N5329K
Active Member
It's a very good day when we get to learn from our mistakes.
Looking forward to the FH launch, too.
Robin
Looking forward to the FH launch, too.
Robin
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I still want to know how they've managed to deal with the stresses on the center booster. On the face of it they must have almost unprecedented stress, even without a payload, which will certainly act to increase the stresses. No wonder FH is a few years late.
I still want to know how they've managed to deal with the stresses on the center booster. On the face of it they must have almost unprecedented stress, even without a payload, which will certainly act to increase the stresses.
Falcon Heavy has been postponed so long it seems like it's just not a practical program from the outside. So, I take it SpaceX is going to finally skip Falcon Heavy and go straight to the downsized version 1 of the Interplanetary Transportation System in the name of International Cooperation and "funding", thus making it the new do-nothing NASA? Or, will we have a better outcome than that? Will we Mars or better? FH was supposed to be the first Mars rover sender, but now we can do humans on the original ITS proposal, so they say, which is great, and now that's scratched too, so with this track record, what's really happening? I've given up on waiting for named progress, and noticed SpaceX just works on what they have and keeps improving it.
I thought that tank was tested by pressurizing it to the point where it exploded, and that was intentional? So, not a "failure" in the sense that it could not contain propellant or oxidizer at the desired pressure.Another point is that the carbon fiber storage tank failed
I thought that tank was tested by pressurizing it to the point where it exploded, and that was intentional? So, not a "failure" in the sense that it could not contain propellant or oxidizer at the desired pressure.
I admit I cannot provide a source to support my assertion. But that was a point of view espoused by many in the SpaceX FB group. They could be wrong...
So now I will throw out some speculation on my part that may explain what happened with Red Dragon and ITS. For Red Dragon, I think SpaceX announced RD and hoped that someone (NASA, Congress, other governments, scientific community) would step up and show a lot of enthusiasm and put money into the project. Dragon 2, in practice, does not have the capabilities that SpaceX hoped it would be able to achieve. While it is possible to work, it would take more time and money than SpaceX has available to them at this time. The primary customer for Dragon 2 is NASA. NASA is not going to risk any astronauts on experimental powered landings without unbelievably thorough testing. SpaceX learned this just by all the safety and qualification needed to use Dragon 2 to just get to the ISS and come back. If SpaceX were going to use D2 for powered landings then the company would have to pay for all the testing themselves. It would probably cost a billion or more to do. So powered landings for D2 is not going to happen. Which then makes Red Dragon not work either. You only want to do Red Dragon if it leads to something much better.
ITS. ITS was incredibly ambitious. ... Another point is that the carbon fiber storage tank failed. So that says the technology isn't quite ready for ITS yet.
Do you have more detail on this? Is this the huge CF tank we've seen pics of?
On edit: I see this was discussed in subsequent posts. Any links to discussion of this? Thanks.
Ah interesting... thanks @Grendal for the pics. Do you know what the speculation is about how far it was from reaching it's design goals during the test?
Falcon Heavy has been postponed so long it seems like it's just not a practical program from the outside. So, I take it SpaceX is going to finally skip Falcon Heavy and go straight to the downsized version 1 of the Interplanetary Transportation System in the name of International Cooperation and "funding", thus making it the new do-nothing NASA? Or, will we have a better outcome than that? Will we Mars or better? FH was supposed to be the first Mars rover sender, but now we can do humans on the original ITS proposal, so they say, which is great, and now that's scratched too, so with this track record, what's really happening? I've given up on waiting for named progress, and noticed SpaceX just works on what they have and keeps improving it.
I'll be interested to see if FH is actually used more than a few times. My suspicion, based on zero facts, is that the mini-BFR (mBFR), using Raptor engines, may well take over not only FH, but also F9 launches!
My justification is that since mBFR is a second clean sheet try at a fully recoverable launcher, including second stage, that it may well net out to be cheaper to launch irrespective of payload than F9 and certainly FH. The presumably significant payload increase over FH is a great benefit as well.
10 days (Sept. 29) to SpaceX Falcon 9 (SES-11) Static Fire...at 39A. Oct. 2 launch, then all hands on deck to prep 39A TEL for Falcon Heavy.
I see that as of Oct 10, the Falcon Heavy demo flight has been delayed from "November" to "Late 2017" according to spaceflight now
Launch Schedule – Spaceflight Now
Kind of a curious choice of changes, if it's delayed from November that only leaves December of course, so why "Late" instead of "December"?