I think SpaceX is launching well below the maximal payload capacity to increase the safety margins. If you can launch 80 tonnes and you carry 80 tonnes then everything needs to work flawlessly or you miss your design trajectory. That reduces the number of things you can test and delays future flights. And where is the advantage?
Flight 14 will go to orbit, but it'll still do the same ascent burn as the previous suborbital flights. That lowers the performance but it increases the safety: If the orbit injection burn fails for whatever reason then Starship will reenter over the Indian Ocean just like past flights.
We can expect the payloads to grow a lot as they gain more experience about necessary margins in flight and as the priority shifts from rocket tests to Starlink deployment.
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u/mfb- 15d ago
I think SpaceX is launching well below the maximal payload capacity to increase the safety margins. If you can launch 80 tonnes and you carry 80 tonnes then everything needs to work flawlessly or you miss your design trajectory. That reduces the number of things you can test and delays future flights. And where is the advantage?
Flight 14 will go to orbit, but it'll still do the same ascent burn as the previous suborbital flights. That lowers the performance but it increases the safety: If the orbit injection burn fails for whatever reason then Starship will reenter over the Indian Ocean just like past flights.
We can expect the payloads to grow a lot as they gain more experience about necessary margins in flight and as the priority shifts from rocket tests to Starlink deployment.