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Fairing Recovery and Reuse

Discussion in 'SpaceX' started by ecarfan, Dec 19, 2017.

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  1. destructure00

    destructure00 Active Member

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    Second set was presumably damaged in rough water. Ship returned to port back in February from an attempted catch with only 2 arms.

    SpaceXFleet Updates on Twitter
     
  2. Electroman

    Electroman Supporting Member

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    How did they manage to spot and recover from pitch darkness at night? Does this have some kind of light or radio beacon?
     
  3. mongo

    mongo Well-Known Member

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    GPS (required for guidance) plus radio link.
     
  4. sailorjohn

    sailorjohn Member

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    My son is the guy who gets the fairing half out of the ocean. He was out on Go Searcher. They were 5 days out and haven't got in yet, but I understand that everything went as planned. Go Searcher is the ship designed for recovery of the Dragon Crew Capsule but it has been doing fairing recovery too. M.Tree caught one in the net ant Go Searcher retrieved the one in the ocean.
     
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  5. Electroman

    Electroman Supporting Member

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    Cool.

    How do they know so accurately where will the fairing drift and fall? Unlike propulsive landing, with wind and so many parameters, the thing could land several miles away.
     
  6. sailorjohn

    sailorjohn Member

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    The fairings have guidance and the ships know where they are landing.
     
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  7. Nikxice

    Nikxice Active Member

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    From SpaceX's Twitter account. Falcon Heavy STP-2 mission, fairing separation and partial reentry footage.
    SpaceX on Twitter

    From Elon's Twitter account. Not quite a bulls-eye, but check out the falling leaf maneuver into the left limb of Ms. Tree.
    Elon Musk on Twitter
     
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  8. Grendal

    Grendal SpaceX Moderator

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    That is just incredible.
     
  9. ecarfan

    ecarfan Well-Known Member

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    Mind blowing video! Beautiful science.

    At the end of the fairing re-entry video there is a blue circle in the center of the frame; what is that?
     
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  10. Grendal

    Grendal SpaceX Moderator

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    I'm almost certain that had to do with the camera and an optical effect.
     
  11. bxr140

    bxr140 Active Member

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    Super interesting to see the flow coming 'backward' through the two center fairing vents as the falling velocity increases. It looks like there's even shock diamonds forming and diffusing.
     
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  12. Grendal

    Grendal SpaceX Moderator

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    2nd official fairing recovery with Ms. Tree:
    Elon Musk on Twitter
    They're getting good at this. The weather wasn't good today.
     
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  13. Cosmacelf

    Cosmacelf Well-Known Member

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    I wonder if the fairing parachute is controlled autonomously or if it has a fly by wire human pilot?

    Is Ms Tree autonomous?

    If yes to both, what an elegant and awesome software system!
     
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  14. mongo

    mongo Well-Known Member

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    My understanding is the fairing is self guided and the recovery ship is too when the fairing is in range (fairing feeds projected landing point based on trajectory and may attempt to steer toward ship)
     
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  15. Grendal

    Grendal SpaceX Moderator

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    SpaceX just acquired Ms. Tree's sister ship renamed Ms. Chief! Now they'll be capturing both fairing halves.
    [​IMG]
     
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  16. Nikxice

    Nikxice Active Member

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    Clever names! Mystery and now Mischief. Oops.....sorry for the Ms. Spell.
     
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  17. e-FTW

    e-FTW New electron smell

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  18. e-FTW

    e-FTW New electron smell

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  19. Grendal

    Grendal SpaceX Moderator

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    #139 Grendal, Nov 5, 2019
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2019
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  20. e-FTW

    e-FTW New electron smell

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    I was thinking that today’s performance (successful Starlink-1 launch) is certainly huge for re-use of course. All of the mechanical bits worked.
    But is the main concern not about contamination of the payload by a non-clean-room fairing? And to evaluate how successful that part of this re-use would take a long time, deducted from satellite performance/longevity?
     

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