Talk:SpaceX Starship

Starship main photograph.

The current photo is from SpaceX's Flickr, and not allowed on Wikipedia. Similarly, most other photos I find are also under copyright. If someone could find a good photo of SN8's flight without copyright restrictions, that would be great.

Should we try reaching out to SpaceX or another launch photographer for a photo to use? N828335 (talk) 04:21, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Good idea. I know there are all kinds of people who took shots on Twitter, including a couple residents of Boca Chica who still do photographs and such for private companies/enterprises. Of those, the most prominent that I can remember is @BocaChicaGal on Twitter--I know that in addition to her taking a live video of the full six-minute-plus hop, she also got a load of good photos onto her Twitter. Maybe reach out to her? XFalcon2004x (talk) 14:10, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Sounds good. I will contact her first (using Wikipedia:Example requests for permission), and if not I have several other people I could try. For the time being, I replaced the main photo with one of SN5's hop, which has no issues. N828335 (talk) 16:56, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

I've uploaded my photo of the SN8 launch; it's not a great photo, but it's more representative of the final Starship design than the current SN5 image. I'll leave it to others to decide whether or not the current SN5 image should be replaced with this.

SpaceX Starship SN8 launch as viewed from South Padre Island

Forest Katsch (talk) 02:33, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks so much, several articles needed this. I never was able to reach out to a launch photographer for SN8, but I plan on doing so for SN9.N828335 (talk) 05:19, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

This is a great photo. When it is eventually replaced in the lead, I would love to see it moved to the Suborbital flight testing section. JaredHWood💬 20:42, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Sometimes, "Superheavy" is spelled as one word by SpaceX

FWIW, SpaceX is sometimes spelling Superheavy as a single word, unlike the earliest mentions of the name when it seemed always to be "Super Heavy". One example is here, at 14:40 in the video, on the signage at the Boca Chica launch site, where it is written on signage: "Starship Superheavy Orbital Launch Pad".

I'm not suggesting we should change the article text at this time; but SpaceX names have a way of evolving by the company, and of course emerging in the spaceflight media and vernacular usage. So, just something to be aware of and watch. Cheers. N2e (talk) 14:17, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

I just checked the SpaceX website and it is spelled Super Heavy there. I also checked the article and it is correct in every instance including proper capitalization. JaredHWood💬 20:27, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Exactly, it has been spelled as two separate words in most cases for the last couple of years. I just pointed out we have one instance of the other use. Changes in these things take time, and this section is just to capture instances of the other spelling if/when we see them. Def not suggesting any change, as I said. But the way names are fluid at SpaceX with Muskian naming conventions (BFR became Mars Colonial Transporter became Interplanetary Transport System became BFR became Starship/Super Heavy but is also referred to (by SpaceX) as the Starship system), it won't be surprising to this observer if, over the next couple of years, we see SpaceX simplify spelling of Super Heavy to Superheavy. Examples abound of such changes when word or concept usage increases; for example in the cryptocurrency domain, the terminology "a hash of a block of items to be timestamped ..., forming a chain" stated in a cryptography research paper in 2008, was frequently referred to as a "block chain" (two words) for the first several years as the concept got built into technology that was in actual use, but by 2015 was widely spelled blockchain, and "blockchain" is the only way you find the word used today. With it being SpaceX usage that will heavily matter, such a change could certainly come much faster in this instance. N2e (talk) 12:11, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Starting to collect instances seen reading the news: [1], 17 Jan 2021. "... paired with the Superheavy rocket"

Reorganizing Prototypes and testing section

I recently renamed the Prototypes section Prototypes and testing and have been adding content there. I want to layout my ideas for what I'd like to do next and get feedback and suggestions before going any further.

Previous section layout:

• Prototypes — starhopper, mk1, mk2, raptors, autogenious pressure, F9 vs Starship, termal protection, reentry
  • Starhopper — description of starhopper and build history
  • Low-altitude prototypes — history of MK1, MK2, SN1-6 accomplishments
  • High-altitude prototypes — SN8 accomplishments, mention of SN9-18
  • Testing — Starhopper test benchmarks, list of SN5-9 test benchmarks
  • Suborbital test flights — Link to List of Starship flights

My goal is to transition the content in this section away from anything that looks like a history of prototypes and testing processes. We would keep the link to Starship_development_history#Prototypes_and_testing to preserve that. The subsections would instead focus on descriptions and purpose of each prototype and test type.

