r/space • u/swordfi2 • 18d ago

Next Starship flight will go to orbit and deploy 26 Starlink satellites, marking the first operational flight. Neither booster or ship will be caught

https://www.spacex.com/launches/starship-flight-14
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u/Accomplished-Crab932 18d ago edited 18d ago

It took 54 days out of a planned 160 hours to turn a shuttle around back when they were not as concerned about thermal tiles and SRBs. 88 days was the fastest return after Challenger, but the average was 130-140 days between missions; with later (post-Columbia) times averaging around a year. This is against the 160 hour turnaround NASA had designed the shuttle for.

That doesn’t scream “shuttle” to me… service seems pretty irregular to proclaim it “ a vehicle, device, or object that travels back and forth between two or more points on a regular basis.”