First discussed by SpaceNews, Teslarati can confirm that the mysterious SpaceX launch vehicle to launch a small NASA satellite constellation was none other than Starship – a next-generation large rocket still in deep development.
On February 26, the space agency announced it had awarded small rocket launcher Astra $ 7.95 million to launch six small scientific satellites on three separate Rocket 3.0 flights. Known as TROPICS, NASA says the mini constellation was designed to track tropical storms with a set of microwave-sounding instruments. As a constellation, TROPICS will have an unprecedented repetition rate of just 30 minutes, meaning weather events can be observed as many as 48 times a day to improve forecasts and advance meteorology. All told, the MIT team estimates the total mission cost of $ 32 million and the TROPICS constellation with six satellites is expected to weigh no more than 56 kg (~ 124 lb).
In a routine source selection statement published by NASA on March 11, reporter Jeff Foust was the first to notice some of the oddities in the letter. SpaceX, in particular, was one of four companies that submitted a viable proposal and entered the competition – not exactly shocking behavior. However, in the statement, the NASA contractor included information that strongly suggested that SpaceX not suggest launching TROPICS on its proven workhorse Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy missiles.
As Foust noted, the “weaknesses” that emerged to explain why SpaceX was not chosen (namely, an unproven unlicensed launch vehicle with low planning certainty) linked suspiciously well with SpaceX’s next-generation Starship rocket. A source familiar with the purchase of NASA launches has now confirmed to Teslarati that SpaceX has indeed provided Starship to launch the TROPICS constellation.
Starship is currently in early to mid-stage development, has only recently graduated, and has not yet received an orbital launch license from the FAA. While SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently confirmed the company’s ambition to launch Starship on its first orbital mission (s) as early as July 2021, it’s safe to say there will be a huge amount of uncertainty in that schedule.
On the scale of Starship’s goal of 100 tons to low Earth orbit (LEO), the TROPICS constellation is literally a rounding error. Assuming three separate launches are a fundamental requirement of the constellation, each spaceship – a rocket significantly larger than a 737 passenger jet – would carry the equivalent of a single suitcase containing two shoebox-sized satellites.
While the source was unable to provide the specific price of the offer, they confirmed that SpaceX had bid Starship and Super Heavy – not a single stage to orbit Starship configuration as some later speculated. It’s still unclear whether SpaceX planned to perform three separate launches or whether Starship would have been able to deliver the entire constellation in a single launch with the huge performance margins afforded by such a small payload.
Notably, NASA’s selection statement revealed that the price of the SpaceX launch proposal for Starship was more expensive than Astra’s ~ $ 8 million offer, but less more expensive than a Rocket Lab proposal with Electron. From a purely speculative angle, assuming three launches were necessary, Rocket Lab’s bid would have been around $ 25 million (Electron sells for about $ 7.5 million), leaving SpaceX about $ 15-20 million – not far from a Starship launch cost target of $ 5 million. business leaders in recent years.
In the end, SpaceX did lose, but the fact that NASA was considering a Starship proposal all the way is impressive in itself. TROPICS will be launched from Kwajelein Atoll between January and July 2022 with three separate Astra Rocket 3 vehicles