Proposed section layout:

• Prototypes and testing — SpaceX design and testing philosophy (build, test, fly, fix, test, fly...)
  • Pad only prototypes — description and accomplishments of MK1/MK2, SN1-5
  • Low-altitude prototypes — description and accomplishments of starhopper, SN5-6
  • High-altitude prototypes — description and accomplishments of SN8-10, Super Heavy
  • Orbital prototypes — currently known information about SN15+
  • Pad Testing — description and purpose of ambient, cryo & static fire
  • Suborbital flight testing — description and purpose of launch, ascent, descent, landing
  • Orbital flight testing — description and purpose of stable orbit, reentry orbital refueling

This is the basic outline, please let me know if you support these proposed changes. Also speak up if you are opposed to anything you see here. If you see problems with it, or see something I forgot please offer that up. For example, if you believe that Starhopper just needs its own section please speak up, I'm iffy on that and your preference would tip me in that direction. Thanks. JaredHWood💬 23:19, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for trying to fix this. I agree that the section as of now is quite confusing. I like your proposal, but since we are talking about the prototypes and the testing procedures separately, why not split the section in two? Something like "Prototypes" and "Testing procedures". --Ita140188 (talk) 10:49, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

As an editor who lived through the previous multi-week discussion in 2019 that led to the (unfortunate, in my view) merge of the article Starship (rocket) (an obviously notable rocket on its own, totally separate from the eventual two-stage launch stack that SpaceX would build a couple years in the future), with all the material on the MCT/ITS/BFR/Starship-Super Heavy stack, into a single article on the stack; while hiving the development history off into a different second article called Starship development history, I'll just offer this perspective. Starship has a very high level of interest, by both the general public and by rocket and spaceflight aficianados. We should thus expect editors to continue to frequently come to this article and endeavor to add detail of many many quite notable events in the iterative development lives of all of this related technology to this article; all of which will continue to make this article a bit of a mess. I think this article, as (now) the main article for the two-stage orbital launch vehicle, the Starship system, is definitely the wrong article for the massive detail of the prototypes and testing of Starship as you are proposing.

Starship as just the-upper-stage of the Starship system is "the" upper stage that is heading toward perhaps becoming the most notable upper stage ever built. The 50-meter Starship upper stage has 2+ yrs of history on its own, with many hundreds of media articles published about it, its (many) future uses, and its current development&testing; details are gonna proliferate. Much of that is of interest, and Wikipedia can certainly have more detail on just about anything, as long as the article is notable and verifiable. Heck, the Starship second stage is already likely the most notable second stage since the two Saturn rocket upper stages, and they both have articles on them as individual stages: S-II, and S-IVB. I just don't believe all that detail you are thinking about fits in this article, the main article on the Starship system. But that's not to say such detail, well-written and well-sourced, would not fit elsewhere in the large emerging Wikipedia. N2e (talk) 14:10, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you Ita140188 and N2e great points. After reading this I went over and took a look at the Space Shuttle article and its layout. What if we did something similar the Design and Development section over there. Here is another proposal based on that:

• Design and Development
  • History — Move the current History section here
  • Design Process — SpaceX design and testing philosophy (build, test, fly, fix, test, fly...) differences from other launch providers, factory around the rocket, etc.
  • Development — all the prototype stuff goes in several paragraphs here
  • Testing — all the testing stuff goes here

With this outline, any section that gets too large could be expanded to it's own article at some point in the future. JaredHWood💬 16:05, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I feel that this sectioning is not very intuitive. For example, I would think that Development and Testing should be part of History. Maybe better have something like this:

• Design and Development
  • Early concepts — Move the beginning of the current History section here
  • Design process — SpaceX design and testing philosophy (build, test, fly, fix, test, fly...) differences from other launch providers, factory around the rocket, etc.
  • Development — all the prototype stuff goes in several paragraphs here, together with parts of current History section
  • Testing — all the testing stuff goes here

But I still think that it would be best to keep the current structure and have a History section separated from the development. The History section should be a summary without all the details of the development process. --Ita140188 (talk) 02:36, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

I think that @N2e:'s recent change where he created a specific section for Starship upper stage is a very good direction to go for this article. That will easily become it's own article in the not to distant future. I am going to let this proposal rest for a while and just focus on making small changes to the Protoypes and Testing section to make it more about "Starship" and less about "all the starships". JaredHWood💬 19:23, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

@N828335: I saw your revert of the flight table. No worries on my part. Take a look and see if you approve of the way I combined the testing section after your revert. JaredHWood💬 00:31, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Looks good now, thanks. Also note that I think the flight list, Template:Starship flights/suborbital, contains too many details, and will work soon on migrating a lot of that information into the Starship development history article. (A lot of the info there isn't even about the flight, but the pre-flight activites) N828335 (talk) 00:55, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

This may not be the best place for it, but since the topic has been broached here, and because at present, the Template:Starship flights/suborbital is used in this article, I will respond to the comment. I think N828335's post about drastically reducing the amount of detail in the table template, and leaving the main detail in the Starship development history article, is a very good idea. I wholeheartedly support a reduction of the info overloading that has developed in that table.

