Teslarati, first discussed by SpaceNews, can confirm that the mysterious SpaceX bid to launch a small NASA satellite constellation was none other than Starship – a large, next-generation rocket still in deep development.
On February 26, the space agency announced that it had awarded the small rocket catcher Astra $ 7.95 million to launch six small scientific satellites on three separate Rocket 3.0 flights. NASA, known as TROPICS, says the mini-constellation is designed to monitor tropical storms with a set of microwaves. As a constellation, TROPICS will have an unprecedented recurrence rate of as low as 30 minutes, which means that weather conditions can be observed as many as 48 times a day to improve the forecasts and advance the meteorology. The MIT team estimates the total mission cost at $ 32 million and the TROPICS constellation with six satellites is not expected to weigh more than 56 kg.
In a routine statement of the source choice published by NASA on March 11, reporter Jeff Foust was the first to record some oddities included in the mission. SpaceX was one of four companies that submitted a viable proposal and participated in the competition – not exactly shocking. However, in the statement, the NASA contractor included information that strongly suggests that SpaceX do not have proposes to launch TROPICS on its proven workhorse Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy rockets.
As Foust further notes, the ‘weaknesses’ raised to explain why SpaceX was not chosen (namely an unproven, unlicensed launch vehicle with low schedule security) suspiciously fit into SpaceX’s next-generation Starship rocket. A source familiar with NASA launch purchases, Teslarati has now confirmed that SpaceX Starship has indeed offered to launch the TROPICS constellation.
Starship is currently in the early to mid stage of development, has only recently gone as short hop tests and has not yet received a track country license from the FAA. While SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently confirmed Starship’s ambition to launch Starship on its first orbital mission (s) as early as July 2021, it’s safe to say big amount of uncertainty in that schedule.
On the scale of Starship’s payload target of 100 tons to low ground (LEO), the TROPICS constellation is literally a finishing mistake. Assuming that three separate launches are a fundamental requirement for the constellation, each Starship – a rocket significantly larger than a 737-passenger aircraft – would contain the equivalent of a single briefcase containing two satellites.
Although the source could not provide the specific price of the offer, they confirmed that SpaceX Starship offered and Super Heavy – not a single phase-around-the-track Starship setup as some later speculated. It’s still unclear if SpaceX was planning to launch three separate launches or if Starship could deliver the entire constellation in a single launch, with the huge performance margins through such a small payload.
Notably, NASA’s selection statement revealed that the price of SpaceX’s Starship launch proposal was more expensive than Astra’s offer of ~ $ 8 million, but less expensive as a Rocket Lab proposal using Electron. From a purely speculative angle, assuming three launches were a necessity, Rocket Lab’s bid would have been about $ 25 million (Electron sold for about $ 7.5 million), giving SpaceX about $ 15-20 million. would leave – not far from a $ 5 million Starship launch cost target driven by company executives over the past few years.
SpaceX eventually lost, but the fact that NASA considered a Starship proposal at all is impressive on its own. According to Kwajalein Atoll, TROPICS will launch three separate Astra Rocket 3 vehicles between January and July 2022