I think about Starship way too much. My hot question is: how many Starship Tankers will SpaceX need to build to refuel the HLS for Artemis III?
a) No reuse, so no weight from tiles and fuel for landing, so 10 to 12 Tanker stages.
b) Some reuse, but turnaround takes weeks, so 6 to 8 Tanker stages.
c) Full rapid reuse, so 2 to 3 Tanker stages.
At this point, I am sad to say that a) seems like a possibility to me.
The next question is how many booster stages? Will rapid reuse for boosters be ready by Artemis III, chopsticks and all? I think this might be possible by then.
Artemis III is currently scheduled for no earlier than September 2026. There are factors other than Starship which may push it back, such as the Orion heat shield mini-debacle
Why would you care about the tankers? The engine costs around 2 million dollars rounded up, that means the upper stage won't cost significantly more than $20 million.
The only thing they have to reuse is the booster. That alone will get them the Artemis 6 contract. Once you have reused the booster, you can do as many reentry tests as you like, even if it is just for fun. For every saved booster, you can do three reentry test flights and still break even.
a) No reuse, so no weight from tiles and fuel for landing, so 10 to 12 Tanker stages.
b) Some reuse, but turnaround takes weeks, so 6 to 8 Tanker stages.
c) Full rapid reuse, so 2 to 3 Tanker stages.
At this point, I am sad to say that a) seems like a possibility to me.
The next question is how many booster stages? Will rapid reuse for boosters be ready by Artemis III, chopsticks and all? I think this might be possible by then.
Artemis III is currently scheduled for no earlier than September 2026. There are factors other than Starship which may push it back, such as the Orion heat shield mini-debacle
Does anyone else want to play the guessing game?