The SpaceX Starship super-heavy rocket, known as "the largest and most powerful launch vehicle in human history," is about to undergo its second launch. According to SpaceX’s recent announcement,The Starship will be launched as early as November 17 (Friday) local time. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has previously completed the safety review of the launch permit and still needs to wait for the final approval. Musk’s latest statement:Starship is expected to receive launch clearance in time for Friday's launch.
The Starship rocket's first test flight failed miserably at the end of April this year. This will be its second launch attempt. Musk said in June,The starship project has completed more than 1,000 improvements, and the success rate of the second test flight is expected to reach 60%.
Actually,Starship originally evolved from Musk's Mars colonization plan. While launching satellites, it also carries the heavy responsibility of subsequent exploration of the universe. In order to realize the vision of traveling to Mars, and even Jupiter, Enceladus, Europa, and Saturn, the starship has gone through many iterations. Currently, the starship has been derived from multiple versions such as testing (prototype), moon landing, circumlunar travel, cargo, refueling, satellite platform, intercontinental travel, etc. Among them, the beta version of the starship has entered the test flight test stage.
Why has the Starship launch attracted so much attention from the outside world, and why can it be called “the largest and most powerful launch vehicle in human history”? overall,The significance of starships can be mainly attributed to two aspects: reusability and transportation capacity.
▌Reusability
It can be said thatStarship carries Musk's high hopes for "complete rocket reusability" - the goal is that both stages of the launch vehicle can be recovered and reused. If this goal is achieved, Starship will replace all other SpaceX launch vehicles and spacecraft (Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy rocket and Dragon spacecraft), take over the burden of satellite launch and manned transportation, and even fly to the moon and Mars in the future.
The previous Falcon 9 could only recover one sub-stage. According to data, this series of rockets has been launched 263 times in 13 years (as of October 10, 2023), of which 261 were successful, a sub-stage was successfully recovered 219 times, and a sub-stage was reused for 194 launches.
The innovation of launch vehicle reusability technology is the main reason for the low cost of SpaceX rockets. Shanxi Securities pointed out that this technology has promotedLaunch costs have been reduced by orders of magnitude. SpaceX has achieved vertical recovery of rockets through breakthroughs in engine restart and thrust control technology, rocket descent control system technology and reusable rocket landing system technology.
In terms of cost structure, the value of hardware equipment accounts for a relatively high proportion of a single rocket. Taking ULA's AltasV-401 rocket as an example, data shows that after excluding labor costs, infrastructure costs, measurement and control costs and other items during the launch process, in its first-stage rocket, the engine cost accounts for 54.20% of the total cost, the rocket body structure accounts for 23.60%, and the propellant only accounts for 0.70%; while in the second-stage rocket, the second-stage engine, rocket body mechanism and electrical equipment account for about 28%, and the propellant accounts for only 0.20%.
CITIC Securities’ report on November 7 showed that,SpaceX's reusable rocket after recycling the first stage and fairing has a single launch cost of only 30% of a brand-new rocket. Both the first and second stage rockets have the characteristics of high hardware cost and low propellant cost. If the rocket can be reused a sufficient number of times under the conditions of being recyclable, then the hardware cost amortized to a single launch will be significantly reduced.
▌Capacity
Although data shows that the output value of launch services only accounts for 1.5%-2% of the entire aerospace industry,Carrier is the entrance to space and the central link connecting satellite manufacturing and satellite application. With the launch of constellation plans of varying scales at home and abroad, the demand for satellite launches is also growing.
In this case, rocket capacity has become the main bottleneck restricting the large-scale deployment of constellations.
It is true that reusable rockets can increase the overall capacity scale to a certain extent, but the carrying capacity of the rocket itself is equally critical.
The starship's low-Earth orbit carrying capacity is about 150 tons; without considering recovery, its payload is as high as 250 tons-300 tons.
What are these load figures? SpaceX’s Falcon 9 has a maximum carrying capacity of 22.8 tons, and the Falcon Heavy rocket has a maximum carrying capacity of 64 tons.The carrying capacity of starships has been improved several times compared with them. After successful flight verification,Starship is expected to become the most capable launch vehicle.
▌Global satellite Internet construction is expected to accelerate
It is not difficult to see that with the two major advantages of reusability and transportation capacity, after the successful launch of the starship, it is expected to further accelerate the construction of the global satellite Internet.
Huatai Securities pointed out,The starship's powerful carrying capacity and low launch cost may serve the deployment of major constellations, thereby accelerating the construction of global satellite Internet and promoting direct connection of mobile phones, cars and other terminals to satellites. In addition, as the only winning bid for NASA's lunar lander, Starship is expected to serve the Artemis program. The improvement of U.S. aerospace capabilities will prompt other aerospace powers to invest more attention and resources in the aerospace field, which may accelerate the global space race.
Minsheng Securities reported on November 13 that if the Starship test flight is successful, it will mean that SpaceX has solved the problem of fuel leakage and fire in the engine compartment during the April test flight, and proved that SpaceX has improved the reliability of the Raptor engine.Although there are still many uncertainties about whether the second test flight of the starship can be successful, it will have a positive impact on the development of the global commercial aerospace industry in terms of design concepts and subsequent industry development directions.
Analysts further pointed out that satellite Internet is expected to start and lead the next round of infrastructure construction in the communications sector. Although the development of satellite Internet in my country is still in its early stages, the development process has accelerated significantly. In the short term, the front-end satellite production and manufacturing links are expected to benefit first from the speed increase in the satellite launch process. In the medium and long term, with the gradual improvement of technical facilities construction, the downstream satellite Internet application side related links will usher in a golden stage of development.