SpaceX Will Attempt Rocket Ship Landing on a Drone Barge (Update)
X Marks the Spot: Falcon 9 Attempts Ocean Platform Landing
“During our next flight, SpaceX will attempt the precision landing of a Falcon 9 first stage for the first time, on a custom-built ocean platform known as the autonomous spaceport drone ship. While SpaceX has already demonstrated two successful soft water landings, executing a precision landing on an unanchored ocean platform is significantly more challenging.”
NASA, SpaceX Delay Launch of Fifth SpaceX Resupply Mission to Space Station
“NASA and SpaceX announced today the launch of SpaceX’s fifth commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station now will occur no earlier than Tuesday, Jan. 6. The new launch date will provide SpaceX engineers time to investigate further issues that arose from a static fire test of the Falcon 9 rocket on Dec. 16 and will avoid beta angle constraints for berthing the Dragon cargo ship to the station that exist through the end of the year.”
Marc’s Update: SpaceX Completes Static Fire Test Ahead of ISS CRS-5 Launch
“On Friday SpaceX completed a successful static fire test of the Falcon 9 rocket in advance of the CRS-5 mission for NASA. The test was conducted at SpaceX’s Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, and ran for the full planned duration.”
That is so cool. I’d like to see them try a sea launch as well.
Not this flight, but the plan is to have the barge-landed stage get robotically refueled. It then flies back to the land where it is readied with a new upper stage and payload.
That works best with the center sustainer core of the Falcon heavy. That puppy goes pretty far down range, and with a big payload, uses a lot of fuels.
I believe the barge will move to off shore and the stage will just do the same manuver the grasshopper test vehicle did when it flew sideways a couple hundred feet.
Once the re-fuel/return process goes into production, it would be a pretty outrageous sight if both ends were visible from shore.
Or you could use an end of life core and engines for your center and not worry about it.
With government launches, at least at the beginning, the rockets and engines must be virgin.
With reusing the center core, a payload to GTO would take a real hit. “Where I basically see this netting out is Falcon 9 will do satellites up to roughly 3.5 tonnes, with full reusability of the boost stage, and Falcon Heavy will do satellites up to 7 tonnes with full reusability of the all three boost stages,” he (Musk) said, referring to the three Falcon 9 booster cores that will comprise the Falcon Heavy’s first stage. He also said Falcon Heavy could double its payload performance to GTO “if, for example, we went expendable on the center core.” On the Aviation Week website article dated March 2014.
One of the reasons that the 2nd stage is not reusable is due to the performance hit. (OTOH, The BFR will be totally reusable by design)
The first-stage performance depends on the mode.
All three cores can be recovered, or outer cores recovered with inner core expended, or with full cross-propellant, all three cores fuel depleted and expended.
The customer pays for the mode. The base price will all cores recovered is $88 million for 6400 kg payloads to GTO.
The down-range barge or islands contribute to inner core recovery with lower fuel usage.
An added complication with 2nd stage recovery is they have to do basically an AOA which would mean near-orbital reentry speeds, and also extensive cross range capability if they want to land near the launch site. All of that adds weight which adds even more to the performance hit.
But it will eventually be done I believe as it would be basically the last puzzle piece in a fully reusable system.
Shotwell pointed out that burning 3 kgs of fuel or extra hardware in the first stage for recovery costs only 1 kg in payload, so it works.
In the second stage it costs 1kg of payload for 1 kg of recovery-specific hardware and fuel.
With adding landing legs, heat-shield, guidance systems, etc., the second stage is just too close to the edge, so it will be expended.
The BFR is being designed with enough margins to be completely reusable.
So only fix would be a mini raptor burning methane which Musk said he has no plans to do right now.
Doesn’t ULA have second stage with enough kick to do reusability?
The centaur is the ULA second stage. It is hydrogen fueled and SpaceX won’t use it (even if it were available to them).
The falcon is simplicity. single width tubes with same engines.
75% of the Falcon cost is stage one. Losing payload is not worth it to SpaceX to recover the other 25%.
Whoa, wait a moment.. that’s a new one. That could go a long way towards showing reusability/rapid turnaround. Will the booster have to make the second hop with legs down the entire flight? I don’t recall seeing anything about the legs being retractable. Gonna make for some interestingly new flight characteristics.
At some point, you just have to take the plunge and try an all-up flight profile. If this works out, it could be a game-changer for US rocket technology and change the baseline capabilities that NASA and DoD will be expecting from ULA’s NGLV, so there is a lot riding on it.
Where is the best location to go to see this launch for free?
http://spacecoastlaunches.com/
http://www.reddit.com/r/spa…
X also tells fliers not to land their. Probably no one will do a stunt. Someone did do a touch and go on a carrier being towed. Will they have 2 more barges for Heavy? Don’t think they can land 3 at once. Maybe they will have flyback by then.
I think some new info: To help stabilize the stage and to reduce its speed, SpaceX relights the engines for a series of three burns,” SpaceX wrote on its website. “The first burn — the boostback burn — adjusts the impact point of the vehicle and is followed by the supersonic retro propulsion burn that, along with the drag of the atmosphere, slows the vehicle’s speed from 1300 m/s (2,900 mph) to about 250 m/s (559 mph). The final burn is the landing burn, during which the legs deploy and the vehicle’s speed is further reduced to around 2 m/s (4.5 mph).” Also they did have had a 10K target . Now 10m. A lot more complicated. They have a support ship with a large dish. Maybe a landing live.
A good view of the steering paddles in action can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
The production paddles are larger.
The words to SpaceX — cameras, cameras, cameras. On the barge, on the rocket, the chase drones,.. this is gonna be fun to watch.. I hope there is live coverage.
very, very unlikely that they will stream the landing attempt live. just like their grasshopper tests in texas, i’d expect video a week or so later.
like I said once before, we’ll only see the video if it is successful, if it fails, the video will look like the last “soft landing” attempt, mostly static with one or two barely recognizable frames
What the heck are you talking about?
Here are 2 water landings with legs:
CRS-3: https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Orbcomm: https://www.youtube.com/wat…
From chase plane: https://www.youtube.com/wat…
How they managed to get that from the original mess is beyond me.
SpaceX released it on the internet and asked for help cleaning it up. Some group that knows a lot about video actually did a great job. You can read about it on Reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/spa…
and here:
http://forum.nasaspacefligh…
http://www.nasaspaceflight….
The video from the next landing was perfect, except icing covered the camera. However, the full landing (and tip-over) are plainly visible.
What surprises me is your repeated not-so-veiled implications in many threads that SpaceX is lying and cheating.
I know that you somehow resent the incredible success of a game-changing innovator, but there should be limits.
Yes, SpaceX is destroying ULA. Yes, Arianespace is doomed, Yes, ILS is doomed. Well, that’s the way it goes. Progress comes from change. Those companies chose to maintain their position by obstructionism, rather than reformation. Game over.
How exactly is anyone doomed? You realize, don’t you, that SpaceX doesn’t have an infinite build and launch capacity, right? You also realize that a space industry made of one manufacturer would not be good, right?
I was speaking dramatically. ULA is already planning to shrink by half. ILS is massively laying off. Ariannespace is using a Europe-first rule to force customers to stop abandoning it and getting massive government bailouts.
They will survive, but no longer be dominant, and after a near-death experience may reform themselves.
As to capacity, spaceX, with launch sites in California, Texas, at least 2 in Florida, 200+ per year engine production and reusability, they would easily handle any volume. Should they, is a different question.
In the same way that the Stanley Motor Carriage Company was not doomed. Certainly there will be competitors.
Mr. Squared
Realizing that government still controls the market should the government keep giving Boeing ULA tons of money to compete with SpaceX or should the next competitor be someone like firefly. Didn’t ULA just get a big contract, with jeff to build an engine to compete with Merlin and raptor. I don’t see uncle sugar paying for Raptor nor do I think he should.
When has the government given ULA money to expressly “compete with SpaceX”?
You’d be surprised how far imaging has advanced.
Wonder if this barge will also be used for Dragon powered test landings?
unlikely, but an interesting idea. all the required DragonFly testing is supposed to be done at McGregor.
I wonder if Jeff Bezos has his patent infringement paperwork all ready to go …
SpaceX has already challenged that patent.
http://www.geekwire.com/201…
I know.. no decision until the new year though .. so .. just curious if Bezos will push it or not.
No live feed of Barge Landing, is that true? I heard launch is live, barge Landing is taped? If you could see Wilbers first flight live would you want too?
@SpaceX may be robbing us of seeing history as it happens. Why? No good excuse.@ElonMusk #SpaceX
More than hundred years after filmed/taped history, Spacex can do better.
very, very unlikely that they will stream the landing attempt live. just like their grasshopper tests in texas, i’d expect video a week or so later.
oh, and there’s an excellent reason why. again, just like the Grasshopper tests, what SpaceX is doing is a test, therefore all data they get from it is their own proprietary information. they want their engineers to have a chance to study everything associated with the landing before releasing any data (including video) to the public. it’s their choice whether to release some, all, or no video. you have no right to it just because you want to see it.
Still stinks!
Their right and all
Still a bummer and not in their interest
People want to SEE them try
I walked up to a guy I said if you could see the wright brothers do their first test flight would you watch? He said sure. Then I briefly told him about Spacex barge attempt and what it means. He said he will Google to watch. He had no clue about this, he thought Spacex had something to do with comet landing.
Now if he watches he will only see another BORING rocket launch. This is great theater Spacex is stupid if they keep us at the door!!
P.T. Barnum would be saying come watch the show, odds are we will blow the barge up on this one NASCAR Fans
Bet we would get more people interested in Space if they sunk the barge on the first one.
maintaining control of proprietary data is absolutely in SpaceX’s best interest.
rocket launches are never boring. if you think they are, then you need to get a new hobby.
of course you are at the door, along with everyone else. if you want in, get hired by SpaceX. otherwise, stop complaining that SpaceX is doing what it has always done on every single one of their tests.
If there was any intrinisc value to the flight of the neo-boilerplate Apollo a/k/a/ Orion two weeks ago , besides testing the heat shield and parachute , it was a platform for NASA to use and fly a whole lotta cameras. The videos overblew the actual technical goals of the test hop . Orion had some great video, and it’s still coming out ( the stuff shot out the portholes during descent, for instance). We saw the landing , and it was a beautiful thing those lofty colorful parachutes in the cumulus clouds over the deep blue sea. The UAV and landing team nailed the vid of Orion. It could’ve just as easily ended in a dramatic fail.
