Other re-usable rocket ideas & technologies

[AudubonB]

I didn't see a similar thread; this news from today could be merged with something else if I'm late to the party.

I see news out of BBC today from Ariane/Airbus, wherein the booster rockets would have the ability to fly themselves back to earth. This differs from the SpaceX model wherein the entire booster assembly is to return. The overall idea, as I understand, is that the most costly parts of the Euro-system become their own flying system.

Certainly a slightly different way to go. Better? More complex? Less likely to fail? Built-in greater redundancy? I don't know.
Link: Airbus unveils 'Adeline' re-usable rocket concept - BBC News

 

[atang]

I didn't see a similar thread; this news from today could be merged with something else if I'm late to the party.

I see news out of BBC today from Ariane/Airbus, wherein the booster rockets would have the ability to fly themselves back to earth. This differs from the SpaceX model wherein the entire booster assembly is to return. The overall idea, as I understand, is that the most costly parts of the Euro-system become their own flying system.

Certainly a slightly different way to go. Better? More complex? Less likely to fail? Built-in greater redundancy? I don't know.
Link: Airbus unveils 'Adeline' re-usable rocket concept - BBC News

Thanks for that article. Seems pretty complex and wish them well however, they said:
"The current design for Ariane 6 is fixed. For its maiden flight in 2020, it will not change," explained Francois Auque, the head of space systems at Airbus Defence and Space.
"But it is absolutely normal that in parallel we begin to think about what will be the evolution of Ariane 6, because if we don't already pave the way for those evolutions we will not be in a position to implement them somewhere between 2025 and 2030."

SpaceX has taken a lot of work from them and will continue to do so imo! If they can't implement till 2025 and 2030 they will go bust.

 

[freds]

SpaceX has taken a lot of work from them and will continue to do so imo! If they can't implement till 2025 and 2030 they will go bust.

Nah they will just get their governments to keep them on life support!!!

 

[atang]

Nah they will just get their governments to keep them on life support!!!

Well that's the deep pockets I failed to hint at. Thanks for pointing out the 800lb elephant/gorilla in the room!

 

[AudubonB]

Not to leave the discussion of the rockets themselves, but along the line of other technologies, has anyone been following and have opinion regarding a looming rival to another facet of SpaceX, which is to say its concept of a multi-satellite based global internet? Greg Wyler and his OneWeb is a project that shares a lot of similarities. Here is a January 2015 article by, as it happens, Ashlee Vance: Global Internet: Greg Wyler May Beat Elon Musk, Google, Facebook - Bloomberg Business

 

[atang]

Not to leave the discussion of the rockets themselves, but along the line of other technologies, has anyone been following and have opinion regarding a looming rival to another facet of SpaceX, which is to say its concept of a multi-satellite based global internet? Greg Wyler and his OneWeb is a project that shares a lot of similarities. Here is a January 2015 article by, as it happens, Ashlee Vance: Global Internet: Greg Wyler May Beat Elon Musk, Google, Facebook - Bloomberg Business

Wow, just wow! Id cross post it but I don't want to get in trouble with the Mods :smile: Seriously, entire TMC needs this information. By the way thanks for posting!

 

[the dude]

this really is amazing stuff from airbus, in ten years time they will compete with a reusable falcon 9 by cutting costs by 30%

of course by then spaceX will be rolling the reusable BFR to the pad, for a while I have thought that the problem with Musk was that he is too open about his future plans, but actually it doesn't seem to matter, his competitors just don't listen

 

[c041v]

Not to leave the discussion of the rockets themselves, but along the line of other technologies, has anyone been following and have opinion regarding a looming rival to another facet of SpaceX, which is to say its concept of a multi-satellite based global internet? Greg Wyler and his OneWeb is a project that shares a lot of similarities. Here is a January 2015 article by, as it happens, Ashlee Vance: Global Internet: Greg Wyler May Beat Elon Musk, Google, Facebook - Bloomberg Business

This is may warrant its own thread - but as you're a mod, the jurisdictional lines are blurry...

Thanks for the link though! Interesting to see the Ashlee Vance connection, and that info graphic about satellite orbit distance taught me a few new things. I was not aware that O3B has been bringing the joy of Netflix to Cruise goers for some time, and as someone spends time in Remote sites, I really like that someone is stepping up in terms of offer high speed service for a reasonable cost.

I also find it funny that Wyler's guesthouse is one of Hobo Elon's crash pads.

 

[jjkroll]

Not to leave the discussion of the rockets themselves, but along the line of other technologies, has anyone been following and have opinion regarding a looming rival to another facet of SpaceX, which is to say its concept of a multi-satellite based global internet? Greg Wyler and his OneWeb is a project that shares a lot of similarities. Here is a January 2015 article by, as it happens, Ashlee Vance: Global Internet: Greg Wyler May Beat Elon Musk, Google, Facebook - Bloomberg Business

My understanding is that last year Musk talked to Wyler at length and was in discussions about working on this together. I believe Wyler was working on this while at Google and decided to leave to do it on his own. I thought Musk disagreed with Wyler on the basic architecture. Wyler wanted dumb repeater satellites in orbit, while Musk wanted a smarter network of satellites that could do most of the long distance routing in orbit in a vacuum, i.e. potentially faster data speeds with less reliance on ground based networks.