Reusing Boosters: Launch, Land, and Re-Launch

[Grendal]

This is a little off topic for this thread but rather than create a whole new thread for this:

I took a helicopter ride over OCISLY today, and saw equipment I'd never seen before. does anyone know what this is? • r/spacex

That white colored strange looking device is playfully called the "roomba" and is really a first stage securing robot called Optimus Prime. What this device will do is secure a landed booster so that it can travel safely and not topple. It is a robot and works independently. I can't wait to this guy in action. I'd expect it will show up for SES-10 (with a successful landing) and should be a lot of fun to watch do its thing.

 

[hockeythug]

Haha. That thing is massive.

 

[ecarfan]

It is a robot and works independently. I can't wait to this guy in action. I'd expect it will show up for SES-10 (with a successful landing) and should be a lot of fun to watch do its thing.

Since there are multiple video cameras on the ASDS deck I expect SpaceX to release some exciting footage of Optimus Prime in action!

 

[ICUDoc]

Toys. I love them. Is there anything more important than new toys? Can't wait to see it scuttle out and grab the rocket...

 

[Grendal]

This is a repeat of a post on SES-10 but here is where discussion on reuse and the details of reuse should occur.

Congratulations to SpaceX for actually achieving reuse of an orbital booster. And quite possibly the reuse of the expensive fairings.

Here is the post launch and landing of SES-10 press conference with lots of details on reuse now and in the future:

 

[Matias]

Unfortunately the audio is rather poor. Does anyone have better recording?

 

[ecarfan]

The audio is poor but I haven't found an alternative. I just listened to the entire recording that @Grendal linked to. Fascinating. Mostly very good questions from the press.

SpaceX is aiming for about about 20 more F9 launches this year. 6 to 8 will be with "flight proven" boosters.

The first FH launch should be in "late summer" and the two side boosters will be flight proven.

Elon expects that within 2 years the vast majority of F9 missions will be with flight proven boosters.

His goal is for a landed booster to be inspected and made flight worthy within 24 hours (I assume that does not include the time for an ASDS landed booster to return to land). He says he wants to achieve that within 2 years. That is incredibly ambitious. As usual. If that can be achieved consistently within 4 years I will be impressed.

 

[AudubonB]

===> "Flight-Proven" boosters <===

Now, there's a marketing term to beat all others.

To whom are you going to entrust your precious satellite & other space cargo?

Absolutely splendid.

 

[Matias]

On that conference Elon said that boosters are designed to fly 10 flights without any refurbishments and 100 with small refurbishment.

 

[Grendal]

SpaceX is aiming for about about 20 more F9 launches this year. 6 to 8 will be with "flight proven" boosters.

The first FH launch should be in "late summer" and the two side boosters will be flight proven.

Elon expects that within 2 years the vast majority of F9 missions will be with flight proven boosters.

His goal is for a landed booster to be inspected and made flight worthy within 24 hours (I assume that does not include the time for an ASDS landed booster to return to land). He says he wants to achieve that within 2 years. That is incredibly ambitious. As usual. If that can be achieved consistently within 4 years I will be impressed.

I certainly like the idea of a 24 hour turnaround but I'm sure that is just a quality standard that Elon is after. Why would a booster need to be re-flown in 24 hours? Even now SpaceX has 4 to 5 boosters sitting around. The company is perfecting the booster landings to the point that if they achieve what Elon predicts of 20 more launches this year that even with 6 to 8 flight proven boosters used that there will be an additional 12 boosters ready to fly. There is not a chance that one of those landed boosters will be needed in 24 hours. The same is true when SpaceX drops the current line for the Block 5 F9 v2.5. I fully expect that at any given time SpaceX will have a "stable" of a dozen boosters ready to fly.

Of course that does not apply to ITS. I can totally see why Elon is setting the standard with F9 so that standard will be applied to ITS. That system calls for multiple launches in a very short time frame. I believe the colonizing ship will need 5 refueling ships to dock with it before it can make the journey to Mars with its load of colonists and equipment. If turnaround time was one week then that is six weeks before the ship could even begin its journey. That would make it impractical and logistically a nightmare.