Spaceflight videos make excellent PR. If I were to guess, I’d say Elon won’t allow video of the initial Falcon 9 barge landings to be released in real time , since there is a better than even chance they will fail. But if any landing does succeed, it will be a very short wait before SpaceX releases the video ( hours) , nicely wrapped , for public consumption and a good dig at the aerospace-defense-industrial cabal.
Yes there is a very good “excuse”. SpaceX is in the launch business not the entertainment business. THEIR needs come first and controling the narrative with billions of dollars on the line and thousands of jobs at stake it becomes imparative. you must agree
Blah lol
Vlad 🙂
I recall a Really Big Show that was doe on a NASA mission just few weeks back Live video all the way. NASA drone live feed of an Apollo reenactment. Paid for by the American taxpayer.
Friday same deal NASA mission contractor flying for NASA Taxpayer footing the bill. And you say Spacex has control of the PR. Did Boeing??
I don’t understand the different?
This SpaceX landing exercise is paid for by SpaceX, not NASA.
Because there are people out there that would love nothing better than to see ANY negative associated with this attempt and spin it negatively for their own special interests. Controling the narrative means SpaceX drives the news not the other way around.
A luxury NASA never has.
nor should it.
Perhaps they should have. When failure is not acceptable every manner of expense and risk-aversion become acceptable.
Odd you should mention Wilber’s first flight. The Wright brothers were extremely secretive about their initial flights. To the point where, as late as 1905, some people didn’t even believe they had made a successful flight. SpaceX is paying for the landing. That means they get to decide who sees the video and when.
According to chatter on the nasaspaceflight forum. There are a few satcom uplink antennas on the barge and the support ships suitable for so so video coverage. So we might get a low definition video more or less live if the SpaceX CTO permits.
Maybe somebody should Tweet Mr. @ElonMusk
Paying for the landing?? They’re just buying the Boat!
Hey Clem, Get your old donzie out of the garage. We are headed to Charleston. Put the farm fuel tank in the back of the boat. We’re gona need a hell of a lot of gas. I got laptop cam and the old VHS camcorder. Bring your ship to shore shit. I got the coordinates. We are headed out to international waters!
OK ladies and gents, who wants to see our LIVE feed of history ? Who would rather wait?
Me and Clem
Add
Clem, back at that road block, did you see that sign? It said something like this comment is being held for approval by NASA Watch. No worries Clem we’re the good guys. Keep driving 🙂 I fell asleep. How long were we at that road block anyway?
NASA is paying for the boost uphill. Images from NASA tracking cameras belong to us. Internal cameras belong to SpaceX.
Once the stage separates NASA (and We The People) are out of the loop and SpaceX can do with their proprietary images whatever they want. Its on their dime.
We’ll just drive our boat around the Charleston harbor for the holidays and wait then.
We did a good job Clem. Hit the gas!!!
Not disputing the comparison, but the Wright Brothers were not quite as secretive as is often believed, at least not in the early days. They were actually mystified that people didn’t believe they had a working airplane. During their development period they allowed Octave Chanute to see what they were working on, and in 1901 Wilbur gave a lecture at the Western Society of Engineers including diagrams, and since these were engineers he went into intricate details about their wing designs, testing methods, etc. A transcript of the lecture including diagrams was published in the 1902 Smithsonian Institution Annual Report.
The early flight tests were in a remote area partially because they didn’t want the distraction of reporters, but also because the Kitty Hawk location was the closest of the sites recommended by Chanute. They welcomed any of the locals to watch them, and in fact the famous photograph of the first controlled powered flight (111 years ago today) was taken by the cousin of a North Carolina State Senator. He took several photographs that day including a photo of the final flight of the day which went for almost a minute and covered nearly 300 yards.
After the successful powered flights they sent a wire to their parents telling them to inform the press. However attempts to get any of the newspapers interested was unsuccessful.
Back in Dayton they flew constantly at Huffman Prairie in plain view of a highway. They invited the press a few times initially for demonstrations, unfortunately unsuitable weather conditions prevented flying, and the Wrights would not allow photographs, so the already skeptical press soon lost interest. As time went on they became more and more reticent about the press, and basically just quietly worked on their airplane, not so much in secret but no longer trying to publicize what they were doing. And on the advice of their patent attorney they stopped giving out details about their airplane.
It wasn’t until 1908 after enduring years of ridicule that they decided to do public demonstrations. Their flights in France in 1908 stunned a previously disbelieving country, and they became world heroes almost overnight. Even though their airplane had not been improved upon for over two years it was still much more capable than any other airplane at the time. But they never recovered from their earlier missteps in promoting their invention and they were soon overtaken by Glenn Curtiss and others.
Elon Musk I think is a lot more savvy about publicity and privacy, but then again he has over 100 years of history to learn from in this regards, the Wrights had to rely only on their instincts, which unfortunately in regards to how to best capitalize on their invention their instincts failed them.
From the video of the water soft-landing, it seems to come in at an angle, doesn’t look like it would have landed without toppling.
