles of Mechazilla Chopsticks on the first flight. But who knows? If anyone knows how to land rockets pretty well, it's SpaceX. Always remember: no one else on Earth has this capability except SpaceX. No country or company has demonstrated until today, that is, in the spring of 2023, the landing of orbital boosters. And we're not even talking about SpaceX's accuracy or success rate.

SpaceX has not lost any propellantslanding in more than 90 landing attempts. And as if making the largest rocket ever built as reliable as the Falcon 9 boosters wasn't enough of a challenge, SpaceX has a lot more planned here. The goal is rapid reuse, that is, complete and rapid reuse. Similar to passenger planes. Next week we'll clarify how this is supposed to work and what Mechazilla is and what tricks SpaceX has in store. If you've seen this far, I obviously didn't miss you upon landing. If you liked it, leave a like and if you are new here and don't want to miss more videos about space technology and the latest news in space travel, that's right! be sure to subscribe to SENKRECHTSTARTER.

Many thanks again to my guardian angels, who support SENKRECHTSTARTER with their regular donations. Thank you so much! If you would also like to actively help inspire the German-speaking area for space travel, below the video you will find a link to the SENKRECHTSTARTER Patreon or the YouTube channel membership. Many, many thanks to all the followers! Without you, there would no longer be SENKRECHTSTARTER. #teamspace Many thanks also to Robert and Aeneas for helping with this episode. I can't wait for us to take the next big steps. Whether with Starship, with SLS or New Glen. Our personal Apollo moment!

If you feel the same, don't forget to like it! Until next time! Always stay upright! Your mom (: