Video: SpaceX Grasshopper Destroyed During Test Flight
“Earlier today, in McGregor, Texas, SpaceX conducted a test flight of a three engine version of the F9R test vehicle (successor to Grasshopper). During the flight, an anomaly was detected in the vehicle and the flight termination system automatically terminated the mission. Throughout the test and subsequent flight termination, the vehicle remained in the designated flight area. There were no injuries or near injuries. An FAA representative was present at all times. With research and development projects, detecting vehicle anomalies during the testing is the purpose of the program. Today’s test was particularly complex, pushing the limits of the vehicle further than any previous test. As is our practice, the company will be reviewing the flight record details to learn more about the performance of the vehicle prior to our next test. SpaceX will provide another update when the flight data has been fully analyzed.”
Video of the flight termination here: http://www.kwtx.com/home/he…
That is why you test, makes one wonder what they tried to do.
This one had three engines while earlier test flights had one. In the video, the F9R appeared to pitch over severely. One of the standard flight test and pilot training items is recovering from extreme and unusual attitudes.
Like they say, “If you’re going to make an Omelet you’re gonna break some eggs.”
Test Flight Termination System: CHECK
Musk said from the start not cratering one meant they weren’t pushing it hard enough. Mission accomplished.
One would hope they have a spare in the barn.
They have already been building a second F9R vehicle to test in New Mexico. The Texas test site has a lower altitude limitation than the New Mexico site, so they’ll be able to perform even more aggressive tests in the future.
And that is why you test.
A thousand times better than if this happened during a commercial launch..and infinitely better if it was crewed.
Thanks for the flight termination video link, Chris. Very interesting. The explosion was a lot less dramatic than I was expecting…but I am sure that has to due with the relatively small size of the F9R, as well as a small fuel load. I loved how Musk closed out his brief tweet regarding the test:
“Rockets are tricky…”
Master of the understatement, lol.
I like how if this was SLS the title would be “NASA fails again and wastes taxpayer dollars”, but since it’s SpaceX, Keith takes a softer title approach. Got to love the bias…
Do note how little the F9R test vehicles cost to build and fly. Comparing this to an SLS launch failure is like comparing the cost of a Smart Car crash with a Lamborghini car crash.
Not to mention the Grasshopper is not intended to be anything but a test vehicle.
Sort of like comparing apples to apple cores. Or something.
How much do they cost to build and fly? I thought SpaceX has not really released much cost info since they are private.
There’s no reason for them to publicize their R&D expenses, but Shotwell did mention last fall that the whole Grasshopper program had a whopping 25 people working on it full-time. So you can ballpark the labor expense, at least.
John:
F9R dev. 1 was made from a qualification stage never meant to fly in space. So, in that sense it was free (or at the very least, pretty cheap).
All space companies make qualification vehicles to test (and over test) on the ground before flying ‘real’ ones.
After ground testing they are usually shoved in a dark corner of the factory floor.
Spacex has a history of using it’s qualification vehicles after the usual tests. The engineering model of the Dragon capsule flew on the very first Falcon 9 flight. The first Grasshopper was made from qualification tanks for the Falcon 9 v1.0 and a ‘used’ Merlin 1d.
But a good guess at actual price of a ‘brand new’ F9R would be about 20 to 30 million dollars.
Hope that give you some perspective.
tinker
Considering how much they’re charging their customers for a Falcon 9 launch, I’d guess it’s significantly less than that, otherwise they would not be making money on launches. Last time I checked a Falcon 9 launch was about $50 million.
Jeff:
The Falcon booster stage is about 70% to 80% the value of the whole launch vehicle my so guessed at price might even be low. I was assuming flesh ‘off the shelf’ components instead of repurposed hardware too.
tinker
I think your guess might be way high, not low.
Here’s why:
Current price of standard Falcon 9 config = $62.5 million.
Current price of Falcon Heavy standard config = $85 million.
FH = complete Falcon 9 with two more Falcon 9 1st stages tacked on.