So I think this first attempt may be a pretty dramatic smashup… but they are expecting that, of course. Regardless,this incremental approach is something I’ve never seen in my lifetime (born in ’65, too late to remember anything before Skylab).
It sure is getting exciting.
It lands totally vertically
Yes, I know it’s supposed to. What I was saying is that in the video it did not appear to do so successfully, which wouldn’t be particularly surprising for a test such as that.
If you look at the youtube videos from both the rocket and from a chase plane it goes perfectly vertical. Where do you see otherwise?
There are more than one landing shown, the grasshopper one, and the first stage water soft landing, are we talking about the same one?
Anyway, on the water one, the cams on the rocket can;t show clearly, because of course they are on the rocket and the water surface is indistinct, you can’t tell precise angle from that.
The telephoto ones of course miss the lass second or so, but it definitely has an angle to it… not extreme, but seemingly enough that two legs would have hit first unless there was quite a last-second correction.
Hard to tell, of course, because of the low-quality video.
Here is an image of a water landing. I added two lines. The black line is 0 degrees, the white line is about 4.4 degrees. Small image and kinda of fuzzy. I do not believe there is enough of an angle that the newly added fins can not easily correct fo at a hover at landing.
If you look at :42 seconds in the video a couple posts back, you will see that it swings vertical at the end.
Also look here:
http://www.space.com/22379-…
Maybe they were aiming for an imaginary target which could at least partly account for not being vertical. Compared to the grasshopper tests this was a much more dynamic situation for trying to hit a target.
I understand that those fins are higher-altitude stabilizers, no? At low altitude it’s rockets all the way?
Is the center engine gimboled? Once they are hovering I believe that is the way they do movement. The higher fins are prehovering manuvering?
The F9R does not hover. It is a control crash landing on fumes.
All the Merlin engines gimboled on the F9R core.
It did on the water landings
If they have extra fuel wouldn’t they hover till nearly empty then set down????? Won’t Spacex hover high over barge and decide to abort or not. Wont they have plenty of fuel margin since not traveling to land? Did grass hopper and F9R land empty or not? wasn’t the top of their tests a hover? I never understood the control crash thing when it was discussed here ??
Born in 55 this is the same as the sixties, first time this, first time that, It was so cool.
In 63 Popular Science, Von Braun wrote about the need for reusablity. Finally!!!
there are four engines, one on each corner, that will keep the barge in position. the touchdown only happens in a split second, so the landing radar will cut the engine when the feet touch down on wherever the surface of the barge is.
Not only vertical, but horizontal as well to within a few meters. Not sure how accurate it has to be or how they can control it that accurately. I would put success odds at much lower than 50%.
Word on the street
Spacex launch likely to slip to January. No word from Spacex yet
Well, if it works, it will be the most important event in space, certainly this year, and maybe this century. The implications are profound. For all the talk of recovering boosters over the last 50 years, amazing it took until now and a non-conventional player to come up with the idea.
SpaceX itself surely eclipses reusability- a private company with the lowest prices and slick technology. They are the Wrights of the 21st.
Thanks to Steve for the rundown on the Wright Bros. and for pointing out that Elon is much smarter about media.
the implications aren’t as profound as you think. understanding how to fly back the first stage and landing it isn’t new. Shuttle looked at flyback boosters several times. DCX demonstrated the landing 20 years before SpaceX tried it. The problem is how do you refurbish and recertify the hardware for another flight after it’s been through descent heating, a prior launch and whatever happens to it at landing. thats where the breakthrough will be if there is one. and trust me convincing the Aerospace corp or a multi star general to fly your re-used hardware will take a breakthrough you haven’t even imagined in any way yet. that’s the reason it hasn’t been done, not a rip job on the taxpayers.
Sounds like sour grapes. You are right, people have thought about how to do it for the last 80 years. But no one has done it so far. This is the first genuine attempt. As far as “a rip job on the taxpayers”, Space X gets paid when they meet milestones. They are not ripping anyone off. I cannot say that for the old space companies who, as the cost of Orion shows, are slow rolling their way to profitability.
Your point is understood.. Elon is saying “we will”, and the real question is “can we?”. My thinking is that recovering just 1 booster will be a big win — they haven’t done it before, and it will be pretty telling if the current design *can* be requalified, or if redesign is in the cards. I think Elton’s “we will” will eventually prevail, but not as quickly as many would hope — redesigns for unexpected findings are probably the end result of first recovery.
You are correct, improving the design based upon knowledge gained from flown hardware is key. I’d like to point out that the grasshopper has been filling this role already. Of course the very first actual first-stage having flown a true launch profile will be an historic next data point.
I keep hearing that Elon designed both the engines and the stage from the start with the necessary margins for reusability. Any necessary changes might be quite modest …
They/you just gave up Mr. Fritters!
Those breakthroughs will come, because guys like Musk, the Wright Brothers don’t quit till it does.
I rather doubt that “they/you just gave up” is the explanation. It’s just a cute phrase that fits the narrative you like. You could use a measure of objectivity.
This has nothing relevant whatsoever to say about this, but your mentioning objectivity reminded me of it: (From the film Love and Death by Woody Allen:
Sonya: But, if there is no God, then life has no meaning. Why go on living? Why not just commit suicide?
Boris: Well, let’s not get hysterical. I could be wrong. I’d hate to blow my brains out and then read in the paper that they found something.
