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SpaceX Falcon 9 FT Launch of THAICOM-8 & First Stage Drone Ship Landing. May 26

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M

msv

Member
Damn!! Three successful barge landings already, amazing. Crazy if this would become routine so soon already for SpaceX.

When are they going to relaunch one of the first stages?
 
C

cameron

Member
Off centre.
rXu2v2u.jpg
 
blu

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
kendrid said:
Those video cutouts give the conspiracy theorists something to discuss.
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Because no radar, military or civil, has caught the reentry. And those radar stations could never, ever, confirm the reentry, unless SpaceX got them on a payroll. Man, those reentries are virtually unprovable. (not directed at kendrid, just musing myself)
 
A

Agent

Member
Erimriv said:
Three first stages landed in row, mighty impressive.
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Almost 4 in a row if the leg didn't buckle on the last failure. That one looked like it was going to stick the landing until that happened.

Either way, very awesome stuff. Now they need to relaunch them to see what the viability of landing/reusing really is.
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
What are their plans for the first reuse flight payload - Empty? Resupply mission for ISS? Can't imagine anyone would want to risk an expensive satellite launch
 
P

Par Score

Member
1st stage landed, 2nd stage nominal orbit confirmed, satellite separated, job done.

mrklaw said:
What are their plans for the first reuse flight payload - Empty? Resupply mission for ISS? Can't imagine anyone would want to risk an expensive satellite launch
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One of their regular launch partners, SES, has confirmed they'd be willing to launch one of their satellites on a re-used 1st stage.
 
cebri.one

cebri.one

Member
mrklaw said:
What are their plans for the first reuse flight payload - Empty? Resupply mission for ISS? Can't imagine anyone would want to risk an expensive satellite launch
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Actually SES has shown some interest in getting that 1st flight.

edit: arggg beaten.
 
H

HellBlazer

Member
The SES-10 mission is scheduled for September, so this might be a good candidate for first attempt at re-using a first stage...?
 
E

Elfforkusu

Member
msv said:
Damn!! Three successful barge landings already, amazing. Crazy if this would become routine so soon already for SpaceX.

When are they going to relaunch one of the first stages?
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Probably not any time soon, tests on the reused stages have supposedly shown some nasty wear.

Which is... what you expect. They'll iterate on it, i imagine this one will look better, and the next better still...
 
E

Ether_Snake

安安安安安安安安安安安安安安安
Vulcano's assistant said:
Wasps!
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Can you imagine, the launch to Mars, possibly mankind's most historic moment ever, ruined by a wasp that refused to budge from the camera lens.

BTW, just how reuseable are the rockets right now? When do they plan to actually re-use one?
 
andythinkpad

andythinkpad

Member
It really bother me that they have all these future technology and they can't put a high quality live camera at the corner of the drone ship.
 
F

F!ReW!Re

Member
It's amazing.....
I'm 31 years old now, there's a fucking possibility I get to go to freaking space before I die! Heck I might even get to go to another freaking planet before I pass away!

Man we live in such exciting times!

I would also definitely sign up for a space burial! Shoot me into the unknown!
 
C

Concept17

Member
andythinkpad said:
It really bother me that they have all these future technology and they can't put a high quality live camera at the corner of the drone ship.
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How bout a 360 degree camera you can move around?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDK5TF2BOhQ

F!ReW!Re said:
It's amazing.....
I'm 31 years old now, there's a fucking possibility I get to go to freaking space before I die! Heck I might even get to go to another freaking planet before I pass away!

Man we live in such exciting times!

I would also definitely sign up for a space burial! Shoot me into the unknown!
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I've told everyone I know I want my ashes shot into space. Best burial ever AND best chance that an alien civilization finds my ashes and resurrects me so I can live a second life on another world. :D
 
F

F!ReW!Re

Member
Concept17 said:
I've told everyone I know I want my ashes shot into space. Best burial ever AND best chance that an alien civilization finds my ashes and resurrects me so I can live a second life on another world. :D
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Maybe we can get a discount if we both go on the same rocket! 2 for 1 funeral rocket discount!
Heck, why not pack another golden record with knowledge from earth with us (except for the directions to Earth) and we get to be the first spreaders of human knowledge in the galaxy.
(Voyager crashed into a heavenly body I'm sure of it, send us out there instead!)

Either this or I'm setting myself up for;
Cryonics
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Elfforkusu said:
Probably not any time soon, tests on the reused stages have supposedly shown some nasty wear.