Price of two extra F9 1st stages seems to be 85-62.5 = $22.5 million.
Price each is 22.5/2 = $11.25 million.
SpaceX may not price FH to make the same margin on the two side boosters as they do on a naked F9, but I doubt they’re letting them go at cost either.
SpaceX has said engines are about 3/4 of the cost of a 1st stage.
If SpaceX actually was planning to sell FH flights with at-cost side boosters, the engines would cost SpaceX at most 11.25 * .75 / 9 = $937,500 apiece.
Once again for emphasis.
That would seem to be the most they could cost SpaceX to build.
Any actual profit margin on those FH side stages puts the internal SpaceX cost of individual Merlin 1-D’s lower than that.
How much lower?
Damfino.
So, returning to the question of how much the recently destroyed vehicle cost SpaceX – given that it only had three engines – the upper limit would seem to be 11.25 – 6 * ,9375 = $5,625.000.
In all probability it cost SpaceX less than that; maybe as little as $2.5 to $3 million.
You don’t have to chew that over very long to see why SpaceX is Excedrin Headache #1 for every other launch vehicle builder – even if SpaceX never gets the hang of reusability.
You can also see that SpaceX’s margins on Falcon 9 are probably a lot richer than almost anybody has been inclined to speculate.
Perhaps the mystery of how SpaceX keeps itself going on the alleged bits and scraps of money they get for launches – compared to the older and allegedly wiser folks – has been answered.
Perhaps the idea that SpaceX has to be critically dependent on the government money it gets is just so much hooey.
How do they do the voodoo that they do so well?
Damfino.
But I think the SpaceX price list drops us a supersized hint.
We aren’t paying for Elon’s toy.
No taxpayer dollars were wasted on this video. All funded by SpaceX or its’ investors.
Spacex pays for this out of their own pocket. Not uncle Sam
You are honestly going to try and compare a private failure done with private sector, absolute bare bones funding, and a taxpayer, NASA billion dollar cost over runs failure?
I wouldn’t exactly call it bare bones funding since they are being paid a billion dollars for COTS, CCDev, and most likely will get a CCtCap contract. Also SLS hasn’t failed and has not had cost overruns yet.
That said failure happens when you are developing and using rockets. Happened all the time in the early days of NASA. That is not in and of itself a bad thing. The key is what SpaceX learns from it. I think they have the right mindset here.
I wouldn’t say SpaceX has absolute bare bones funding given that they are being paid north of a billion dollars for COTS, CRS, and CCDev. They also most likely will get a CCtCap contract (which I think is a good thing by the way). Also SLS hasn’t had cost overruns or failed yet.
That said failure is a fact of life in rocket development. It happened a number of times in the early days of NASA. Failure it not necessarily a bad thing. The key is to learn from it. I think SpaceX has the correct attitude about this.
So in 12 years SpaceX had received about 84 million dollars a year in federal funding and NASA had received 3 BILLION a year for SLS and MPCV …. and you do not call that bare bones funding …
LOL
Compared to say Bigelow or Virgin Galactic SpaceX has gotten a lot more funding. Should they get more for things like Dragon V2? Of course. I am not disputing that. I am just saying that they are not getting, “bare bones” funding.
Comparing SLS and Orion to Dragon/F9 is comparing apples and oranges. Orion is designed for BEO while Dragon is designed to be a space taxi (nothing wrong with that. I think Dragon V2 will be an excellent LEO taxi and one day a heavily modified version can have applications BEO). SLS has been on budget and on time so far and can heft more than F9 or FH in its initial configuration.
Just so you know I am a believer in the all of the above approach. Not just New Space or just Old Space. I think we should take the best of both.
I don’t see comparing Virgin Galactic to SpaceX as being any more useful than comparing F9/Dragon to SLS/Orion. VG isn’t going to orbit. Also, the “bare bones” funding, as I read the comment, referred to the Grasshopper & F9R-Dev program only, not SpaceX as a whole.
