Part 1 of the series looked at the problem of payload for rockets to Space.
The post looks at how the introduction of the SpaceX Starship effects this issue.
The Scale of Starship Production
SpaceX alone is creating two Starship production factories and plans to create as many as one Starship per day.
Even at only a 100-ton payload capacity, and without taking into account reusability, that's still around 350 Starships times 100 tons, which is 35,000 tons of cargo per year.
To put this in perspective, current and near-future space missions have operated with payloads averaging around 3,370 kg for LEO launches, which is only about 19% of Starship's capacity.
Even with plans for mega-constellations like Starlink or other satellite networks, the demand for such large payloads doesn't meet the supply that Starship's production could offer.
Not counting Starlink, the total mass to orbit in 2024 was 400 metric tons. Which means only 2 to 4 Starships were all that was needed to meet this demand.
So what will go into the other 364 Starships?
And this doesn’t factor in rocket reuse.
Starship, like a number of other new rockets being made, will be fully reusable. This magnifies the problem immensely.
Where in the past there has been one rocket, one payload, now we are entering an era where one rocket could equal hundreds of payloads.
It’s not just that the rocket is reused - it’s how often. Starship’s goal is to be able to relaunch within a day (or less). Thus every new Starship built could mean another 100+ tons of payload per day.
That’s a lot of payload - 36,500 tons per year - per ship. With 365 ships, that means 13,322,500 tons of payload needed in one year.
It is hard to imagine having that much mass-to-orbit space available in the next few years, yet it will soon become a real issue.
In the past, there have not been enough rockets available. Now, there may not be enough payload to put in them.
It is a good problem to have.
Next . . .
Enough Space Payload Part 3 looks at the amount required for Moon missions as we look to set up a colony on the surface.