SpaceX (general discussion)

[Orionblamblam]

How much would you pay for scrap alloys and composites and electronics and all the rest in orbit?

If SpaceX were to seriously contemplate this, they'd be well advised to go to metal structures as much as possible. Aluminum, magnesium, titanium... they can all be melted down and re-used, pretty much without loss. But composites? You could dissolve out the epoxy and then chop up the resulting fiber stands to use in some sort of second-rate castings (perhaps even re-using the epoxy somehow), but the losses would probably be substantial.

Some systems would be great to have on their own... tanks, engines, pumps, etc.

 

[jeffb]

How much would you pay for scrap alloys and composites and electronics and all the rest in orbit?

If SpaceX were to seriously contemplate this, they'd be well advised to go to metal structures as much as possible. Aluminum, magnesium, titanium... they can all be melted down and re-used, pretty much without loss. But composites? You could dissolve out the epoxy and then chop up the resulting fiber stands to use in some sort of second-rate castings (perhaps even re-using the epoxy somehow), but the losses would probably be substantial.

Some systems would be great to have on their own... tanks, engines, pumps, etc.

That kind of depends on the specifics of the engines, pumps, etc. From memory upper stage engines don't have very long lifetimes anyway so a lot of them probably only have a few more seconds of life in them at best. Then there's all the stuff about purging and restarting them properly as well. The Falcon 9 second stage is LOX/RP1 too so to reuse the tankage, because of the proportions, kinda restricts you to the same propellant mix...which you'd have to get up to the stage as well, etc, etc. Sorry to rain on the parade and all.

If they can start building upper stages that use LOX/LH2 and they have enough dV left over to park them then there is always the possibility of refueling them robotically from a lunar water mining operation, but that's a long way off.

They're certainly on their way though, congratulations to SpaceX on a job beautifully done.

 

[francesco]

.

Reminds me of the (VERY) old arcade game "Lunar Lander" ;D

( I do wish that was available for Windows 7 or 10 )

.

there are a couple of cool apps off the game

 

[sferrin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sm2zGDlS3I


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgNekVW0pps

 

[FighterJock]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sm2zGDlS3I


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgNekVW0pps

Wow! Great videos sferrin. SpaceX were lucky this time with the launch and subsequent recovery of the 1st stage booster, lets hope that continues.

 

[Dragon029]

I'm not sure luck is the right word here...

 

[Grey Havoc]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-30/elon-musk-stepping-on-toes-in-space-race-russia-official-says

 

[flanker]

Nice sensationalized title considering that is not what Rogozin said at all. :

 

[marauder2048]

Nice sensationalized title considering that is not what Rogozin said at all. :

Can you provide an alternate translation of what Rogozin said?

 

[flanker]

How, in any shape, way or form is this;

Elon Musk `Stepping on Toes' in Space Race, Russia Official Says

Equal to this;

“The main goal today is to make space cheap,” Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who’s in charge of defense, told Rossiya 24 TV in an interview on Wednesday in Moscow. “Competitors are stepping on our toes. Look at what billionaire Musk is doing with his projects. This is very interesting, well done, and we treat this work with respect.”

It is a sensationalized clickbait BS title especially given the context where he said the price was important. "Stepping on our toes" is meant as an acknowledgment that SpaceX is giving them a good fight on the price and he is being direct and honest by acknowledging it.

I watched the actual interview and the quote is accurate. He also said that they are not "a race horse" with blinds, they pay attention to developments in spaceflight. Hopefully MRKS-1 wont be too little too late for them, we will see.

 

[flanker]

Falcon 9 back in the hangar at Cape Canaveral. No damage found, ready to fire again.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/682717803166695425

 

[FighterJock]

Falcon 9 back in the hangar at Cape Canaveral. No damage found, ready to fire again.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/682717803166695425

Good news for Falcon 9, so when will the next Falcon 9 launch be?

 

[Dragon029]

January 17th for Jason-3; it'll be a Falcon 9 v1.1 (the last one to be built) though which might possibly have implications on return to flight arrangements.

After that, there's another launch "mid January" for SES 9 which will be the second Falcon 9 v1.2 / 'Full Thrust' launch. There's also then CRS-8 in Feb, etc. The SpaceX subreddit keeps a nice little list of upcoming events on it's sidebar.

 

[FighterJock]

January 17th for Jason-3; it'll be a Falcon 9 v1.1 (the last one to be built) though which might possibly have implications on return to flight arrangements.

After that, there's another launch "mid January" for SES 9 which will be the second Falcon 9 v1.2 / 'Full Thrust' launch. There's also then CRS-8 in Feb, etc. The SpaceX subreddit keeps a nice little list of upcoming events on it's sidebar.

Thanks for the link Dragon029.

 

[flanker]

SES-9 has been "late January" for a while now, sidebar is not updated. But yes, next up is JASON-3.

 

[fredymac]

Looks like the re-entry heating didn't cause too much visible degradation. A hold-down test fire is planned to verify functional performance but no date yet.

 

[Grey Havoc]

http://www.space.com/31507-spacex-falcon-9-first-stage-comes-in-hot-in-alternate-nasa-view-video.html

 

[Grey Havoc]

http://gizmodo.com/spacex-wants-to-land-a-rocket-on-an-ocean-barge-yet-ag-1751852006

 

[fredymac]

Spacex hold down engine test at Vandenberg AFB in prep for upcoming launch. I wonder if/when they will figure their manufacturing consistency has reached the point where these pre-launch tests are unnecessary. A hold down test firing on a Falcon Heavy will be impressive.