As for VG’s funding, obviously we don’t have numbers on what Branson has put into it. We do, however, know that Aabar has put in at least $490M to date for a 37.8% share of the company. That’s 20% more than NASA paid SpaceX to develop F9 and Dragon under the COTS program. And then there’s the $210M Spaceport America, virtually custom built for Virgin Galactic entirely at the expense of New Mexico taxpayers.
Bigelow publically commited four times the amount of personal start up capital for BA and had a starting income of over 20 million a year. SpaceX was funded a lot less as Elon Musk was also funding at the same time two other companies, solar city and Tesla. Musk didn’t have as healthy income stream at the time of his start ups.
The same with Branson, he commited three times the start up capital as SpaceX and Branson had a lot higher income stream at the start up time.
Right but neither VG or BA has north of $1 Billion dollars in taxpayer money. There is nothing wrong with that at all. I think SpaceX is doing a great job. The only point I was trying to make is that they don’t have “bare bones” funding compared to other commercial companies.
As for Dragon v. Orion right now the only major market for Dragon V2 is NASA. Will that change in the future? Yes, but not immediately. Orion is not being designed for the LEO market, it is designed for NASA BEO missions. There is no need for it to compete in LEO since SpaceX and others will have perfectly capable LEO taxis.
Is there a reason we can’t have both? (and don’t say money because a. If SLS or Orion were canceled the money wouldn’t come back to NASA or SpaceX. b. The whole point of commercial crew was to create a LEO taxi service at low cost. SLS and Orion are not interfering with that. c. More capability comes at more cost.)
The Federal government, ordered an agency, NASA, to aquire a new product and service that didn not exist in the private sector. That agency then decided exactly what they believed a company would need to produce the product they envisioned. To ensure each company had that ability, they BOUGHT those parts they wanted each company to beable to produce, This was done though milestones. The other commercial companies were not working under the same restrictions. They were not working for someone who demanded milestones. SpaceX produced a product (each milestone) on their own dime, when they completed each product to the customer’s satisfaction, they were then paid for each of those completed products (each milestone)
Milestones were products… required to be produced by the company and then SOLD to the customer on completion.
Dragon, is designed to come to MARKET … Orion is a government make work program.
Also SLS hasn’t had cost overruns or failed yet.
In pretty much the same way a guy who leaps off the top of the Empire State Building hasn’t made a big mess yet as he passes the 20th floor.
Paul
You really can’t compare pork to apples.
The point isn’t who pays for it, the point is fair unbiased reporting. In addition, sure SpaceX has low cost which is done by overworking its employees and as seen lately, allegedly violating labor laws.
The point is indeed who pays for it. People don’t like their tax dollars to be wasted by the tens of billions. This, in contrast, is a privately funded R&D effort in which the taxpayers are just spectators. If some private corporation were building SLS with its own money, you wouldn’t see nearly as much uproar about how much it cost. In fact, I’d wager you wouldn’t see much interest at all.
you wouldn’t see anything at all because no private company can afford to do anything on the NASA scale, that is why NASA exists
You mean waste money on the scale congress does through NASA funding. it is a make work project for space states.
Exactly. I think an Augustine Commission had some insightful comments on doing things on the “NASA scale”, comments about doing things on that scale is unsustainable, a way to guarantee not getting beyond LEO, and etc.
SLS is the poster child for unsustainable NASA projects.
How many “wastes of money” ended up as leaps in technology? Look at your smartphone and then open your mouth.
What exactly are the “leaps in technology” that you believe is going to come out of the SLS?
Christ that would laughable if it wasn’t so sad.
As noted in one of my above comments, it would seem SpaceX can work at NASA scale, just not at NASA costs.
That is very true, Paul. NASA gets crapped on by so many folks if there is a failure (even if it is small) – Ares 1-X is a primary example. Not too mention the complexity of the SLS vehicle is much more significant than the F9R. Tired of all the negativity that NASA experiences.
You’ll note that SLS has not flown, so the comparison to F9R is not a very good one.