Moreover, it is possible that with a major reduction of detail in that template, then the table of prototype test flights might continue to fit, and therefore be included, in this article. But that may be a whole separate discussion, so I'll not cloud this discussion section further at this point. N2e (talk) 21:31, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Good, I have already started moving details and merging them into Starship development history. I added a notice on the template as well, to warn other editors. N828335 (talk) 22:00, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Great stuff. Thanks for all your feedback and suggestions for the Prototypes and testing section. The result has been better than what I originally proposed. I'll keep whittling away at writing intro sentences in that section. Thanks for the collab! JaredHWood💬 03:18, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

SN8 & Safety

Originally brought this up on the SpaceX talk page. Earlier we didn't have much information, only that some FAA launch licensee "violation" occurred. Per the The verge. But now it looks like SpaceX intentionally did it. Per NASASpaceflight/Micheal Baylor they didn't get a waiver & but still launched. Seems they intentionally violated "public safety". Whether or not this should be included in the controversy section or not - or just the SN8 section I'm not sure. I don't think its worth noting FAA-SN9's issues tho. OkayKenji ^{(talk • contribs)} 14:37, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

@OkayKenji: My recommendation would be to add this content to Starship development history. This is important information about Starship development and testing, but it is new and emerging information. I think adding it there to document it as part of Starship history would be good. Then if it continues to be a notable issue, like if a long term suspension occurs or if Starship is associated with notable FAA policy changes it could be added here. JaredHWood💬 15:22, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Oh! Didn't realize we had a dedicated article on that, yeah I agree (that sort of what I was thinking). OkayKenji ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:58, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

SN9 Failure

In multiple discord servers and websites, they say that SN9 was a failure since the main goal was to land it, but it exploded. I think the page should say Failure.

Liaiwen (talk) 21:23, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree. Discussion on going here: Template talk:Starship flights/suborbital N828335 (talk) 21:29, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

That was not a failure. The main goal was to gather data, not to just land. The same is with SN8, SN9, and SN10. Literally, SN10 did the mission objectives, so it should be a success even though it RUDed 8 minutes later. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LeviathanOwO (talk • contribs) 21:49, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Infobox image.

The new infobox image shows Starship itself more closely but it's pretty low quality. I prefer the previous image with the plume. @LeVanTuan1998: Assuming you took the photo yourself, do you have a full-resolution version that might be reworked into a more useable image? nagualdesign 03:22, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

@Nagualdesign: Nope, they took the image straight from NASA spaceflight's recent video, [2]. I have already reverted their edits and flagged their photo for deletion on the commons. Not to mention the same user had previously uploaded over 20 other photos with copyvios: commons:User talk:LeVanTuan1998.

Okay. Thanks for letting me know. nagualdesign 03:42, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

@N828335: Could you also mark File:Falcon 9 Demo-2 Launching 6 (3).jpg for deletion. I'm not an administrator or reviewer on Commons but I have reviewed the license on Flickr and it's CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0, which is not allowed on Commons. I'm surprised that they haven't been banned already. Smacks of wilful ignorance to me. nagualdesign 05:05, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Not sure about the specifics in this case, but photos by NASA are generally OK. Also note there is a "nominate for deletion" button on the sidebar in commons, anyone can do it. N828335 (talk) 05:24, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Primary sources tag

I am working on consolidating and replacing primary sources so the template tag can be removed from the page. I will try to replace every Elon Musk twitter quote with a reliable secondary source. Question: Is referencing the official SpaceX Starship page acceptable use of a primary source if it is only used for vehicle specifications such as length, diameter, capacity, etc? JHelzer💬 04:12, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

@JHelzer: That should be OK. Per WP:Primary, the thing to avoid is mainly the interpretation of primary sources. "A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge." In my opinion, this definitely includes direct vehicle characteristics. I would also argue (although not by a wiki policy) that a primary source for these details would be the best option. Thank you for your work fixing the other, more problematic cases. N828335 (talk) 05:03, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

@JHelzer: I fear you may have removed too much. See the next section. — Greg the Guru 2600:8801:8002:4700:3C00:94CD:C328:6F43 (talk) 11:15, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

I thought I was careful to remove only twitter sources that were duplicates of the information found on the official SpaceX starship page. I will have to double-check the history when I have time to do another source session here. If I have removed a source that contained unique information, I am sorry. That would have been unintentional. JHelzer💬 21:38, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

@JHelzer: The source you cited would be fully expected to have that information, but, unfortunately, it never has. It has lots and lots of other technical information, but not that tidbit. It's not surprising that you missed it. — Greg the Guru 2600:8801:8002:4700:A110:8E27:5AFE:9AE4 (talk) 11:02, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Greg, for your understanding and assumption of good faith. I am planning to continue working on primary sources to justify the removal of the tag at the top of the article. I'll be watchful as I go. JHelzer💬 17:53, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Dry mass of stages

The dry mass of both stages both source a page with lots of information about the stages, but not the dry mass.