 

[sferrin]

With this one launching out of California, does anybody know if they intend to try to land the booster?

edit (via twitter):

"Aiming to launch this weekend and (hopefully) land on our droneship. Ship landings needed for high velocity missions "

 

[FighterJock]

With this one launching out of California, does anybody know if they intend to try to land the booster?

edit (via twitter):

"Aiming to launch this weekend and (hopefully) land on our droneship. Ship landings needed for high velocity missions "

Good luck SpaceX. After the successful land based landing, I hope that this forthcoming mission is a success.

 

[flanker]

Landing pad at Vandenberg is not ready yet (pending environmental reviews and whatnot) + landing JASON-3 on ASDS will be a good training for SES-9 later this month which will be GTO and hence barge landing.

 

[sferrin]

Landing pad at Vandenberg is not ready yet (pending environmental reviews and whatnot) + landing JASON-3 on ASDS will be a good training for SES-9 later this month which will be GTO and hence barge landing.

If they stick both the landings off the California coast and Florida coast later this month that will be big, BIG boost. I wish them well.

 

[flanker]

Meanwhile, here is an awesome video to enjoy;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANv5UfZsvZQ&feature=youtu.be

 

[Grey Havoc]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-space-x-launch-20160115-htmlstory.html

 

[Grey Havoc]

http://gizmodo.com/meet-nasa-s-newest-ocean-exploring-satellite-before-it-1753099778

 

[sferrin]

'bout a 15 min. away.

 

[sferrin]

9 min.

3 minutes. 12-15 foot waves at landing barge. Fingers crossed.

Of course, video feed freezes just as it's about to get to the barge. :'(

Must have crashed. Should have been down by now and people don't look cheerful. Bummer.

 

[merriman]

damn

 

[Sundog]

9 min.

3 minutes. 12-15 foot waves at landing barge. Fingers crossed.

Of course, video feed freezes just as it's about to get to the barge. :'(

Must have crashed. Should have been down by now and people don't look cheerful. Bummer.

Yeah, I keep thinking if it landed successfully, we would have heard about it by now. But that barge was seriously heaving in the waves just before we lost the feed.

 

[sferrin]

Looks like one of the landing legs broke. With the 12-15 foot waves I can see how it might be difficult to compensate for relative motion second to second. Wonder how much weight it would add to add a stabilization system to the landing legs as well as the barge, so if it comes in off perpendicular to the landing surface the legs can give a bit until the other legs can help. (Of course, if the current system is only robust enough to extend the legs, and no more, that might not be an option. No doubt they've already considered all of this.)

 

[Sundog]

I like how they keep saying at the SpaceX web site that they lost the feed, so they don't know if it landed. As if they don't have ships out there that were watching the landing with a recovery crew with satellite communications. It's obvious they're just trying to figure out "what went wrong" before they make the announcement.

 

[sferrin]

I like how they keep saying at the SpaceX web site that they lost the feed, so they don't know if it landed. As if they don't have ships out there that were watching the landing with a recovery crew with satellite communications. It's obvious they're just trying to figure out "what went wrong" before they make the announcement.

They've already been on saying they had a hard landing and one of the legs broke.

 

[Hobbes]

Looks like one of the landing legs broke. With the 12-15 foot waves I can see how it might be difficult to compensate for relative motion second to second. Wonder how much weight it would add to add a stabilization system to the landing legs as well as the barge, so if it comes in off perpendicular to the landing surface the legs can give a bit until the other legs can help. (Of course, if the current system is only robust enough to extend the legs, and no more, that might not be an option. No doubt they've already considered all of this.)

It might be easier to build a stabilised platform (using the type of hydraulics used on flight simulators) on the deck of the barge.

 

[Sundog]

Why are they landing it on a barge? Because it makes the return flight easier, since they can position the barge along the trajectory, as opposed to the fly back mission they did in Florida?

 

[Hobbes]

I like how they keep saying at the SpaceX web site that they lost the feed, so they don't know if it landed. As if they don't have ships out there that were watching the landing with a recovery crew with satellite communications. It's obvious they're just trying to figure out "what went wrong" before they make the announcement.

The recovery ship doesn't have a live video link. We also saw various hiccups in the feed from the rocket and from the ship earlier in the broadcast, so "we lost the feed" isn't necessarily a cover story.

 

[sferrin]

Looks like one of the landing legs broke. With the 12-15 foot waves I can see how it might be difficult to compensate for relative motion second to second. Wonder how much weight it would add to add a stabilization system to the landing legs as well as the barge, so if it comes in off perpendicular to the landing surface the legs can give a bit until the other legs can help. (Of course, if the current system is only robust enough to extend the legs, and no more, that might not be an option. No doubt they've already considered all of this.)

It might be easier to build a stabilised platform (using the type of hydraulics used on flight simulators) on the deck of the barge.

The barge is already stabilized. I just wonder if it's reaction time is sufficient.

 

[sferrin]

Why are they landing it on a barge? Because it makes the return flight easier, since they can position the barge along the trajectory, as opposed to the fly back mission they did in Florida?

Some missions won't have enough fuel left to fly all the way to a land pad.

 

[Michel Van]

Why are they landing it on a barge? Because it makes the return flight easier, since they can position the barge along the trajectory, as opposed to the fly back mission they did in Florida?

For Vandenberg AFB
The ground Landing pad there were not ready, there for landing on Barge

The barge will be use in future mission like Falcon Heavy were the booster land near launch site, while central stage land on the Barge in atlantic.

 

[quellish]

The barge is already stabilized. I just wonder if it's reaction time is sufficient.

The barge itself (the ship) is somewhat stabilized by thrusters. Making the flight deck stabilized through a hydraulic gimbal is something different.