Ares 1-X wasn’t a small failure like Grasshopper. It cost hundreds of millions for a single sub-orbital flight that proved: absolutely nothing. It was just an expensive stunt.
Whereas SpaceX is flying a test program that will hopefully lead to a reusable first stage vehicle for them and their customers.
Cheers.
I agree with you Paul, that headline would be there no matter what NASA rocket it was STS or Pegasus.
That’s your objective view? Oh, wait. You don’t have an objective view when it comes to NASA and SpaceX. You certainly have no idea what any article title would be if there was a similar NASA failure.
neither do you
Actually, I do. Like others here, I’ve worked for NASA. I want NASA to succeed; however, I’m objective enough to understand that won’t happen with projects like SLS, projects that aren’t financially viable, that will fly so infrequently as to increase the risk, that will be years behind where commercial providers will be. Note the Augustine commission had similar conclusions. I’m objective enough to understand that we should use the less expensive, equally reliable systems, system like those that SpaceX other others are bringing online.
Unlike you, I don’t rejoice in the failure of any company involved. I also realize that failures in bleeding edge flight prototypes happen, prototypes like Grasshopper and Grasshopper 2.
Augustine commission was crap. It was full of former CEO’s that have private sector in interest, not NASA’s. If you want a unbiased conclusion, get bunch of academics that have nothing to gain from the result.
Yes, that’s where you get your opinions: from your professors. Your fantasy of academic faculty providing unbiased conclusions is funny. You haven’t been in school very long, have you?
Acadamia that gets grants from Boeing, ATK, Lockheed Martin of course .. they would be objective about how NASA should do things.
Having spent enough time as an undergrad and graduate student I know for a fact that professor opinions can be less than objective.
longer than you
in NASA’s “interests” NASA is not some privately held or publically own corporation. It is a federal agency that is MANDATED to seek and encourage to the maximum extend possible the commercial use of space. That is … BY LAW what they are mandated to do…
NASA does not act in it’s own self interest. It acts in America’s best interest by priming the pump, raising the TRL of technology and then shoveling that tech into the private sector to help our economy create new markets.
Talk about clueless to what NASA is supposed to be about.
I know what NASA is suppose to do, so why is it compared to all the private companies that have a completely different goal?
NASA’s “interests” are mandated by law. One of the mandates is:
“(c) Commercial Use of Space.–Congress declares that the general welfare of the United States requires that the Administration seek and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, the fullest commercial use of space.”
A corporation’s interests are not mandated by law unless it has been given monopoly authority. So NASA’s interests ARE for expanding private sector interests in space.
Hey Paul, Very well put. Isn’t it funny how the spacex groupies bow down and praise spacex no matter what happens at spacex. But when any other aerospace company has the slightest hiccup, there spewing criticism all over the web.
All right – Nothing to see here – Please disperse! : https://www.youtube.com/wat…
A good PR man would spin it thus and so : ” SpaceX successfully tested the Flight Termination System of its Falcon 9 family of modern space launchers today in Texas. The F9R test vehicle had reached the end of its useful life after many test flights and it was decided to retire it in a blaze of glory while achieving a long anticipated positive destructive testing goal. SpaceX is now confident it can successfully and safely abort a Falcon 9 launch at any point in the ascent /descent profile.
Absolutely no cows were harmed in the making of this motion picture. “
yeah, that’s pretty much what the space x STATEMENT sounded like!
Are you sure about the cows? In a conversation with Mashable via Twitter, McGregor resident @EthansMommy17 claimed cows had been killed by debris from the explosion. She was unable to provide images or other confirmation of the affected livestock, however.
Maybe not killed but I’ll bet there’s a lot of extra manure on the pastures now
She was unable to provide images or other confirmation of the affected livestock, however.
How conveeeeeenient!
they don’t have to, just about everyone on this forum is doing it for them
I would really like to see the quadcopter view of this flight–I hope they release it.
if the quadcopter survived, i’m sure we’ll see the video from it at some point. the SpaceX engineers and analysts will be going over it with a fine-toothed comb first!