Which is... what you expect. They'll iterate on it, i imagine this one will look better, and the next better still...
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So it's possible that none of the landed rockets get reused and they need to make changes to future designs to make them more durable? I suppose it's all valuable data - you have to land them to know if you can reuse them
 
E

Elfforkusu

Member
mrklaw said:
So it's possible that none of the landed rockets get reused and they need to make changes to future destiny to make them more durable? I suppose it's all valuable data - you have to land them to know if you can reuse them
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Yeah.

I do expect they'll be able to reuse parts well before they start reusing the rocket body. One of the big milestones will be when they start reusing the engines. Each milestone will be an incremental savings in costs, which -- as cool as "reusable rockets!" sounds -- is the real point here. Well on their way to a 10x reduction, and maybe more, which is tremendous.
 
J

jotun?

Member
andythinkpad said:
It really bother me that they have all these future technology and they can't put a high quality live camera at the corner of the drone ship.
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On the webcast today they mentioned that the live feed from the ship has issues because of the satellite link, particularly how the link gets disrupted by the vibrations from the incoming rocket.

Rocket engines are loud. Really loud, to the point that managing the acoustic energy is one of the big challenges of building large rockets. If you ever watched a space shuttle launch, the water that flooded the launch pad wasn't to protect anything from the heat of the engines, it was to dampen the sound so that the echo from the engines wouldn't destroy the vehicle
 
P

Pristine_Condition

Member
Elfforkusu said:
Probably not any time soon, tests on the reused stages have supposedly shown some nasty wear.
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I don't know where you got this idea from. Musk said the first relaunch will probably occur in June or July.

As for "nasty wear," the only stage SpaceX has made comments of that variety RE: the wear and tear was the one immediately prior to this mission--the 1st successful landing from GTO burn (the third successful landing vehicle overall, which was a super hot/fast landing and the first done with a three-engine descent)--which was characterized as suffering "max damage." This statement was widely misunderstood and mischaracterized by the media though. What it meant was this was this unit suffered basically the most thermal and g-force stresses yet that the unit was designed for. This makes this particular booster interesting for special engineering ground testing as it was taken to the edge of their parameters. Musk stated that this unit would be used as a "life leader for ground tests to confirm others are good." In a later tweet, Musk clarified that that didn't mean the unit was damaged so badly that it couldn't be refurbished and reflown, just that it was more valuable to the company as a test article.

The first two successfully landed vehicles (which landed after burns for LEO missions) were in much better shape, simply because they weren't stressed to the limits. The first will be parked outside SpaceX's headquarters as a historic artifact, but it looked very good and was refired successfully without any refurb:

Shotwell said she visited the stage and was impressed with how little wear and tear it showed.

“[Y]ou pull off the cover and that wire harness is pristine,” she said. “The metal is still shiny. You pull off the thermal protection system that we have near the engine, and that engine is beautiful. It is perfectly clean.

“It was extraordinary how great it looked. In fact we didn’t refurbish it at all. We inspected it and then three days later we put it on the test stand and fired it again. The goal is not to design a vehicle that needs refurbishing. It is to design a vehicle that we can land, move back to the launch pad, and launch again. Hopefully our customers will get comfortable flying the third or fourth time.”
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http://spacenews.com/spacex-says-re...s-by-30-plans-first-falcon-heavy-in-november/

The vehicle from the second successful landing is scheduled for 10x test firings and following success of those tests, will be the first one re-launched.

Since the vehicle is still on the landing ship, no statement has been made about the condition of the current vehicle yet, other than a "crush core" on one of the landing leg structures was used, since this experiment was done at very close to the max designed landing speed. This "crush core" is a honeycomb structure designed to crumple in a controlled (and expendable) manner. It is similar to the ones used on the lunar lander, and is basically a contingency single-use shock absorber. As long as this crush core did it's job and over-spec load wasn't transferred to the vehicle, the unit will be replaced as it is designed to be, and no harm done. (And a lot of valuable data about max-speed landings gleaned.) So it's way too early to talk about whether this one looks good or has "nasty wear" at this point.

jotun? said:
On the webcast today they mentioned that the live feed from the ship has issues because of the satellite link, particularly how the link gets disrupted by the vibrations from the incoming rocket.

Rocket engines are loud. Really loud, to the point that managing the acoustic energy is one of the big challenges of building large rockets. If you ever watched a space shuttle launch, the water that flooded the launch pad wasn't to protect anything from the heat of the engines, it was to dampen the sound so that the echo from the engines wouldn't destroy the vehicle
Click to expand...

Yeah. The engineering around the acoustical problems is probably the most unsung feat in rocket design. Especially when you consider you have to design rockets that will carry sensitive satellites and even living people on top of the thing.
 