You have to love Elon. The man does not know how to think small.

 

[Electroman]

This whole colonizing mars fantasy gets on my nerves.

 

[ecarfan]

I certainly like the idea of a 24 hour turnaround but I'm sure that is just a quality standard that Elon is after. Why would a booster need to be re-flown in 24 hours?

I agree that for the Falcon that goal relates to the time necessary to certify the stage for re-flight, not because there will be a reason to actually re-fly the stage within that timeframe.

That said, the ITS tanker first stage would benefit from being able to re-fly within a very short timeframe because it will be making multiple trips to LEO to refuel the ITS spacecraft before it departs for Mars. The less time the spacecraft spends in LEO the shorter the overall trip time to Mars will be, meaning less food and other supplies will be required for the mission.

 

[ecarfan]

This whole colonizing mars fantasy gets on my nerves.

The purpose of SpaceX is to establish a self-sustaining city on Mars. If you think that is a waste of time and resources, you are welcome to ignore the threads on TMC that discuss it. But making pointless posts about it, posts that merely express your personal annoyance and do not contribute anything productive to the discussion, accomplish nothing.

 

[AudubonB]

Well-crafted, thoughtful, insightful entries, and especially entries that present an opinion alternative to or even contrary to the established line of thought, reason or opinion of any given thread always should be welcome.

One-line entries that present only a contrary opinion, on the other hand, are rightfully regarded as trolling and have a nasty unavoidable side-effect of diminishing the validity of that poster's entries in other threads.

It's not rocket science.

 

[ccutrer]

I certainly like the idea of a 24 hour turnaround but I'm sure that is just a quality standard that Elon is after. Why would a booster need to be re-flown in 24 hours? Even now SpaceX has 4 to 5 boosters sitting around. The company is perfecting the booster landings to the point that if they achieve what Elon predicts of 20 more launches this year that even with 6 to 8 flight proven boosters used that there will be an additional 12 boosters ready to fly. There is not a chance that one of those landed boosters will be needed in 24 hours. The same is true when SpaceX drops the current line for the Block 5 F9 v2.5. I fully expect that at any given time SpaceX will have a "stable" of a dozen boosters ready to fly.

Of course that does not apply to ITS. I can totally see why Elon is setting the standard with F9 so that standard will be applied to ITS. That system calls for multiple launches in a very short time frame. I believe the colonizing ship will need 5 refueling ships to dock with it before it can make the journey to Mars with its load of colonists and equipment. If turnaround time was one week then that is six weeks before the ship could even begin its journey. That would make it impractical and logistically a nightmare.

You have to love Elon. The man does not know how to think small.

I agree. But I also agree with @ecarfan's thinking - just cause you want the inspection to be fast doesn't mean that it's needed fast. A turnaround time of 24 hours also implies there is less than 24 hours worth (multiplied by the number of inspectors!) of labor cost, and that they're not replacing any major components that would take more than 24 hours to install. So basically he's saying "it doesn't take long, and it doesn't cost much before the rocket is ready to refly".

 

[ccutrer]

So, I have a (mostly rhetorical) question. They're getting really good at recovery. They have a lot of launches this year (with the majority being first-flights for the booster). They've already mentioned needing more warehouse space to keep all these things. As time progresses, customers will be more and more comfortable with flight proven boosters. At what point (if ever) do they need to slow down/halt production of new boosters at the factory? Obviously they're building them at a pretty good clip this year, and if reuse really does start outstripping first-flight rockets, they can't keep going at that rate - they'll be building really expensive warehouse ornaments.

And... to get conspiratorial - does this become a negative ULA can use against them politically? "Hey! Look at SpaceX! They're laying people off because they don't build rockets anymore. Booster reuse is actually a net-negative for the economy!" Could it even go so far that when a booster has exceeded its useful life, building a replacement booster actually costs more, because they've lost efficiencies they had from building so many?