Would the quadcopter not have been transmitting the video in real time? Or does it record for download upon landing?
that depends on the design. most small RC aircraft are flown visually, with the onboard camera saving video to an SD card.
Quad-copter video would be interesting. Another video I’d like to see is an animation of what happened based on the telemetry, like how NASA shows launches after the rocket has left visual range.
So… I’m assuming that range safety allows for less margin here than it would if arcing out over the Atlantic, and that may have necessitated a quicker destruction?
I would assume so. One of Musk’s nearby neighbors, for example, is the Crawford, TX ranch of ex-Pres. G.W. Bush. I’m pretty sure the Secret Service’s Presidential Protection Detail wouldn’t much like the idea of errant rockets dropping in even on an ex-Pres.
Either a TVC or GNC failure of some sort. If it is the former, it’s a data point on the lifespan-with-refurbishment prediction chart for the Merlin-1d (the vehicle’s centreline/steering engine has the most operational minutes of any engine of the type). If it’s the latter, it’s time to start going through the software line-by-line as well as trying to determine if it’s a data point on the chart for the lifespan of the gyros.
Saturday 830 eastern standard time I googled 280 articles on this little F9R test.
Daddy why do people like to watch NASCAR crashes?
Seems Mr. Musk is a master of getting his reusable rocket research in the news too.
You can browse down the article titles and see some that try to paint this TEST in a negative light.
Looks to me like a flameout when the booster began the transition to hover mode. Then you can see in the video what appears to be a reignition right before the FTS destroyed the vehicle.
I am wondering if the (probably unintentional) flameout was enough to trigger the FTS, but the vehicle may have already begun recovery.
It is designed for an inflight reignition.
I agree; Musk had said some more aggressive maneuvers were planned. Engines had shut down and relit several times in the offshore tests, but an _unexpected_ flameout could have triggered the FTS. All three engines shutting down simultaneously seems like a controller or flight rule anomaly rather then some sort of instability in the engines, although pogo or some similar fuel sloshing effect due to sudden decelleration is also possible. The latter might explain the reignition, or the initial glow could have actually been the initiation of the FTS. It also appears the vehicle was displaced laterally from the point of the engine shutdown when the explosion occurred.
I remember Delta IVH first flight where unexpected cavitation in the fuel lines gave an erroneous indication of low fuel pressure which triggered simultaneous shutdown of the booster engines. The previous F9R test used only one engine and made a very smooth transition to hover with no visible reduction in the plume.
Interesting idea. It does look like that from the video at the link Chris Holmes posted above from KWTX. It looks like the thing really pitched right before flameout, maybe as part of the test. However, I paid attention to the audio hoping to hear the relight before the bang but didn’t hear it. It could have been that only part of the engine restarted so wasn’t as loud.
Maybe they were actually testing a situation with both pitch and flameout, and it was relighting, but the FTS was more eager to destruct than they hoped in the test parameters – they maybe didn’t adjust for that and didn’t expect FTS to destruct in that situation and it ended up ruining their test, but of course proving the FTS.
Just throwing out more ideas.
The Atlas users for crew talk about their auto self destruct. Looks like SpaceX has one and now has been tested. Got to add in shutting down the engines and firing the abort motors though. I would like a human to say ok, but I guess not enough time. I wonder why they use 3 engines. The ones landing in the ocean use 1 engine. They say the ones without landing gear they are doing some testing. It may be possible to do the 180 and fly back some.
Could you please retitle the article. It was not Grasshopper that exploded but a Falcon 9R test vehicle. The Grasshopper test vehicle was retired some time ago.
many still refer to the F9R Dev1 as the “Grasshopper 2”
Many is not SpaceX.
sometimes they have: https://www.facebook.com/Sp…
Haa,haa, so much for perfect record.
And, to correct Mr Musk on his creation being the most successful rocket ever built, somehow he forgets the Saturn 5.