Sonja: Boris, Let me show you how absurd your position is. Let’s say there is no God, and each man is free to do exactly as he chooses. What prevents you from murdering somebody?
Boris: Murder’s immoral.
Sonja: Immorality is subjective.
Boris: Yes, but subjectivity is objective.
Sonja: Not in a rational scheme of perception.
Boris: Perception is irrational. It implies immanence.
Sonja: But judgment of any system or a priori relation of phenomena exists in any rational or metaphysical or at least epistemological contradiction to an abstracted empirical concept such as being or to be or to occur in the thing itself or of the thing itself.
Boris: Yeah, I’ve said that many times.
Boris: Come to my quarters tomorrow at three.
Sonja: I can’t.
Boris: Please.
Sonja: It is immoral. What time?
Boris: Who is to say what is moral?
Sonja: Morality is subjective.
Boris: Subjectivity is objective.
Sonja: Moral notions imply attributes to substances which exist only in relational duality.
Boris: Not as an essential extension of ontological existence.
Sonja: Could we not talk about sex so much?
Rocko – You miss the point.
Yes VTVL rockets have been launched – DC-X, New Shepard from Blue Origin, etc. But SpaceX is making a full scale reusable production vehicle right now, and is right now creating the world’s most powerful rocket – and reusable – to commute to Mars.
SpaceX does not want flyback boosters, parachuted engines, whatever. They DO NOT want to refurbish or rebuild their vehicle.
They are determined to have a vehicle that is refueled and flyable in less than 10 hours. Their model is not the space shuttle, rather it is the airlines.
And the smart money is not betting against them.
Right now they are less expensive than the alternatives (and with 100% reliability). With true re-usability (not old-think refurbishability) their prices will always undercut the competition. SpaceX is looking to a 10 times cut in costs in the near term and 100 times longer term.
Also, who cares what a General thinks of re-use? USAF or NASA get virgin vehicles (and pay for it) from SpaceX and then it goes into reuse. Same as back in the ’60s when someone would pay you to let them record from the first play of a new record album.
I think this is the point. There is no need to convince the current collection of customers, who are willing (perhaps even eager) to pay a premium price for never-flown hardware. The real market will come in all the things that don’t fly right now because the cost is too high. That may take a bit of time, but that market will eventually overwhelm the current high-end sat operator and gov’t purchasers.
The Pentagon sees major advantages in going the commercial path:
http://aviationweek.com/awi…
It is a mistake to assume that the ‘generals’ aren’t cost-sensitive or that they are incapable of nimble thinking. After all, warfighting, to use the current word, is characterized by nimbleness. Or you lose.
The US military is populated by some very smart and patriotic people. The rest of them want to save $$ so they can buy other, shine new toys 🙂
Crazy politicians misusing the military is another story.
I agree. And as I have pointed out before the military was seriously considering first stage reuse even before SApaceX, and I’ve heard nothing to indicate they would be opposed to it. But SpaceX isn’t built just around reuse; by reducing manufacturing and launch costs even with the expendable Falcon Musk has been able to bring commercial launch business back to the US for the first time in years.
See the link I posted above. It concurs with what you say.
X33 and X34 were sold as aircraft like turnaround. hence the metal tps on X33. Anyway…. The problem with re-using rockets is they operate in the extreme of performance. when you fly at very high speeds you get very hot. when you want to boost the maximum payload to orbit you have to thin down the inert mass as much as possible. the net result of all that is that it’s not going to be good for even a vanishingly small percentage of the ground air ground cycles an aircraft sees if the number is greater than zero at all. Its not at all clear that spaceX is less expensive than ULA with 100% reliability. certainly ULA has near 100% reliability but spaceX hasn’t demonstrated that yet. true Atlas and Delta are way overpowered for GPS flights that are small enough to suit a falcon 9. if that’s your comparison whoopee. the important payloads are too big for falcon 9. Atlas V flies a lot because the 52X-54X offer the widest and cheapest versatility to launch the backbone of EELV payloads. Falcon 9 is too little, falcon 9 heavy is too big.
even though spacex will never ever fly re-used hardware on a US Gov’t flight that they care at all about, you’ll care what whoever thinks about re-usability when you go to get insurance for a commercial flight. if spaceX is funding their own trips to mars with no insurance well good luck to them that’s certainly cutting edge. hope it works out. but i still say nobody is going to Mars. there isn’t even a valid reason to send humans there in the first place. Nobody has a serious plan to get there and nobody has a serious plan to get them home. and anybody who’d plan a 1 way trip to mars or would go has crossed that fine line between genius and mental illness. but go ahead knock yourself out….
Well. I am pleased to see opposing views, even though I do think that in the main your sensibility about the future of SpaceX and exploration in general is a bit pessimistic and rooted in old think.
Still, you are spot-on about Mars. The ability to reliably fly in and out of that gravity well is so far beyond our current capabilities that timelines are no more reliable than, alas, wet dreams.
There will come a time when we populate near space for sure. Building livable habitats in microgravity with sensible spin makes a lot more sense as a stepping stone to deep gravity wells than aiming for Mars. It’s why I think the asteroid mission can make some sense: manipulation of objects in space is the first step to in situ manufacturing.
A very small step.
RFrits.
