I think one thing that people fail to appreciate about what SpaceX is doing is their core believe with this project is that the manufacturing system is 10-100x more difficult then the design of the rocket itself, and that their goals can only be achieved if these two things are co-designed.
Their goals are to design a rocket system capable of landing on Earth, Moon, Mars and possibly others. Is must be able to refuel in space. It must be able to rapidly reusable, as in the same day multiple times. It must be cheap to manufacture, and it must be cheap to operate.
Every prototype brings in lots of new changes, none is exactly like that before, every around 5 prototypes there is a major generation upgrade. Every new prototype does not just test the new design, but also the improved manufacturing process.
All the learnings from both the build and the launch flow directly back to the developers and engineers working on it, and the required changes to into the backlog and eventually make it into later prototypes.
What the outcome of this process is, who knows unknown. SpaceX has shown to be incredibly flexible and change to new things quickly and without making a big deal about it. The change from carbon to stainless steel for example is a case where SpaceX had already tested tanks, they had already ordered tools, they had already bought a location. Within one month they dropped that. Iteration speed to slow, material cost to high, performance gain when combined with heat shield not worth it anyway.
Only when you consider cost, heat-shield consideration and iteration speed is it clear that stainless steel beats carbon fiber by a large margin.
The heat shield has been changed multiple times. The fins have been redesigned multiple times. The legs are a hot issue right now. The header tank design has changed over time. And so on and so on.
SpaceX will move forward like that, produce more and more prototypes that are closer and closer to the almost impossible goal. Every prototype is a fully integrated test from materials, design, manufacturing and operations.
Their goals are to design a rocket system capable of landing on Earth, Moon, Mars and possibly others. Is must be able to refuel in space. It must be able to rapidly reusable, as in the same day multiple times. It must be cheap to manufacture, and it must be cheap to operate.
Every prototype brings in lots of new changes, none is exactly like that before, every around 5 prototypes there is a major generation upgrade. Every new prototype does not just test the new design, but also the improved manufacturing process.
All the learnings from both the build and the launch flow directly back to the developers and engineers working on it, and the required changes to into the backlog and eventually make it into later prototypes.
What the outcome of this process is, who knows unknown. SpaceX has shown to be incredibly flexible and change to new things quickly and without making a big deal about it. The change from carbon to stainless steel for example is a case where SpaceX had already tested tanks, they had already ordered tools, they had already bought a location. Within one month they dropped that. Iteration speed to slow, material cost to high, performance gain when combined with heat shield not worth it anyway.
Only when you consider cost, heat-shield consideration and iteration speed is it clear that stainless steel beats carbon fiber by a large margin.
The heat shield has been changed multiple times. The fins have been redesigned multiple times. The legs are a hot issue right now. The header tank design has changed over time. And so on and so on.
SpaceX will move forward like that, produce more and more prototypes that are closer and closer to the almost impossible goal. Every prototype is a fully integrated test from materials, design, manufacturing and operations.