What are you talking about?? The Falcon 1 had bunches of failures. The Falcon 9 v1 had a engine failure (but carried out its primary mission and only a marginal on its secondary – due to NASA requirements).
The Falcon 9 v1.1 had a second stage restart failure, altho that was just a spaceX test after the payload was delivered.
The test rocket that just failed was exactly that – a test vehicle. Designed to push the envelope. If the failure was part of the initial up boost, then it has implications. If a result of extreme testing, then no implications.
Not sure what Musk’s quote was. Could you reference it?
BTW, the Saturn V had some serious inflight hardware failures altho all missions succeeded.
Apollo 6 is pretty much the standard for test failures; pogo, structural failures, early engine shutdowns, failed mission objectives. And yet, two launches later we sent three very brave men into TLI and orbit. NASA and the astros had real guts to do things like that, but that was the culture back then.
Darn right. And the Saturn V that lofted Apollo 13 (which had a few issues of it own!) had serious problems, too.
Amazingly, with Apollo 6’s severe problems, Apollo 8, the very next Saturn V (Apollo 7 flew on a Saturn 1B, the V’s little brother), was sent to the Moon with astronauts. Like you said, there was some real grit back then.
pogo oscillations on Apollo 6 – not a failure, the engines dealt with it without exploding, second stage – not a failure, engines shut down and vehicle kept going,
Apollo 13 had a service module failure – not part of Saturn V vehicle.
Apollo 6 –
“Three major problems occurred during the mission.”
“Two minutes and five seconds after launch, the Saturn V structure underwent a severe pogo oscillation, (more than double allowed amount) without damage to the spacecraft structure. Due to a manufacturing flaw and unrelated to the pogo oscillations, structural panels were lost from the lunar module adapter.”
“Three hundred and 19 seconds after launch, a fuel line leak in the S-II’s engine 2 caused a loss of thrust. After 94 seconds, the thrust had dropped off further; both engines 2 and 3 lost 40 percent of their power, triggering a shutdown of both engines. The dual shutdown was accompanied by a power surge, which caused a loss in pressure in engines 4 and 5. Only engine 1 made it through launch unscathed”
“After two orbits, the third stage failed to reignite as planned”
If this were a manned lunar mission it would have been aborted.
Apollo 13- You did not carefully read my post:
“And the Saturn V that lofted Apollo 13 (which had a few issues of it own!) had serious problems, too.”
The Apollo 13 Saturn V had problems, possibly due to pogo the center engine of stage 2 shutdown.
And none of them exploded, and all of them delivered the payload to the destination orbit.
LOL. you slay me!
NO THEY DIDN’T The Apollo 6 Saturn V 3rd stage FAILED. It would not boost the Apollo out of orbit. They had to use the Service module to give a boost to the ship. Only 6 out of 16 mission objectives were met.
Did it explode? No. The system worked just fine to protect the vehicle. And all that with just a pencil, paper, adding machine, and slide rule.
I luv ya, man! You provide some serious entertainment.
The F9R-1 didn’t explode due to the failure, the detonation you see is the FTS intentionally blowing the tanks. The actual failure looks like an engine shut-down (or something even less visible which caused the engine control systems to trigger a shut-down, which…)
You’re implying that Yales isn’t comparing apples with apples because Apollo 6 didn’t explode. But Apollo 6 involved multiple engine shut-downs. F9R-1 involved engine shut-downs.
It really says something about someone when he gets so much joy out of the failure of a test piece. I guess you don’t understand what test pieces are for.
I am not happy that they failed, I’m happy that their ego was finally deflated to some earthly level. Everyone keeps treating SpaceX as some sort of gods and it is really P888ing me off. You don’t see me badmouthing Sierra Nevada, Scaled Composites or Boeing do you? That is because they are humble people that understand that this is not a game. SpaceX walked into this with a big mouth saying we can do better than NASA – well they just proved that they can’t.
Hey SpaceMunkie, so glad to hear people finially speaking the truth about spacex. A lot of these Spaceflight forums edit the spacex criticism out.