The dry mass of the second stage is available from a number of sources, but the root of all of them is a presentation given by Elon Musk on 29 September 2019 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UUtNR6BhjE) when the weight of the orbiter went from 85t to 200t. Musk stated that his goal was to iterate his way to a dry mass of 120t or less. (For what it's worth, I think he will make it, but it's still a goal.) The gross mass of the second stage is the sum of three integers (dry mass, propellant mass, and payload), so if the three source numbers are OK, then this ought to be OK as well.

The dry mass of first stage booster has never been authoritatively stated since that date. I've hunted and hunted, since I calculate profiles based on the weight of stages, and I can't find anything. All of the values since then have been calculated, and my question here is if the logic described below counts as original research.

The initial calculation was based on this tweet from 26 September 2019: "Mk1 ship is around 200 tons dry and 1400 tons wet, but aiming for 120 by Mk4 or Mk5. Total stack mass with max payload is 5000 tons." If you assume 5000 tons is exact, you can subtract out the first stage propellant (3300t), the second stage dry mass (120t), the second stage propellant (1200t), and the maximum payload (100t) and get 280t. If you assumed that the maximum payload was still the goal weight from before of 150t, you get 230t, and this was the value in the page for a while.

Almost six months later, Musk tweated this on 16 March 2020: "Slight booster length increase to 70 m, so 120 m for whole system. Liftoff mass ~5000 mT." You can look up the mass per volume of the propellants, so this stretch of 2m is around 100t. When recalculated as above, this yields 130t, and there's a comment in the page that this is too low, so Musk must have been using a payload of 100t, and therefore the value must be 180t. This is the value in the page now.

Note that both calculations assume that the 5000t is exact and not rounded. Instead, I believe the number is rounded, since "five thousand tonnes" is so much better in a sound bite. If it's not exact, then none of the numbers above can be accurate, and the best you can do is give a range. Two years ago, long before the weights increased, I was using 180t as the value. The number is in my notes, but I didn't write down where I got it. Thus, I believe 180t is likely to be significantly low, and the most likely range is 230t to 280t.

If the above counts as original research, both the dry weight and the gross weight of the first stage should be removed (or commented out?). If it isn't original research, is the range I suggest above reasonable? — Greg the Guru 2600:8801:8002:4700:3C00:94CD:C328:6F43 (talk) 11:15, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Greg, I do remember removing the source for the tweet about Mk1 statistics. My thinking is that Mk1 is not a good representation of the current prototypes or the final Starship specs. I was also thinking that information posted on the SpaceX Starship website would be better maintained and more reliable than an aging tweet. I also replaced older sources that predicted future performance in favor of more current sources that recounted the event after it occurred. You suggest that the calculations above may constitute original research and I believe they do. I love following Starship progress, but at the current stage of development, I think it is too early to post predictions of what the mass specification of Starship will be. I assume they are currently changing from prototype to prototype. JHelzer💬 22:11, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

5000 looks too much like a rounded number to end up with that precision. It could easily be 4900 or 5100 and the other numbers have the same problem. In addition the design is still not completely fixed yet so numbers are likely to change - mixing numbers from different times isn't going to work. WP:CALC allows uncontroversial calculations but this isn't covered. --mfb (talk) 04:28, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

@JHelzer: @Mfb: I am inclined to think the Mk1 number is OK, as Musk has continued to use it in off-the-cuff tweets. I marked it as a goal to reflect what he said at the time. (And based on the one weighing that they accidentally leaked, the weight is on track to meet the goal.) I commented out the dry and gross mass for the booster, and left a comment about what to do when a valid source is added. — Greg the Guru 2600:8801:8002:4700:A110:8E27:5AFE:9AE4 (talk) 11:34, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Starship SN10

SN10 exploded after landing, but the landing should be written as success, not as a partial success. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.121.103.144 (talk) 14:08, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

SN10 had landing leg failures. It touched down at 10m/s which is too fast. The engine was commanded to increase power and was unable to comply. Numerous fixes are being put into place for SN11. Stated simply; it landed, but it landed too hard. All of this describes a partial success. JHelzer💬 15:09, 19 March 2021 (UTC)