SpaceX has begun installing the first of many fuel storage tanks at its first launch facilities in South Texas – a most common and anticipated move made extraordinary by the fact that the tanks will be built from Starship parts.
Marked as ‘GSE’ for ground support equipment, the first signs of the self-built storage tanks started appearing in SpaceX’s Boca Chica Starship factory less than two months ago. A few weeks later, the first of the SpaceX brand’s cryogenic storage tanks is off to the launch site for installation (and insulation), while at least two more tanks are well on their way to completion.
While some groundwater tanks may seem distracting in the scope of a program to build the largest (and completely reusable) rocket in the world, the existence of those tanks is far more important than it would initially seem.
Simply put, the storage of rocket propellants – even for extremely cold cryogenic liquids such as those using SpaceX – is a thorough problem solved. There are numerous commercial suppliers and the industrial demand for virtually identical tanks is much higher, which further reduces the commercial tank cost, even for those with niche use cases, thanks to economies of scale. For SpaceX’s purposes, large discounts can be obtained, as the company has to purchase about three to four-dozen commercial (COTS) 100,000 gallon tanks to provide a starting point with enough commodities for two back. -back launches of Starship and Super Heavy.
The initial launch capability – which SpaceX appears to be working on – is likely to allow the company to launch test flights (and perhaps Starlink) immediately after completion. However, the initial capability would not be sufficient for ambitious missions to Mars, the Moon or higher Earth orbits; where one Starship needs to be quickly replenished with 3-10+ tankers. A launch facility that can support 5-10 back-to-back launches (optimally only a few hours apart) will require many times more storage.
The point is that for the initial target of two (or so) launches between re-supplies of goods, SpaceX can probably get a few dozen new storage tanks that it needs for a few million dollars each for a total cost between $ 50 million and $ 100 million. Instead, SpaceX decided to design and build its own propellant storage tanks. More importantly, the GSE tanks, SpaceX, have already started building, appearing to be virtually identical to Starships.
In other words, SpaceX effectively takes identical rocket parts, slightly adjusts a handful of those parts, and transforms what could have been a rocket into a propellant storage tank. This is important because relative to all other rockets in history, even SpaceX’s own Falcon 9 and Heavy, the storage tanks with unchanged rockets on a rocket assembly line are about the same as hiring Vincent van Gogh to paint orbits.
Ever since Elon Musk made the radical decision to switch from composite structures to stainless steel, Starship has always intended to be radical unlike any big rocket in front of it. Most importantly, using commodity steel, the CEO suggested that SpaceX could build on the dollar fairly easily and for pennies, even against SpaceX’s extraordinarily affordable Falcon 9. In the past 18 months, it has emerged that SpaceX has become a factory built to carve out one or two massive steel rockets a month and is willing to apply at least four or five of those Starship prototypes after failures for the sake of data collection and iteration improvement.
Technically, the most logical conclusion would be that Musk looked right and that SpaceX quickly developed the ability to build steel rockets larger than any other launcher on earth for maybe just $ 5 million or less each. However, SpaceX is also raising $ 1-2 billion in venture capital annually so that they can technically afford to cover the cost of extremely expensive Starship prototypes if the company is confident that there is a way to reduce the cost and the achieve targets. required for the rocket to be economically sensible.
The existence of self-built propellant storage tanks that are virtually identical to airworthy Starship aircraft frames, however, only guarantees that SpaceX is already building Starships for a few million dollars each – and possibly much less. Musk said more than a year ago that SpaceX had already built the Raptor engines that would drive Starship and Super Heavy for less than $ 1 million apiece and was working on a simpler variant for less than $ 250,000. In addition to engines and primary structures, Starship hardware is fairly simple, ranging from Tesla-derived motors, basic valves and landing gear to off-the-shelf pressure vessels (COPVs) and wiring. SpaceX has managed the extraordinary cost efficiency despite the fact that Boca Chica is still not close to the level of volume production that Musk is striving for, which means that there is much more efficiency waiting to be realized.
For now, with virtually no recharging and exactly the same assembly line, SpaceX’s South Texas rocket factory is launching massive launchers, one of which is already preparing for installation, while two more are quickly ready for completion. SpaceX appears to be preparing foundations for seven 9.5-meter-wide (30-foot), 27.5-meter-high (90-foot) starship-derived tanks that can store ~ 2,200 tons (4.9 million pounds) of sub-cooled liquid methane in three tanks. . and ~ 7,300 tons (16.1 million pounds) of liquid oxygen in the other four tanks – enough for two Star Ship launches.