Will Starship Replace The Falcon 9?
The Falcon 9 is a very impressive rocket responsible for a large list of achievements since its development. With over 100 successful launches and many reused boosters, the Falcon 9 has proved its reliability and technology. However, with Starship meant to be a bigger, cheaper, and more efficient rocket, will it end up being replaced?
Assuming Starship development continues and it meets current expectations then yes it will replace the Falcon 9. The reason for this would be Starship’s lower cost, faster turnaround time, larger size, and more. The Falcon 9 is a great rocket but it would not make much sense for SpaceX to use once Starship is working as intended.
There is still a long way to go before SpaceX retires its main launch vehicle the Falcon 9. Another important factor is Starship’s ambitious goals. SpaceX is trying to make Starship a completely unique rocket never seen before in the space industry. If successful it would become the companies main and most used rocket by far.
Falcon 9 Achievements
It can be hard to picture the Falcon 9 retirement considering all the incredible achievements the rocket is responsible for. One of the Falcon 9’s biggest achievements was launching humans into space for the first time in almost a decade. After the Space Shuttle was retired the United States was left without a launch vehicle to get their astronauts onto the International Space Station. For the next decade, NASA used Russia and the Soyuz rocket as a launch vehicle.
The Falcon 9 made history when it brought two astronauts to the ISS and back on the Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission. This was the first time sending astronauts to the ISS from American soil on an American rocket in a decade. The Falcon 9 is also responsible for over 100 successful launches. This along with the Falcon 9’s innovative design and success with landing boosters on a drone ship have made it stand out as an incredible launch vehicle. These are just some of the Falcon 9s many impressive accomplishments. It is very likely in the coming years that Falcon 9 will continue to make different achievements and have success prior to Starship finishing development.
Pros Of Starship Over The Falcon 9
Cost – The first major difference between Starship and Falcon 9 is the cost per launch. Lowering the cost per launch is paramount to the future of space flight. The lower the cost the more launches and better access to space we end up with. Currently, the Falcon 9 when it reuses a booster costs around $50 million per launch. This cost per launch is quite impressive and better than a lot of competition that is in the market. When looking at Starship however the difference becomes quite significant. SpaceX is aiming for each Starship launch to cost $2 million.
With Starship meant to be fully reusable, SpaceX is estimating that $2 million would go to basically just fuel. $2 million per launch is an extremely ambitious and impressive number that SpaceX is aiming for. If they are able to get Starship’s launch cost this low then the Falcon 9 could not even get close to competing. If SpaceX had access to a fully working Starship and Falcon 9, each time they used the Falcon 9 they would be losing money along with a few other things. This is why Starship would replace the Falcon 9 saving SpaceX a lot of money over time.
Size/Payload – The more cargo you can bring into space the better. Starship is meant to have one of the highest payload capacities to low Earth orbit in the world. Estimated at 100-150 tons, there is nothing that even comes close to Starship. The Falcon 9 has an impressive 25-ton capacity to low Earth orbit but that number is dwarfed by Starship. There are a lot of different benefits that come with a higher weight capacity. In practically all different launch scenarios, the more capacity a rocket has the better. An example could be launching satellites.
SpaceX has been working on launching Starlink satellites for a while now. They launch 60 at a time on top of their Falcon 9 rocket. With the final constellation meant to be just over 40,000, they need to launch a lot of satellites. Starship is meant to be capable of carrying 400 Starlink satellites in one launch. This would speed up the process almost by 7x and also save SpaceX a lot of money. Another benefit has to do with commercial deals and launches. With so much capacity Starship could carry a ton of satellites at one time for different companies making SpaceX a lot more money. There are many other possible scenarios where the higher capacity comes in handy but these are just two of the main ways.
Turnaround Time – One of the final big benefits that Starship has over the Falcon 9 is expected turnaround time. The Falcon 9 and Starship are not partially and fully reusable just to save money but also to speed up the launch process. It takes a while to launch your next rocket if you have to build a new first and second stage. Partial and full reusability means you can instead refurbish or even just refuel the used rocket and then launch it again. SpaceX has been consistently working on speeding up the Falcon 9 turnaround time. They have been able to reuse a booster in just under a month. This is very impressive but Starship is planning to be used similar to an airplane. SpaceX is planning on making Starship rapidly reusable to the point where it lands, goes through a few checks, gets refueled, and launches again. This would make Starship a lot faster than the Falcon 9 and save SpaceX time and money by using Starship instead of Falcon 9.
Possible Future Uses Of The Falcon 9
Even if Starship ends up finishing development in the coming years and does everything SpaceX says it can, the Falcon 9 could still have some uses. An example of this could be launching humans to the International Space Station. While the Starship would be a lot cheaper, there are some initial challenges. The first is the testing a rocket needs to go through prior to launching humans. The Falcon 9 and Dragon capsule are tested and confirmed to be reliable launch vehicles to space and back for humans. The Falcon 9 is likely to continue launching humans for agencies like NASA far into the future. Additionally, Starship would have to be slightly modified for docking with ISS. Coming in at 120m tall would be a very interesting process and look when docking to the ISS.
Conclusion
In the future, if everything goes according to plan with Starship then yes it will replace the Falcon 9. Starship’s cost, payload capacity, turnaround time, and more all are in favor of the retirement of the Falcon 9. These factors each heavily benefit Starship and go against Falcon 9. It would not make sense for SpaceX to continue using the Falcon 9 if they had Starship’s capabilities. However, the Falcon 9 is and will continue to be a very active and important launch vehicle for SpaceX and the space industry. With the most launches out of any operational U.S. rocket, the Falcon 9 has proved to be a valuable piece of technology. Starship development is fast but not fast enough to replace the Falcon 9 within the very near future. We will have to wait and see how Starship development progresses and the impact that has on the Falcon 9’s use.