Neither the the X-33 nor X-34 ever flew. The X-34 was a tiny model as tall as a basketball net. It may be resurrected for some tests (unlikely) but it has no future.
The X-33 was a suborbital test machine which cost $1.5 billion dollars and was a total flop.
It was everything Falcon is not – a liquid hydrogen, exotic materials, complex shaped, SSTO, winged vehicle.
Now, the Falcon 9, has actually flown to space and successfully extended landing legs and powered to a soft landing. It works. Remember – ANYTHING THAT EXISTS IS POSSIBLE.
Its not at all clear that spaceX is less expensive than ULA with 100% reliability
It IS clear. SpaceX is 100’s of millions less expensive.
.
“certainly ULA has near 100% reliability but spaceX hasn’t demonstrated that yet.”
Wrong. SpaceX Falcon 9 1.1 is 100% reliable in delivering its primary payload. ULA is not.
“Atlas V flies a lot because the 52X-54X offer the widest and cheapest versatility to launch the backbone of EELV payloads. Falcon 9 is too little, falcon 9 heavy is too big”.
The Atlas V 52x-54x has flown only 8 times.
The F9 replaces all single core Atlas Vs.
The Falcon Heavy replaces all boosted Atlas Vs and all Delta IV models.
“Falcon 9 is too little, falcon 9 heavy is too big.”
You completely miss the point of the FH. Because it is reusable, it economically flies all missions from where the F9 leaves off to payloads twice as massive as the Delta IV Heavy. (Even if the Feds require a virgin rocket, it is freed up for the commercial market afterwards).
“Same as back in the ’60s when someone would pay you to let them record from the first play of a new record album.”
Crap! you remember that, too? 🙂
Made serious money on the side with that!
DOD has had a study on booster reuse for several years. They came to essentially the same conclusions as Elon Musk, but he has more or less pre-empted them.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers…
As to recertification, it’s time to be practical. NASA required the SRBs to be disassembled into component parts. The parts had to be magnafluxed or tested for cracks with dye penetrants after every flight. This meant all the paint and cadmium plating had to be blasted off, even from the nuts and bolts! Then the crack testing was done, then the parts were replated, repainted, reassembled. Then there was a lot of cadmiun dust that had to be disposed of as hazardous waste. This was simply overdone, there was no evidence this level of servicing was needed, and it contributed to the excessive cost of the Shuttle program.
How about the carbon fiber new ones? Would they make it back through reentry? Cheaper and easier to refurbish? Maybe.
TMK the composite cases were never proposed for reuse. The difficulty in identifying damage in composite structures may have figured into that, and they were intended to be light, which made them less resistant to the impact of hitting the ocean. Someone else may know more.
But by the time Constellation rolled around there was no enthusiasm for reuse of the SRBs even with the steel cases. What yales says about the tough environment is true, but the hardware was designed for it and with rare exceptions no actual damage was detected in the reusable components. (The O-rings were not reusable and reuse was not a factor in the Challenger failure). However the cost of recovery and reuse was about the same as the cost of manufacturing.
Musk is correct in saying that what is needed is not just reuse, but reuse with a minimum of time and manhours.
Yes. Reuse means to quick check the systems, refuel and fly. Like an airplane. The SRBs were refurbishable. They were completely disassembled, cleaned, tested. Huge numbers of single use systems replaced. Each segment then recast with solid fuel. Then reassembled into a booster. The antithesis of what a reusable system should be.
The composite wound SRBs were a technological dead end in that reuse really wasn’t feasible. The AlLi ET got the job done (increased payload capacity) cheaper and easier. Even though the ET wasn’t reusable, its technologies were at least somewhat applicable to reusable liquid fueled stages. In general, I don’t believe large segmented solid rocket boosters are conducive to economic reuse.
The SRBs were simultaneously exposed to enormous pressures, enormous heat, enormous vibration, toxic and corrosive compounds, enormous aerodynamic forces, ending in a parachute drop into corrosive saltwater. The refueling requires bonding in new fuel. Plus it had a failure that killed a crew and destroyed a spaceship. So it needs enormous time consuming and expensive refurbishment after each use.
Hence SpaceX saying, “Screw that”.
as far as I know DCX didn’t return from near orbit hypersonic velocity. But your point about refurbishing has been bothering me, too. And given that a spankin’ new V2 is so relatively inexpensive the cost delta might look like cheap insurance.
I wonder how the insurance companies will look at it.
It’s a great time to be alive.
Setting aside rocket boosters … what other items makes more sense as disposable vs. built for reuse?
Plastic packaging, aluminum cans, paper plates.
I can’t seem to think of anything remotely complicated that is treated as disposable.
The implications ARE profound. That’s exactly why others have been striving to do it. It lowers access cost to space by orders of magnitude. It opens The New Frontier. It is the doorway to the next step in human evolution.
And SpaceX is making it happen.
You fan boy you. Be more objective lolol 🙂
Showing my age, I remember Sputnik. I remember Explorer 1 on the top of the spinning rocket cluster stages on the Jupiter-C. I remember mariner to venus, ranger, surveyor, voyager. mercury, Gemini, the x-15, Apollo. Cars on the moon. Then for 40 years NOTHING. Endless trips to nowhere. A black hole sucking in all money and time. Where are humans on the Moon? Humans on Mars, Ganymede, Ceres???. We have lost our future.
