SpaceX Transition to Starship
Wei-Ji: Crisis brings Opportunity
SpaceX have successfully operated their Falcon 9 launch vehicle for over a decade, during which time it has become an industry standard. Around 80% of all payload sent to orbit this year will be launched on Falcon 9 or its big brother the Falcon Heavy (which relies on Falcon 9’s core technology and upper stage). However, SpaceX want to switch to their Starship launch vehicle over the next decade, due to its many operational advantages e.g: higher payload (250t expendable), lower cost ($1.5m/flight when fully reusable), simplified production (one vehicle type produced instead of two) and countless commercial opportunities.
“SpaceX will prob build 30 to 40 rocket cores for ~300 missions over 5 years. Then Starship takes over & Falcon retires. Goal of Starship is to enable anyone to move to moon, Mars & eventually outer planets.” ~ Elon Musk
However, this transition to Starship cannot be performed arbitrarily, because NASA relies on the Falcon family for launch services, due to delays in competitor vehicles. In particular NASA depends on SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft (launched on Falcon 9) to carry cargo and crew to the International Space Station (ISS), at least in the near term. Certainly SpaceX can’t afford to lose this business (~$2bn p.a. from ISS alone) or impact the space effort unnecessarily.
Fortunately, the ISS should remain in service for the rest of the decade, with all international partners agreeing to support the station until 2030, with the possible exception of Russia. Post 2030, NASA plan to use a commercial space station to continue science work in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), and already issued a solicitation to find suitable partners to design and build such a station under their Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD) program. Hence it was only natural for SpaceX to bid for a CLD contract as it would ensure a continued demand for LEO services after the ISS is due to retire. Interestingly they proposed their Starship spacecraft could be used as a free-flying space station, instead of the more conventional approach of assembling pressurized modules in orbit, similar to the ISS. However, after reviewing this proposal, NASA were fairly scathing of SpaceX’s bid, suggesting it was deficient in several areas; for example: the bid suggested NASA should fund all development work rather than share costs with SpaceX. In particular NASA disliked their business strategy; “which fails to meet goals for developing the LEO economy.” This was surprising because it ran contra to what you might expect for SpaceX, who’s forte is space business. Their prior bid for the Human Lander System (HLS) contract, which they won decisively, was accompanied by many complements from NASA, particularly for their more business like approach and willingness to share costs...
This apparent disparity probably arises from SpaceX’s priorities, their mission is to develop all the technologies needed to settle Mars (instead of focusing purely on increased revenue and profit). They favor a direct approach to Mars, which doesn’t require a manned space station, so from their perspective, building and operating a commercial station in LEO would divert resources away from their primary goal. Certainly SpaceX limit any involvement in commercial ISS work, relying instead on Axiom Space to manage all the private astronauts they send to the ISS on Crew Dragon.
This begs the question: why did SpaceX even bother to bid for CLD, considering they have avoided similar government contracts in the past, either because these efforts didn’t support their overall goal or slowed their pace of development. Probably the answer lies in how SpaceX perceive the commercial LEO market will evolve in the short to medium term. As previously discussed, international partners have agreed to support the ISS until the end of the decade, after which it will probably be decommissioned, ending in a fiery deorbit. Of course this plan is aspirational, i.e. the ideal case if nothing untoward occurs with the station in the interim. Realistically the ISS isn’t getting any younger and its continually exposed to some fairly arduous conditions (+121°C when in direct sunlight, -157°C in shadow) which accelerates the aging effects on external components. In addition, the Russian space authority Roscosmos is becoming increasingly unreliable, with a couple of instances already where they inadvertently imperiled the ISS or suffered repeated failures on their transport vehicles due to coolant leaks. NASA flight director Zebulon Scoville gave a graphic account of the fallout after Russia’s Nauka module docked to the ISS: -
“In an interview, Mr. Scoville described how the International Space Station spun one-and-a-half revolutions — about 540 degrees — before coming to a stop upside down. The space station then did a 180-degree forward flip to get back to its original orientation.” ~ SPACEPOLICYONLINE.COM
Let’s assume, however, the ISS manages to cross the 2030 finish line; unfortunately it seems unlikely any of the commercial space stations will be operational at this time or many years after. Realistically it took NASA 16 years to complete the ISS, and the commercial companies working on CLD are expected to complete a replacement in around 7 years, and currently still working on the design. To illustrate the problem, Axiom Space began to design a commercial space station in 2020 and now hope to deploy the first module in 2025, after suffering delays. Overall this suggests there might be some kind of crisis involving the ISS or its commercial replacement, potentially leaving a gap in capabilities, similar to when the Space Shuttle retired. But as the ancient Chinese used to say: “crisis brings opportunity.”
In the event of a looming crisis, NASA will no doubt seek a low cost solution to their LEO station dilemma, something that can be deployed at fairly short notice. At which point SpaceX could dust off their CLD bid and offer to rework it, to help NASA out. With any luck Starship should be operational at this point, with a small fleet of reusable launch vehicles available, making it a shoo-in for this kind of work. To save cost, literally everything could be launched on a single Starship: equipment racks, supplies and personnel, then returned safely together after many months deployment. This should allow NASA to become accustomed to using Starship, even to the point where they use it as a science vessel to go much farther. Once NASA are comfortable with Starship, this should effectively make Falcon 9 and Dragon redundant, having earned their retirement to esteemed museums and rocket gardens around the country. In other words, SpaceX manages a smooth transition to Starship (with all the operational benefits that brings), without discommoding NASA unnecessarily.
Conclusions
It seems SpaceX intends to use Starship as their white steed to come to NASA’s rescue, in the event they can no longer use the ISS. This in turn should catalyze the transition to Starship, cementing NASA as their anchor customer on this new vehicle. Of course once Starship gains NASA’s badge of approval, it should become possible for other customers, like Space Force, to consider using it. To support all this, SpaceX will likely have to increase their number of launch sites, expand their orbital propellant network, and upgrade Starship to support long duration missions. Essentially everything SpaceX require to fulfill their long term goal of reaching Mars.