I really doubt there is any editing out of SpaceX criticism, It probably just seems that way since there are a lot more people excited about what SpaceX is accomplishing then there are people who have an unreasonable bitterness for them.
LOL what a load of tripe
Huh, funny how you give Scaled Composites a pass, when Burt Rutan was famous for his NASA bashing. I doubt you will find similar statements from Musk. I think the perceived cockiness comes from the extreme success SpaceX has been having, along with the extreme lack of visible progress on NASA’s part. Also last I checked, as far as rocket development goes- they are still doing much better than NASA. SpaceX at least has something they can launch and have fail. Its hard to have requirements documents and power point slides end in a fiery explosion.
P.S – Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate NASA, I just think the HSF side should be more like the aeronautics side – doing research and fostering industry, not building rockets.
Except that Burt is an aerospace engineer, and when he was wrong he admitted his fault. Burt also bashed NASA for being too conservative.
Pushing a system to the edge of its capabilities is important in any serious testing regime. When they build new passenger airlineres, for example, they put them into a rig that bends their wings at the midpoint until they break off.
– Gwynne Shotwell, June 2013
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
What nonsense. SpaceX had a failure pushing an extreme. Excellent. If you don’t push, you don’t advance.
“If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.”
Thomas J. Watson IBM
Boeing humble?? You are kidding of course?
Why are people cheering on SpaceX? Because they are going somewhere. They are sailing the sea of space. They are making the future. Musk has a vision – agree with it or not – Solar City, Tesla, Hyperloop, SpaceX. 80,000 colonists on Mars. What does SpaceX stand for? SPACE EXPLORATION TECHNOLOGIES CORP.
Boeing, Scaled Composites, SN, etc., all excellent companies – particularly SC, but they are essentially vendors supplying contracted services.
SpaceX is taking us, yes US – you and me or our children to the stars.
Uhm, which of the other aerospace companies flying missions to space is landing spent stages?
I’m confident that SpaceX doesn’t think that what they’re doing is a game. That you think so says more about you than it does SpaceX.
As for what pisses you off, who cares?
none, neither is SpaceX
Apparently, you haven’t been paying attention. Two missions have already soft-landed a stage in the ocean.
every other company is landing spent stages. they’re just dumping them in the ocean. re-using the first stage if could be turned around like an airplane and would cost you no additional inert weight and maneuvering fuel would indeed be very beneficial. problem is none of that is possible from a standpoint of physics. inert mass additions mean payload not flown means dollars not earned. maneuvering fuel for landing equals payload not flown equals dollars. and thermally protecting the vehicle and the engines so they’re not burned up in the cool landing videos equals lots of payload not flown and lots of maintenance which equals lots of cost. and oh by the way even if spacex flies a falcon 9 and lands it successfully they will never under any circumstances ever be able to re-fly the engines or the vehicle for an AF mission. which they seem to want very badly. Aerospace corp will never ever ever ever ever ever approve it. thus AF will never buy it. period. the military has a saying, weapons and tactics are for amateurs, logistics is for professionals. being capable of dealing with Aerospace is the logistics part of EELV. as SpaceX is learning…
AF missions aren’t the only missions that SpaceX wants. They’ve a bevy of commercial missions. You can talk to SpaceX if you think you’ve got insight that they don’t have.
so you think just because spacex is doing it they’ve discovered something wrong with the rocket equation that nobody else has in the last 70 years of rocketry? interesting… kinda reminds me of people with a BA in poetry who are so sure global warming is man made because of the “consensus”….
rockofritters – I don’t even know where to start….
The Falcons 9 and heavy are payload-rated and priced at capacity after subtracting fuel and mass lost to return to launch-pad. You don’t think they understood your concerns? It just sorta slipped their mind? They also price to the requirements of the customer. No reused parts? Fine. No landing legs? Fine. Use maximum payload capacity? Fine. BTW – They are designed to be reflown in less than 10 hours. They do not need refurbishment after each flight, similar to a jet. They can and do fire the engines over and over. They are not stupid. They are, in fact, real rocket scientists, the best in the business.
