SpaceX 2023 summary video

  • Falcon
    • Most launches in a single year: 96, more than Soviet Soyuz 63 times.
    • Heavy Falcon: 5 times, more than Saturn-V
    • Starlink tasks: 2/3 of all tasks
    • Falcon 9: 19 repeated launches
    • 260 landings of boosters in the last 8 years
  • Fairing recovery: 300s times
  • Mass to orbit
    • 1200 tons in 2023, 80% of the world, 90% expected in 2024.
    • Only 20% of the mass in Earth orbit can reach Mars. About one million tons of goods should be sent to Mars in order to be self-sustainable.
  • Dragon
    • Have run for 1300 days in orbit
    • 43 total successful launches
    • 39 visits to ISS
    • 22 reflights
    • sent 42 humans to space and taken back
    • Two towers in Florida
    • Walk in space in 2024
  • Starlink
    • Enable people in remote places to learn
    • Improve the quality of people’s lives
    • V2 minis: next generation Starlink satellite
      • Increase data rate from 88 TBps to 165 TBps
      • Target: delay below 20 ms
      • Argon-Hall thruster
      • In-space laser
        • 9000 active space lasers
        • Each laser link has 100 Gbps transfer rate

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    • Direct link to cell
      • 7 Mbps
      • Good for text messages
      • Suitable for remote regions, save people’s lives

  • Starship

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    • Thrust: currently is more than 2 times than Saturn V. The target is more than 20 million pounds, while Saturn V is 7.5 million pounds.
    • Earth-to-earth transportation
    • Upgrades between 1st and 2nd launch
      • Launch pad: large water pressure
      • Will build 2nd tower
      • Migrate hydraulic to electric actuation of engines
      • Almost everything has been upgraded from the 1st to 2nd launch, thousands of upgrades
      • Hot staging achieved within 3 to 4 months
      • If there were actual load, there would have been no oxygen venting and Starship would have go into orbit.
    • 3rd launch
      • Accelerate build and test: time is more expensive than hardware
      • Becomes taller: 140 or 150 m
      • Target
        • Enter orbit and de-orbit
        • Propellant transfer between header and main tanks at a tipping point
    • Mass to orbit: 150 tons, while Falcon Heavy is 64 tons.
    • On orbit refilling at the end of 2024 or early 2025
    • Starlink deploy at the end of 2024
    • NASA human landing system, Artemis program. Land on moon and build moon base