He might get "Starship" stopped somewhere near Mars.
Posted on 12/01/2021 8:07:06 AM PST by SeekAndFind
SAN ANTONIO — SpaceX is having engine trouble.
Over the Thanksgiving weekend, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk warned employees of a “Raptor production crisis” for the engines needed to launch the massive Starship spacecraft from South Texas.
SpaceX is aiming to launch Starship into orbit for the first time in early 2022 and then run a series of test flights as steps toward carrying cargo and humans to the moon and Mars. But Musk on Friday warned that delays in production of Raptor engines could hamper that progress and lead to significant financial problems.
“We face genuine risk of bankruptcy if we cannot achieve a Starship flight rate of at least once every two weeks next year,” he wrote in a company-wide email obtained by CNBC and Space Explored.
A longtime SpaceX observer said it was “classic Musk” to suggest workers should forgo their Thanksgiving holiday weekends to focus on the engines. And it isn’t the first time Musk, who’s also founder and CEO of Tesla, has openly discussed the possibility of financial hardship.
In June, he said SpaceX’s constellation of internet satellites, Starlink, needed $30 billion to survive and continue its mission of launching 42,000 satellites into orbit over the next decade to provide high-speed internet service around the world.
(Excerpt) Read more at houstonchronicle.com ...
Good news for Jeff Bezos.
He’s angling for Tx Money.
He is doing amazing things, and is the most shameless huckster since P.T. Barnum
He might get "Starship" stopped somewhere near Mars.
Musk’s latest warning came less than two weeks after he said Starship would launch into orbit from its Starbase site in Boca Chica in January or February, pending approval from the Federal Aviation Administration.During a teleconference Nov. 17, Musk told members of the National Academy of Sciences the company would complete a launch pad and tower at the site about 20 miles east of Brownsville before running suborbital test flights this month. He also said he wanted to increase the number of Raptor 2 engines on Starship’s base from 29 to 33, giving the vehicle more thrust than the NASA-built Saturn V rocket used in the Apollo programs in the 1960s and 1970s.
If all goes well, Musk said, SpaceX would launch a dozen more tests later next year. If that schedule holds, he said SpaceX would move ahead with plans to build a manufacturing facility in McGregor, just southwest of Waco, to produce Raptor engines.
Eric Berger, author of “Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX” and senior space editor at Ars Technica, said Starship uses about 30 Raptor engines for each launch - which means SpaceX must produce hundreds for its planned testing.
SpaceX is bound to lose “a lot of engines next year as they’re learning how to launch and land the Starship,” Berger said.
Musk “is saying the longer it takes to do that the more money we’re burning on Starship development and the more money we’re burning on Starlink because this next generation of Starlink satellites is only going to fly on Starship,” Berger said.
Essentially, Musk is banking on Starship “to become an orbital vehicle,” Berger said. But the main obstacle is Raptor engine production.
Executive departures
In Friday’s email, Musk told employees that SpaceX had discovered the Raptor production delays after “the exiting of prior senior management” - an apparent reference to a trio of recent departures.SpaceX vice president of propulsion Will Heltsley left the company last week after being removed from the engine development project. He has been replaced by Jacob Mackenzie, who has been with the company for six years. Lee Rosen, vice president of mission and launch operations, left earlier this month, as did Ricky Lim, senior director of mission and launch operations.
The Raptor production delays “have unfortunately turned out to be far more severe than was reported,” Musk wrote to employees. “There is no way to sugarcoat this.”
He told employees he’d “be on the Raptor line all night and through the weekend,” and called on employees to do the same in light of the “disaster” at the company’s manufacturing site in Hawthorne, Calif.
Berger said he viewed the declaration “as classic Musk,” harking back to when he stayed all night at a factory to remedy problems in the late 2000s with the Falcon 1, which became the first privately developed liquid-fuel rocket to orbit Earth.
“This is not new,” Berger said. “The fact that he’s asking his employees to cancel their Thanksgiving plans is also not new. He’s an extremely demanding person to work for.”
Musk told employees Raptor production delays might affect SpaceX’s Starlink project because it needs Starship to carry its large satellites into orbit.
On Nov. 8, SpaceX told federal regulators it was operating at least 1,800 Starlink satellites, known as Version 1, serving about 140,000 internet users in 20 counties. Three days later, the company launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral and deployed 53 Starlink satellites into orbit.
The company has only launched Version 1 satellites, most of which lack lasers needed to communicate with one another. It’s seeking to launch larger Version 2 satellites with lasers.
Ultimately, SpaceX needs to produce more Raptor engines to meet its goals.
“The consequences for SpaceX if we cannot get enough reliable Raptors made is that we then can’t fly Starship, which means we then can’t fly Starlink Satellite V2,” he wrote.
I take it you have a problem with the one billionaire who is using his money to actually move mankind in a positive direction.
That's what ULA have been doing. Not a great idea.
“huckster” is putting it mildly.
:)
Nope. just know it aint about moving humanity farther.
Well the next gen Starlink satellites are already being launched on Falcon 9’s including 53 of them getting launched tonight.
Only difference is, Starship will launch far more Starlink satellites per launch than Falcon 9 ever can
...Berger said he viewed the declaration “as classic Musk,” harking back to when he stayed all night at a factory to remedy problems in the late 2000s...
Huh? When is the "late 2000s?" Falcon 1 was manufactured between 2006-2009.
I saw one of the Starlink deployments and it was stunning, but I want to know who Elon paid to put up all those satellites.
They’re still being born every minute. Good to know some things are constant.
I could not read the linked article so thanks for posting this.
Musk puts all of his eggs in one basket that has to work and usually with a crude but expedient approach. The Tesla battery pack is an example. Lots of parts and lots of details but not a very elegant or reliable solution. All the chinks must be overcome with software and work-arounds. I guess there is no other way to do some things. A system with 30 complex engines working in perfect unison is a pipe dream to me. As I recall the Russians had a lot of problems with this in their N-1 unit.
Good, Fast, Cheap; pick two. You only get to pick two and this never fails to be true.
When the best leadership you can find leaves and you find yourself alone things have gone very wrong. Musk is brilliant but I don’t think great leaders should need to use true statements that are probably obvious to all the staff as scare tactics. I guess he thrives on pressure for him and others. What he has accomplished so far is truly amazing but it has problems.
When you are leading the charge of an all out effort that must succeed you need to look backward and see that your troops are all still following.
“Eric Berger, author of “Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX” and senior space editor at Ars Technica, said Starship uses about 30 Raptor engines for each launch - which means SpaceX must produce hundreds for its planned testing.
[Break]
SpaceX is bound to lose “a lot of engines next year as they’re learning how to launch and land the Starship,” Berger said.
Executive departures
In Friday’s email, Musk told employees that SpaceX had discovered the Raptor production delays after “the exiting of prior senior management” - an apparent reference to a trio of recent departures.
SpaceX vice president of propulsion Will Heltsley left the company last week after being removed from the engine development project. He has been replaced by Jacob Mackenzie, who has been with the company for six years. Lee Rosen, vice president of mission and launch operations, left earlier this month, as did Ricky Lim, senior director of mission and launch operations. “
I’ve watched three night launches from Myrtle Beach as well as the descent of their boosters over the Atlantic to the drone ship over the horizon. Cool sight to see.
He paid someone to dominate in space
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