SpaceX is offering a real chance to get our selves out of the sludge we are bogged in and to actually sail the sea of space!
Fan boy? Damn yes!
Marty we need to pickup yales, he can help. Yales, Marty is taking us to the future we could have had. You have got to help us stop Kennedy’s speech! Ready? Hit it Clem. 50 60 70 80 aaaahhhhhh!!!!!!!!!
I think my first space recollection was the Russian dog on front page of the paper.
IIRC, DCX demonstrated rapid reflight, as well as operation with a very, very small crew.
Some very powerful interests killed the DCX program. I greatly suspect this was done because DCX demonstrated more or less the exact model of what SpaceX is doing now to BigSpace’s business.
We often assume conspiracy when the real explanation is incompetence.
It was literally the one single thing that Pres. Clinton vetoed with the line item veto.
Clinton used the line item veto 82 times in the one year that type of veto was available. Later, the Supreme Court struck down the Line Item Veto as unconstitutional. Various attempts have been tried since to write a constitutional version, but never got anywhere.
In the case of DC-X/XA, the program might very well have continued, with a few upgrades, had the original program included building two copies of the vehicle. X-vehicles crash fairly regularly. Building more than one copy of a design is prudent.
Probably it will be SpaceX’s clients that are paying low low prices for launches with reused stages and engines that will convince other people. Companies will buy those flights regardless of Aerospace Corp or multi-star generals. Eventually they’ll build a history. SpaceX doesn’t have to rely on the OK from Aerospace Corp or generals to push forward with this strategy. Armed Forces et al can still use freshly built launchers.
Oh NO…. DTARS head is going to explode now with the latest cancelation … smiles
Just as long as they get the cargo to the station .. always the bottom line.
Clem, What are we going to do while we wait? I know Let’s take the Inner coastal waterway up to Kitty Hawk. What was that flash of light? Look over on the dock. It’s Marty! Pick him up! Can this boat do 85? Marty, get that gismo out of your tin car and let’s go. We’ll be late! More footage of history coming up. Got it on Marty? Hit it Clem! Here we go! Ahhh!!!!
Too bad on the delay. On Falcon Heavy. Delta 4 Heavy on the Orion launch cut back thrust on the center engine. I don’t remember how much cross fueling is better. The center engine does not have full fuel, but the L&R burn longer. Also the plumbing is not needed. If anyone wants to answer. Thanks.
vulture4. So it could get up to about the same as FH. With a lot more mods it could do the same as SLS. Not a lot cheaper than FH, but a lot cheaper than SLS. I did not see crossfeed(5 tons) compared to throttling back the center engine. They must have found a gain. Performance is lost because it is not full throttle, but it runs about 1 min. full throttle without the side boosters. I could see inside the center engine, but not the outside. Might be leaner. Take some heavy research. The same as SLS. To bad US gov. does not want to save some money. Enough money for a Moon lander. I was thinking using existing would take many flights. Not with this Boeing plan. Same tons, same size. If US gov. was not so mule headed, they could drop SLS, put out for bids for a Moon lander, which could also be used on Mars. With partners could start a base on the Moon and still work toward Mars. I am saving this plan this time.
Crossfeed could add a few tons to LEO payload capacity:
http://www.ulalaunch.com/up…
Keith, I think you should rename this post the DTARS and Vladislaw show… and pmaybe they’ll keep up their banter to get us thru Xmas.
Well the weather outside is frightful
but the launches are so delightful
and since we have no place to go
let em launch let em launch let em launch
James
After traveling through time to Kitty Hawk in my boat using Marty’s Flux capasitor Marty told the real reason he had showed up on that dock. You see he had just come back from 2030. He told us, much to our surprise that there were already many people living in space, the moon and Mars. I told him that ‘s impossible. He had learned from the people in that time continuum that something had gone drastically wrong with history and that we needed to help him fix it. He had decided to travel to important moments in time to learn what had gone wrong. So we started with the Wright brothers, then we dropped in on Robert Goddard for the first liquid rocket launch. Then we traveled on to Germany and learned about their research and saw how Von Braun came to America.
You see James we didn’t land on the moon in 1969. We didn’t land on the moon till 1979 and when we did, it was in reusable rockets. There never was an Apollo program. Marty showed us the year 2001 and there was a gravity wheel in the Leo. Pan Am did fly Leo flights and yes NACA had worked with industry. Inflatable ships/stations were all over Leo and beo
Maybe in a Christmas or two they will make a FUN space movie. Maybe Marty and the professor could educate the public while entertaining them with their banter. Imagine how cool it would be to see us in a real realistic Space future using today’s computer graphics.
Great Scott I have to hurry We have to stop Kennedy from making that dam speech.!!!!!!!
Foreword to the Past
i poked around on nasaspaceflight, http://forum.nasaspacefligh…
2015
1.