Also, a brand new rocket carrying a gov payload with a mass within reusable reserve size is then fueled up and reused at a discount (ultimately at a savings of 99%) by less stringent commercial customers. The gov doesn’t care what happens with a discarded stage.
You don’t think Elon Musk hasn’t done the business case??
“every other company is landing spent stages. they’re just dumping them in the ocean.”
that is incredibly ignorant ..
a ballistic drop from orbital or suborbital of spent stages with absolutely NO form of braking or slowing the desent is NOT landing or even attempting to land …
You should take this stand up routine on the road.
rockofritters.. You seem to be confused between being ripped to pieces by a hypersonic wind blast followed by getting smashed to flinders hitting the water at hundreds of mph vs. deftly slipping to earth and landing at zero mph on legs.
I sure hope you never become an airline pilot!
Rockofritters wrote:
Well, they actually do have AF contracts. Look here: SPACEX AWARDED TWO EELV-CLASS MISSIONS FROM THE UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
One is on a Falcon 9 (which can be re-used) and the other on a Falcon Heavy (which can be reused).
What SpaceX is trying to do is break the 36 core bulk buy made by the military, not whether they are competent to fly AF missions.
As to being professionals, don’t forget SpaceX has flown repeated missions to the space station which is as high-end as it gets.
Totally wrong.
The Pentagon is very serious about re-usable launchers. They are signing contracts right now. http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEv…
It has to be capable of flying 10 missions in 10 days (which SpaceX falcons are designed to do)
The Boeing corporation’s MASSIVE PR spending and the millions spent lobbying is all because they are humble? They have spent hundreds of millions convincing the planet they are the greatest thing since peanut butter when it comes to Airliners. They do the same thing at EVERY congressional meeting on the hill when Talking about the Delta II and Delta IV’s launch record.
LOL
I just surprised they didn’t try to call it a successful test of their abort system.
When an automobile manufacturer crashes a car in to a wall to test it, that test is only a failure if they do not gather the required data they were looking for.
This test would only be a failure if they do not aquire the data they were looking for. If they did get the required data they were looking for from this test, regardless what happened to the vehicle the test would be considered a success.
That is not a Grashopper. That is a three-engined Falcon 9.
aka “Grasshopper 2” or sometimes “Grasshopper v1.1” or F9R Dev1
In other news, the US Army had to destroy its hypersonic demonstrator vehicle shortly after launch from Kodiak Island Alaska on August 25. Vehicle destroyed 4 seconds into flight, due to an ” anomaly”.
It’s tricky doing this rocket stuff… where did I last hear that ?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/…
there is a big difference between flying a rocket – which we have done for the last 50 years – and flying something powered through the atmosphere at Mach 7+ ,- research never done before
Munkie- you might actually have a point if the hypersonic test vehicle had even broken the sound barrier, let alone made it to Mach 6+. But it was destroyed within spitting distance of the launch pad…4 seconds into flight. ( See above)… launching on a standard booster. That tried and true booster flunked. So your point is…….?
That they were paying more attention to the payload and the experiment than the setup.
You’re simply trying (and painfully, obviously, embarrassingly trying to worm around the actual point you tried to make (and flubbed amusingly) – that the hypersonic vehicle was super-duper cutting edge and can be excused for a mishap. But, a simple common old rocket shouldn’t have a problem, just showing that those losers at SpaceX are just a bunch of incompetent clowns. Ooops.. the military failure WAS that pesky rocket and NOT the bleeding edge glider. Guess what? We actually can read what you actually said in your first post. Swallow your pride and move on.
Thank you for putting your words in my mouth.
The words he put in your mouth reflect your thinking.
you must be the best empath in the world that you know exactly what I’m thinking
No, a telepath would know what you’re thinking. An empath would only know what you’re feeling. It takes neither to read your bias and position.
your verbose tirade about my post is comical