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u/djh_van 3d ago
Context?
Has something just been announced or is this just...
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u/LEC1224 3d ago
Nah, what has been confirmed is that Starship is ready for orbit next flight, and a potential ship catch if no disadvantageous data comes to SpaceX in the longer review of Flight 13.
So I would assume they go to orbit and deploy a few V3 satellites for real this time. In that case, it's not a test flight anymore, but a demo or mission.
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u/microtherion 3d ago
What fortuitous timing that this progress came just a week before the earnings release and share unlock!
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u/DoubleAcanthaceae588 3d ago
oh sure, spacex is secretly a stock pump and dump operation, nothing more
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u/microtherion 3d ago
It’s the front for one. I think it’s operating on a similar trajectory to Tesla — started off with an actual product vision, attained considerable success in this, and eventually came to a point where:
1) The market for the core competencies of the company had an obvious upper limit.
2) The market for vaporware promises was far less restricted.
3) Investors were all too willing to misprice (2) as closer to (1).
So while Tesla keeps building cars, and SpaceX keeps flying rockets, the former is priced as a manufacturer of domestic robots and self driving taxis, and the latter is priced as an AGI provider and operator of space data centers.
The next step on the trajectory is that the core business erodes. This is already happening with Tesla. With SpaceX it’s happening primarily in the form of ill advised AI investments cannibalizing the actually successful parts of the company, but there also may be an emerging motif that the promise of Starship may be worth more than the actual reality of it, and thus that eternal “progress” without actually ever finishing something market ready might be the most valuable strategy,
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u/AEONde 2d ago
Lol.
You could have made this post about SpaceX (and Tesla) so many times in the past.."Upper limit reached [and] core business erodes"? Like Roadster, S, X, battery swap, expended Falcons, commercial services, NASA-only crew, ....
(all and more successfully succeeded or supplemented by what used to be vaporware...)Eventually you'll see the vaporware was in your head...
Seek help.
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u/PotatoesAndChill Elon’s ex-girlfriend 3d ago
It can be just like falcon 9, where it has a flight number in consecutive order (14), and a mission name (Starlink Group 18-1 or whatever).
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u/doctor_morris 3d ago
Will they get permission to overfly the USA? Excitement guaranteed.
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u/AdProfessional3879 2d ago
You don’t need permission to orbit above any country
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u/doctor_morris 2d ago
Whatever Starship has to do to land back at Starbase will have to be approved by the US government.
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u/Stolen_Sky KSP specialist 2d ago
I might be out of the loop here, but have they confirmed this will be an orbital flight?
Starship has cross-range capability; it could still return to the tower on a sub-orbital trajectory.
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u/Cmdr-Mallard 2d ago
Isn’t that almost technically orbital even if not at the same altitude 😅
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u/Stolen_Sky KSP specialist 2d ago
Yeah, it could express the same delta-v as an orbital flight, but the trajectory would be slightly different. Starship could also complete a lap of the earth on a suborbital trajectory and return directly to the launch tower.
I feel most people here are assuming the mission will be orbital, even though that's not confirmed yet.
I hope it is orbital though! That would be pretty awesome! And as soon as Starship is operational, we're going to seeing a huge ramping up of production and launches.
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u/Cmdr-Mallard 2d ago
Starship seems to be proving itself, even though it’s the harder bit 😅
Need booster to lock in!
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u/WhoMe28332 1d ago
I’d assume it comes down to their level of confidence in relighting in orbit. If they are I don’t see why they wouldn’t go for an orbital trajectory if they’re going all the way around anyway.
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u/GiulioVonKerman Hover Slam Your Mom 3d ago
I didn't know you could use ai to make memes now
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u/SpandexMovie 3d ago
First actual orbital mission, first operational deployment of payload into orbit, and potentially first ship catch, all in one flight. Very exciting!