December 19, 2014NET January 6 – Dragon SpX-5 (CRS5) – Falcon 9 v1.1 – Canaveral SLC-40 – 11:1818:22:132. January 23 – DSCOVR (Triana) – Falcon 9 v1.1 – Canaveral SLC-40 – 23:49:21
3. February – Eutelsat 115 West B (Satmex 7), ABS 3A – Falcon 9 v1.1 – Canaveral SLC-40
4. NET February 4 – Dragon SpX-6 (CRS6) – Falcon 9 v1.1 – Canaveral SLC-40
5. March 31 – Jason-3 – Falcon 9 v1.1 – Vandenberg SLC-4E
6. NET 1st quarter – Orbcomm G2 (x11) – Falcon 9 v1.1 – Canaveral SLC-40
7. June 13 – Dragon SpX-7 (CRS7) – Falcon 9 v1.1 – Canaveral SLC-40
8. 1st half – TürkmenÄlem 52.00E (MonacoSat) – Falcon 9 v1.1 – Canaveral SLC-40
9. 1st half – SES-9 – Falcon 9 v1.1 – Canaveral SLC-40
10. 2nd quarter – Demo Flight – Falcon Heavy – Kennedy LC-39A
11. August – AMOS 6 – Falcon 9 v1.1 – Canaveral SLC-40
12. August – STP-02: DSX, FORMOSAT 7A/7B/7C/7D/7E/7F, GPIM, OTB, FalconSat 6, NPSat 1, Oculus-ASR, Prox 1, LightSail B, Cubesats, Ballast – Falcon Heavy – Kennedy LC-39A (or April 2016)
13. September 2 – Dragon SpX-8 (CRS8), BEAM (Bigelow Expandable Activity Module) – Falcon 9 v1.1 – Canaveral SLC-40
14. September – SAOCOM-1A – Falcon 9 v1.1 – Vandenberg SLC-4E
15. 2nd half – JCSat-14 – Falcon 9 v1.1 – Canaveral SLC-40
16. 4th quarter – Eutelsat 117 West B (Satmex 9), ABS 2A – Falcon 9 v1.1 – Canaveral SLC-40
17. late – Iridium Next Flight 1 (x10) – Falcon 9 v1.1 – Vandenberg SLC-4E
18. late – Iridium Next Flight 2 (x10) – Falcon 9 v1.1 – Vandenberg SLC-4E
19. December 5 – Dragon SpX-9 (CRS9) – Falcon 9 v1.1 – Canaveral SLC-40
20. TBD – FORMOSAT 5 – Falcon 9 v1.1 – Vandenberg SLC-4E
now, obviously, some of these are going to slip. anything with “late” or “TBD” i’d suspect would probably bump to 2016. CRS-9 will almost certainly slip to 2016. i’ll bet that the Falcon Heavy Demo bumps down a few months, which very likely pushes the second FH flight into 2016 as well.
if i had to pick a number, i’d say that puts SpaceX in a strong position to have a full launch schedule at Canaveral while Vandenberg is finally pitching in its weight, so I’d guess that they’ve got a strong chance of making 14 flights in 2015.
is anyone able to speculate how many might be barge landings / return to launch site landings?
I’ll say seven – flights out of CCAFS not carrying birds going to GTO. They’ll be the ones sporting legs and enough fuel to make it back down to the barge/pad.
SpaceX is building a landing site at Vandenberg, also, so we could see RTLS tests there as well.
RTLS(Return To Launch Site)
yes.
The landing pad at Vandenberg is right near the launch pad, so would face the same restrictions as RTLS landings at CCAFS, I should think. Unless they plan to build a second barge, I would expect Vandenberg flights not to see booster landings until the RTLS part is settled in their favor. (Yes, I know there was talk of landing on an island, but that will take time to set up, too.)
well, a couple of things about that. the Vandenberg launches are scheduled after a few launches at Canaveral, and (admittedly optimistically) SpaceX might be able to demonstrate precision barge landings in those launches. also since Vandenberg is a military launch facility, their range safety people might be more open to accepting the risks. anyway, my point was that RTLS testing can be done at Vandenberg as well as at Canaveral.
Cape Canaveral is a military launch facility just like VAFB.
you’re right, of course. i completely forgot.
If the payload to GTO for Falcon 9 is 4.8 tons or less, it is reusable with legs.
If the payload to GTO with Falcon Heavy is 6.4 tons or less, all 3 cores are reusable. More than that less are reusable.
Well, the static fire was completed today, and 1/6/15 has been confirmed as the target launch date. Elon is still publicly cautious, saying that his number-crunchers will be working on all the data right up until launch day. I can’t blame him though – practically SpaceX’s entire commercial strategy is riding on this launch and the attempted recovery of the core .
This landing attempt will only be one of several or many that SpaceX conducts. I wouldn’t say that their entire commercial strategy rides on the success or lack thereof for the upcoming test. It will be success if SpaceX gets good data with which they can improve their method and/or equipment and move forward.
I don’t see Musk giving up on recovering the first stage unless a string of failures results in no progress.
To overcome the uncertainty the first flight using a reused first stage will have to be a dummy payload. A tank full of water or space storable propellant (methane?) for instance.
Wow! 🙂
Possibly. spacex offers discounts to budget or brave customers on experimental flights. That’s the way Cassiope was flown.
Here at NASA Watch many people debate that have very strong views. On twitter I stubbled on an article that gave me great hope.
Please read 🙂
http://www.tennessean.com/s…
Happy Hollidays 🙂
@dtarsgeorge
P.S.
Thanks for the reading list Mr. Muncy 🙂