Reusable Rocket Success in China 🚀

[sunny405]

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No, the key SpaceX capability was to land the Starship back at the launch tower for a quick turnaround time of refueling and re-launching

SpaceX cannot directly refuel and launch; it needs to return to the factory for monitoring, replacing damaged and vulnerable components, testing, and preparing for launch. This process currently takes 7 to 14 days.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

SpaceX cannot directly refuel and launch; it needs to return to the factory for monitoring, replacing damaged and vulnerable components, testing, and preparing for launch. This process currently takes 7 to 14 days.

That’s the Falcon 9 turnaround time. The goal for the Starship first stage booster will eventually be multiple times a day…especially for the dedicated orbital refuelers which will probably have their own specialized refueling pads. Considering the booster flight time is measured in minutes while the top stage is in hours due to the slowness of transferring fuel in orbit to the depot I would expect the same booster to be shared by 5 or more refuelers. They will probably have a fleet of 10 refuelers with 2 boosters...plus backups of course. They'll launch a refueler into orbit, land the booster within minutes back at the pad, drop a second empty refueler on the top of the landed booster, refuel both, repeat. They have experience in reusing boosters...one Falcon 9 has flown 36 times.

A dedicated transfer ship will move some of the depot fuel to the moon.