SpaceX to attempt Starship catch on next flight, with eye on rapid cadence increase

In its current iteration, SpaceX is largely a data company seeking to provide enormous amounts of compute for artificial intelligence. During an earnings call on Tuesday afternoon, company officials spent much of their time discussing ambitious plans to roll out up to 10 GW of compute in 2027—on the ground. Gone are the days of aspirational talk about sending humans to Mars and settling the red planet. Now it is almost all about artificial intelligence and the data needed to support its expansion.

在其目前的迭代中，SpaceX 在很大程度上是一家寻求为人工智能提供海量计算能力的数据公司。在周二下午的财报电话会议上，公司高管花费了大量时间讨论到 2027 年在地面部署高达 10 GW 计算能力的宏伟计划。那些关于将人类送往火星并定居红色星球的雄心壮志已成往事。现在，一切几乎都围绕着人工智能以及支持其扩展所需的数据展开。

However, the company’s long-term ambitions to provide data services from space, initially with the Starlink Internet constellation and eventually through the “Starmind” data center constellation, still rely on an actual rocket. That would be the Starship vehicle, and during the earnings call, SpaceX founder Elon Musk and the company’s president and chief operating officer, Gwynne Shotwell, provided new performance targets for the vehicle. It has been a little more than three weeks since the 14th test flight of the massive rocket, which largely went well despite some issues with the Raptor rocket engine.

然而，该公司从太空提供数据服务的长期雄心——最初通过星链（Starlink）互联网卫星群，最终通过“Starmind”数据中心卫星群——仍然依赖于真正的火箭。这就是星舰（Starship）运载工具。在财报电话会议上，SpaceX 创始人埃隆·马斯克和公司总裁兼首席运营官格温·肖特维尔为该飞行器提供了新的性能目标。距离这枚巨型火箭的第 14 次试飞已经过去了三个多星期，尽管猛禽（Raptor）火箭发动机出现了一些问题，但这次飞行总体进展顺利。

SpaceX has gleaned enough data from that test, Musk said, to attempt a catch of both the Super Heavy first stage of the rocket and the Starship upper stage on the next flight. Musk said he believes success is “more likely than not” for these attempts, but he added the company is hardware rich if there are failures. Both catches would happen at the company’s launch site in South Texas, Starbase. SpaceX is currently targeting November for this 15th test flight.

马斯克表示，SpaceX 已从那次测试中收集了足够的数据，足以在下一次飞行中尝试回收火箭的超重型（Super Heavy）一级助推器和星舰上级。马斯克称，他认为这些尝试“成功的可能性大于失败”，但他补充说，如果出现故障，公司拥有充足的硬件储备。两次回收都将在公司位于南德克萨斯州的发射场“星际基地”（Starbase）进行。SpaceX 目前计划在 11 月进行第 15 次试飞。

One of the big hurdles is regulatory, as the Starship vehicle must return to the launch site over land, including northern Mexico. “We have had significant constructive engagement with the FAA, and we expect the license for our Flight 15 to include return to launch site and tower catch for both stages,” Shotwell said. As for what comes after this test flight, Shotwell said SpaceX would attempt to refly a Starship upper stage “early” next year.

主要的障碍之一是监管问题，因为星舰必须飞越陆地（包括墨西哥北部）返回发射场。肖特维尔说：“我们已经与美国联邦航空管理局（FAA）进行了富有成效的接触，我们预计第 15 次飞行的许可证将包括两级火箭返回发射场并由发射塔回收的内容。”至于此次试飞之后，肖特维尔表示，SpaceX 将尝试在明年“初”重新飞行一枚星舰上级。

The company will also seek to complete a long-delayed refueling test of Starship early in 2027. This Starship-to-Starship refueling demonstration is an important milestone for SpaceX and NASA to prove the viability of Starship being refueled in low-Earth orbit for lunar missions. Refueling on this scale has never been done before, and the company needs to get data on the efficiency of such transfers and the rate of boil-off of liquid oxygen and methane in space.

该公司还将寻求在 2027 年初完成一项推迟已久的星舰燃料补给测试。这次星舰对星舰的补给演示对于 SpaceX 和 NASA 来说是一个重要的里程碑，旨在证明星舰在近地轨道进行燃料补给以执行月球任务的可行性。这种规模的燃料补给此前从未实现过，公司需要获取有关此类传输效率以及液氧和甲烷在太空中蒸发率的数据。

This data will refine projections for how many launches are needed to support a Starship landing on the Moon for NASA as part of the Artemis Program. For SpaceX, the near-term priority is reaching a high flight cadence for Starship and pushing the boundaries of vehicle reuse to enable it.

这些数据将完善关于支持 NASA 阿耳忒弥斯（Artemis）计划中星舰登月所需发射次数的预测。对于 SpaceX 而言，近期的首要任务是实现星舰的高飞行频率，并推动飞行器重复使用技术的边界以实现这一目标。

Musk, who often offers hyper-optimistic timeframes, said he expects Starship to reach a “weekly” flight cadence during the first half of 2027 and to launch twice weekly during the second half of the year. The key will be how much Starship can be reused. “The rate at which we launch Starship will increase dramatically as we solve rapid and complete reusability,” Musk said. “At first there will be a little bit of refurbishment that’s needed between each flight, and we’ll iron out the need for any refurbishment such that you can immediately land the rocket and launch it again, just like an airplane.”

经常给出超乐观时间表的马斯克表示，他预计星舰在 2027 年上半年将达到“每周一次”的飞行频率，并在下半年达到每周两次。关键在于星舰能重复使用到什么程度。马斯克说：“随着我们解决快速且完全重复使用的问题，我们发射星舰的频率将大幅增加。起初，每次飞行之间需要进行少量翻新，我们将逐步消除对任何翻新的需求，这样你就可以像飞机一样，在火箭着陆后立即再次发射。”

That’s the vision, at least. Achieving complete reusability with an orbital rocket has never been done before, so SpaceX’s engineering team will undoubtedly face some significant hurdles. Over time, however, they are likely to get close to the vision of launching, landing, and reflying rockets. SpaceX will largely focus on its own payloads in 2027 with the Starship rocket.

至少愿景是这样的。实现轨道火箭的完全重复使用此前从未有过，因此 SpaceX 的工程团队无疑将面临一些重大障碍。然而，随着时间的推移，他们很可能会接近发射、着陆并重新飞行火箭的愿景。2027 年，SpaceX 将主要利用星舰火箭专注于其自身的有效载荷。

Shotwell said the company would continue launching Starlink V3 satellites, the second generation of “mobile” satellites that deliver direct-to-cell connectivity, as well as Starmind data center prototypes, next year. During the earnings call, neither Musk nor Shotwell addressed, nor were asked by financial analysts, about the controversial throttling of Starlink capabilities for Ukraine in its war with Russia.

肖特维尔表示，公司明年将继续发射星链 V3 卫星（即提供直接连接手机功能的第二代“移动”卫星），以及 Starmind 数据中心原型机。在财报电话会议期间，马斯克和肖特维尔均未提及，金融分析师也未询问关于星链在乌克兰与俄罗斯战争中限制其功能这一争议性话题。