 

[hockeythug]

So, I have a (mostly rhetorical) question. They're getting really good at recovery. They have a lot of launches this year (with the majority being first-flights for the booster). They've already mentioned needing more warehouse space to keep all these things. As time progresses, customers will be more and more comfortable with flight proven boosters. At what point (if ever) do they need to slow down/halt production of new boosters at the factory? Obviously they're building them at a pretty good clip this year, and if reuse really does start outstripping first-flight rockets, they can't keep going at that rate - they'll be building really expensive warehouse ornaments.

And... to get conspiratorial - does this become a negative ULA can use against them politically? "Hey! Look at SpaceX! They're laying people off because they don't build rockets anymore. Booster reuse is actually a net-negative for the economy!" Could it even go so far that when a booster has exceeded its useful life, building a replacement booster actually costs more, because they've lost efficiencies they had from building so many?

Shouldn't be a problem with their plans for the satellite internet constellation. Currently they also still have a massive backlog.

 

[GoTslaGo]

So, I have a (mostly rhetorical) question. They're getting really good at recovery. They have a lot of launches this year (with the majority being first-flights for the booster). They've already mentioned needing more warehouse space to keep all these things. As time progresses, customers will be more and more comfortable with flight proven boosters. At what point (if ever) do they need to slow down/halt production of new boosters at the factory? Obviously they're building them at a pretty good clip this year, and if reuse really does start outstripping first-flight rockets, they can't keep going at that rate - they'll be building really expensive warehouse ornaments.

And... to get conspiratorial - does this become a negative ULA can use against them politically? "Hey! Look at SpaceX! They're laying people off because they don't build rockets anymore. Booster reuse is actually a net-negative for the economy!" Could it even go so far that when a booster has exceeded its useful life, building a replacement booster actually costs more, because they've lost efficiencies they had from building so many?

Also if they have so many, they can start strapping them together and sending more things and folks elsewhere (to the moon and beyond!).

 

[AudubonB]

And... to get conspiratorial - does this become a negative ULA can use against them politically? "Hey! Look at SpaceX! They're laying people off because they don't build rockets anymore. Booster reuse is actually a net-negative for the economy!"

As little respect as those who hold the purse strings have demonstrated they deserve, I do think that even they are somewhat cognizant of the inanity & insanity of the Make Jobs By Hole-Digging-Hole-Filling school of economic thoughtlessness.

 

[Grendal]

So, I have a (mostly rhetorical) question. They're getting really good at recovery. They have a lot of launches this year (with the majority being first-flights for the booster). They've already mentioned needing more warehouse space to keep all these things. As time progresses, customers will be more and more comfortable with flight proven boosters. At what point (if ever) do they need to slow down/halt production of new boosters at the factory? Obviously they're building them at a pretty good clip this year, and if reuse really does start outstripping first-flight rockets, they can't keep going at that rate - they'll be building really expensive warehouse ornaments.

And... to get conspiratorial - does this become a negative ULA can use against them politically? "Hey! Look at SpaceX! They're laying people off because they don't build rockets anymore. Booster reuse is actually a net-negative for the economy!" Could it even go so far that when a booster has exceeded its useful life, building a replacement booster actually costs more, because they've lost efficiencies they had from building so many?

I agree with hockeythug's point. SpaceX has a huge backlog that is likely to get much larger very quickly as they perfect reusability. Your question is an important and valid one but it is for a problem that might happen in three or four years. In the meantime SpaceX needs a whole fleet of Block 5 F9s and two or three FHs. By the time they finally get to the point where they don't need to manufacture a new core, second stage, or dragon 2 capsule then the manufacturing crews will probably get a break enough to catch their breath before they begin to manufacture an ITS booster, 2nd stage capsule, or 2nd stage refueling capsule. So if I were on the SpaceX manufacturing team, I don't think I'd be worried for anytime in the next five to ten years.