D

Donos

Member
Concept17 said:
How bout a 360 degree camera you can move around?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDK5TF2BOhQ



I've told everyone I know I want my ashes shot into space. Best burial ever AND best chance that an alien civilization finds my ashes and resurrects me so I can live a second life on another world. :D
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Haha, i'm telling exactly that to everyone since i'm 12 (i'm now 33). Cheap version would be ashes over the ocean...


Really exciting stuff these space firms are pulling off. If i would win 40 millions in the lottery i would invest half of it into this.
 
C

cameron

Member
SpaceNews: "SpaceX to brief underwriters on the road to Falcon 9 reusability"
SINGAPORE – Launch-service provider SpaceX on May 30 said it would meet with insurance underwriters in the coming weeks to discuss the company’s plans to certify used rocket stages as fit for reflight, a long-held SpaceX ambition as a way to reduce launch costs.

SpaceX has said it hoped that recovery, refurbishment and re-qualification of previously Falcon 9 Full Thrust rocket first stages could reduce SpaceX’s already low launch costs by around 30 percent.

Addressing the CASBAA Satellite Industry Forum here, SpaceX Commercial Sales Vice President Jonathan Hofeller cautioned that any price reductions from the reuse of rocket first stages would not be known until the company has a better handle on what refurbishment costs will be.

Asked if SpaceX would be giving discounts to customers agreeing to fly with reused first stages, Hoffeler said:

“I think in the long term we will be. In the short term we have to establish what it is going to take to refurbish. People have been very public about what the discounts may be in the future. But we need to get to a cadence of reflight in order to reach those objectives.”

Satellite fleet operator SES of Luxembourg, which has been SpaceX’s biggest commercial supporter, has publicly said it would like to be the first to launch a satellite with a reused stage but would like a 50 percent price cut in return.

SpaceX Gwynne Shotwell has said the company could reduce total launch costs by about 30 percent with a reused first stage.
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SpaceX Chief Executive and Chief Designer Elon Musk has said a first reuse could occur as early as this summer.

Hofeller did not name SES or any other customer but said “a couple of different folks… actually want to be first” to launch with a refurbished stage. He said the inaugural mission likely would be with a commercial customer. “We are targeting to do that — say by the end of the year,” he said.

Meeting with insurance underwriters is a necessary step in preparing the market for reusability. Most commercial satellite fleet operators insure their launches in policies that also include the satellites’ first year in orbit. After that, lower-cost policies are available to cover each successive year in orbit.

“We are meeting with the insurance companies in the next couple of weeks to go through and make sure they understand our process for certifying these and getting them ready for flight,” Hoffeler said. “Ultimately we think reusability will only add to our production capacity right now. It is not a baseline but it will improve capacity and therefore drive down costs.”

SpaceX’s pitch to underwriters comes at a time of historic softness in the satellite insurance business. Launch insurance premiums have fallen steadily, to less than 6 percent now for both the Falcon 9 and Europe’s Ariane 5 rocket.

One insurer said the buyer’s market in insurance has led to a situation where the Falcon 9 Full Thrust vehicle, which made its first flight only last March, is now afforded about the same premium rates as Europe’s Ariane 5, whose design has not changed in the 16 years since the vehicle’s last failure.
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More in the link.


Next launch of a shiny new Falcon 9 FT is scheduled for June 16.
Two Boeing-built satellites are being readied for launch at Cape Canaveral aboard a single SpaceX rocket. Both satellites are all-electric craft and will use on-board electric thrusters to reach orbit.

Eutelsat 117 West B along with its co-passenger ABS 2A are scheduled to lift-off during daylight hours at 10.30am (EDT) on June 16 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.
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SpaceX @SpaceX 28 May 2016
Yesterday, our next rocket moved into the launch site at Cape Canaveral, FL
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C

cameron

Member
OCISLY has returned to Port Canaveral.

SpaceX @SpaceX
Rocket back at port after careful ocean transit. Leaning back due to crush core being used up in landing legs
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For reference:
Elon Musk ‏@elonmusk May 27
Rocket landing speed was close to design max & used up contingency crush core, hence back & forth motion. Prob ok, but some risk of tipping.
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Elon Musk ‏@elonmusk May 27
Crush core is aluminum honeycomb for energy absorption in the telescoping actuator. Easy to replace (if Falcon makes it back to port).
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Edit:
SpaceX ‏@SpaceX
Falcon's landing leg crush core absorbs energy from impact on touchdown. Here's what it looked like on Apollo lander
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6KyYaFG.jpg
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Landing pics: https://www.flickr.com/photos/spacex/
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Came in pretty fast at an angle.
 
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