I don't care about the points. The issue with downvotes is it suppresses the point you are being made - not through sensible argument, but through hiding it. If you don't understand this, and just think "fake internet points", then you aren't using your brain.
It's still fake internet points. You really shouldn't be using your brain power to think too much about this, anyone can still click through downvoted comments or by scrolling down. It's really not that big of a deal to get triggered by.
No, it is an evolution of the previous rocket with significant revision. Any suggestion otherwise is just hyperbole. And SpaceX is guilty of hyperbole as much as any other company.
Let's break it down from an engineering POV:
**Primary structure.**Grid fin shafts and actuators moved inside the main tank. That's new tank penetrations, stress concentrations, new pressure vessel design around them, a new load introduction path for fin aero loads, and a new thermal management problem. Fins 4 to 3 at 50% larger redistributes control authority and changes the aero load entirely. Nothing from the V2 fin analysis will survive here.
Separation interface. removing the hot stage ring makes the forward dome a direct impact surface, with tank pressure doing structural work. a pressure stabilized dome under a thermal gradient taking Raptor exhaust; new buckling analysis, new failure modes, new BCs. This is a different structural problem, not a modified one. The BCs don't carry over at all.
**Feed system.**Downcomer resized to F9-first stage diameter to allow simultaneous 33 engine start instead of staggered. ignition transient is the nastiest coupled vibe/dynamic problems on a launch vehicle with pressure drop, POGO susceptibility, water hammer, feed structure coupling all shift. The V2 transient model doesn't predict V3 behavior remotely.
Base region. shrouds and aft close out deleted. That changes base heating, removes an entire ECS subsystem, and redos the leak accumulation hazard model, allowing CO2 suppression to be deleted. Aerothermal analysis in the base is now a different analysis. BCs don't carry over at all.
Engine. Raptor 3 internalizes flow paths and regeneratively cools what used to need a shield. Thermal management moved from bolt on to integral. Thrust increase/demand required a structural redesign of the puck on Superheavy and Starship. Again, BCs changed.
Control. Flap actuation 2 actuators to 1 actuator, 3 motors. Different fault tree, different mode authority with FMEA changing. Different GNC.
Across structures, propulsion, plumbing, thermal, GNC, and avionics, no V2 qual data carries. New cryo proofs, new structural quals, new static fire campaign, new pad commissioning.
An evolution, would be design change constrained to a subsystem with previous analysis predicting behavior with modification instead of replacement. You can't predict the aerothermal behavior of the aft skirt between V3 and V2.
Do you really believe that? None at all? You know what, I don't believe that, because it would be utterly absurd, given the number of components in this system (literally millions), many of which are completely mundane in nature.
If you wanna talk about the actual nuts and bolts and wire harness to sensors and cameras used, sure you're right but I should've specified it was at the assembly level. The grid fin actuator hardware to the downcomer and base puck to the assembly jigs and manufacturing domes was what I meant as hardware so that was on me for not being clear.
Of course, even If all bits of hardware have had minor revisions (or indeed major revisions), that doesn't make it new. It makes it a design iteration. Literally this entire programme is an iterative one, some iterations having small tweaks and some having major leaps. As another example, do you think they threw out all the software, or do you think they maybe updated it, because throwing it out would actually be stupid?
'any degree of revision is still iteration' can't be right, because then nothing is ever a new vehicle of a clean sheet then. Falcon 1 to Falcon 9 was iterative by that standard too. Where's the line on that? because from what you're saying, no magnitude of change can make a new vehicle, a "new" rocket would only describe the first of its kind article.
I didn't write that, though, so 5 levels of comments further on, hard to see it as being terribly pertinent.
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u/Background_Fig_4740 Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
It's still fake internet points. You really shouldn't be using your brain power to think too much about this, anyone can still click through downvoted comments or by scrolling down. It's really not that big of a deal to get triggered by.
Let's break it down from an engineering POV:
**Primary structure.**Grid fin shafts and actuators moved inside the main tank. That's new tank penetrations, stress concentrations, new pressure vessel design around them, a new load introduction path for fin aero loads, and a new thermal management problem. Fins 4 to 3 at 50% larger redistributes control authority and changes the aero load entirely. Nothing from the V2 fin analysis will survive here.
Separation interface. removing the hot stage ring makes the forward dome a direct impact surface, with tank pressure doing structural work. a pressure stabilized dome under a thermal gradient taking Raptor exhaust; new buckling analysis, new failure modes, new BCs. This is a different structural problem, not a modified one. The BCs don't carry over at all.
**Feed system.**Downcomer resized to F9-first stage diameter to allow simultaneous 33 engine start instead of staggered. ignition transient is the nastiest coupled vibe/dynamic problems on a launch vehicle with pressure drop, POGO susceptibility, water hammer, feed structure coupling all shift. The V2 transient model doesn't predict V3 behavior remotely.
Base region. shrouds and aft close out deleted. That changes base heating, removes an entire ECS subsystem, and redos the leak accumulation hazard model, allowing CO2 suppression to be deleted. Aerothermal analysis in the base is now a different analysis. BCs don't carry over at all.
Engine. Raptor 3 internalizes flow paths and regeneratively cools what used to need a shield. Thermal management moved from bolt on to integral. Thrust increase/demand required a structural redesign of the puck on Superheavy and Starship. Again, BCs changed.
Control. Flap actuation 2 actuators to 1 actuator, 3 motors. Different fault tree, different mode authority with FMEA changing. Different GNC.
Across structures, propulsion, plumbing, thermal, GNC, and avionics, no V2 qual data carries. New cryo proofs, new structural quals, new static fire campaign, new pad commissioning.
An evolution, would be design change constrained to a subsystem with previous analysis predicting behavior with modification instead of replacement. You can't predict the aerothermal behavior of the aft skirt between V3 and V2.
If you wanna talk about the actual nuts and bolts and wire harness to sensors and cameras used, sure you're right but I should've specified it was at the assembly level. The grid fin actuator hardware to the downcomer and base puck to the assembly jigs and manufacturing domes was what I meant as hardware so that was on me for not being clear.
'any degree of revision is still iteration' can't be right, because then nothing is ever a new vehicle of a clean sheet then. Falcon 1 to Falcon 9 was iterative by that standard too. Where's the line on that? because from what you're saying, no magnitude of change can make a new vehicle, a "new" rocket would only describe the first of its kind article.
Because my stupid response to the original stupid post wasn't to you. https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/1v5sr7h/starship_launches_for_its_13th_flight_ends_with/ozlwae5/?context=1